I want to tell you I was hurt. Before I say it, I’m already imagining your response. I would like you to understand, to come closer, maybe to say something that will soothe me. I know what I’m feeling, and I also know what I would like to happen between us as a result of my disclosure. And then I say the words and meet the thing I have no way of determining in advance: what you will do with what I told you.
Brené Brown has devoted much of her work to the relationship between vulnerability, courage, and connection. When I think about vulnerability in relationships, one question occupies me especially: Can I show you a sensitive and real part of me, and stay connected to myself even when your response is different from the one I hoped to receive?
To show you who I am means agreeing that you will also see parts of me I have no way of protecting by controlling your response.
When I am hurt, it is very easy for me to know something about the person in front of me. He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t care. He is pulling away. He should have understood. Precisely in this moment I can check what I know about myself.
There is a difference between saying “You never see me” and saying “I was hurt when you didn’t ask me how my day went.” There is a difference between “You don’t care about me” and “I miss you and it’s hard for me to feel the distance between us.”
In the first sentence I am already holding an interpretation about the person in front of me. In the second I am giving him access to my experience. I am telling about pain, fear, longing, or a need for closeness without determining in the same sentence what he feels, what his intentions were, and what his behavior says about the relationship as a whole.
It is much easier to argue about the person in front of me than to let him see how important he is to me.
Even a sentence spoken from real pain can hold a demand within it. “I’m afraid you’re pulling away from me” tells something about my experience. “You make me feel like I’m not important to you, and I need you to prove to me that it’s not true” connects my feeling, my interpretation of your behavior, and the responsibility I place with you to soothe me.
In both sentences there is pain and there is a desire for connection. The interesting question is what I do with my pain after I have brought it to you.
I can say I was hurt and ask for a hug, I can tell you I’m afraid and ask that we talk, I can say I need closeness and hear that my partner is also in a different place right now.
A clear request makes room for my need, and at the same time leaves in front of me a person with feelings, boundaries, and a pace of his own. This way it is possible to bring emotion into the relationship without the person in front of me having to carry it in my place.
I said “I need you” and he was silent. I said “I was hurt” and he remembered the event differently. I said “I’m afraid of losing you” and he didn’t know right away what to say.
The moment after disclosure can be especially difficult. I have already agreed to show something sensitive, and now I am meeting a response I did not choose.
I may want my partner to come closer, to understand, to apologize, or to change something in his behavior. These desires are important within the relationship; alongside them also exists his experience. He may need time, be hurt by what he heard, understand the event differently, or be searching for his own words.
There it is possible to check what happens to me when the response I hoped for does not arrive.
It is possible to stay with the sentence: “It hurts, and I am staying with myself and with you.”
The same movement is required of me when the person in front of me is the one who is exposed. If my partner says “When you didn’t call I felt like I’m not important to you”, I can be interested in what happened to him. I can see the pain and recognize that my behavior touched him in a sensitive place. Alongside this, I can know that the fact that I didn’t call does not prove that I didn’t care about him.
His feeling is real. His interpretation of my intentions is already another part of the conversation. This distinction allows two experiences to exist in the same room. I can meet a person I love without disappearing into his experience, and bring myself without demanding that he disappear into my experience.
The distinction between emotion, interpretation, and reality becomes especially significant when the emotion is jealousy and the interpretation concerns a partner’s faithfulness. I expanded on the difference between jealousy that can be checked against reality and delusional jealousy in the article Othello syndrome: when does jealousy in relationships lose touch with reality?.
This way the conversation can move from the struggle over one correct version to the possibility of understanding what happened to each of us.
That’s enough in my view. I wouldn’t add a link back to “The courage to dare” from “Othello syndrome.” If Yoast picks up the link, Othello syndrome should drop off the list and we’ll be left with only two orphans: the energy prayer and autotomy.
The ability to be vulnerable is not measured by the quantity of things I share or the depth of secrets I reveal. The choice to open up also includes judgment about the person in front of me, the relationship between us, and the way sensitive things are held within it.
It’s possible to fear exposure even within a relationship that has love and respect. A significant person sees a part of me I’m used to keeping private, and I have no full certainty how he will meet it. That’s part of the risk that comes with closeness.
For someone who already learned in her early relationships that bringing herself might endanger the relationship, exposure can be even more complex. On the movement in which we reduce parts of ourselves in order to preserve a relationship, I wrote in the article Autotomy in relationships: how much of myself do I leave behind in order to preserve the relationship?.
I can also observe what actually happens. If things I share are used again and again to humiliate me, to control me, or to hurt me, there is meaning to my ability to protect myself. It is possible to open up gradually, to see how the person in front of me holds what I brought, and to choose the degree of disclosure that fits this relationship.
Vulnerability and protecting myself can live together.
Talking about feelings is part of intimacy. Another significant part is built when two people bring into the room experiences that do not immediately fit with one another. I was hurt and you didn’t mean to hurt. You feel distant and I need space right now. I am asking for closeness and you are angry. Each of these experiences can be real for the person experiencing it.
Within a relationship we learn to recognize when we have moved from telling about ourselves to telling the other who he is. We learn to ask, to listen to the answer, to bear disagreement, and to return to the conversation even after we have distanced ourselves from it. This way “It hurts” can be an invitation to see me. I bring you something real from me, and you receive the possibility to meet me there.
Choose something that occupies you in the relationship and that you want to bring to your partner. Before you speak with him, stay a moment with yourself.
Notice your breathing, the soles of your feet on the floor, and what arises in the body when you think about the conversation.
Now separate four things.
Now try to tell him a sentence that begins with your experience:
After you have spoken and asked, listen to his response.
Notice what happens in you if he does not answer as you hoped. Perhaps a desire arises to explain again, to convince him that your experience is correct, to make him feel what you are feeling, to give up what you said, or to pull away.
Try to stay another moment with what you know about yourself and with the fact that in front of you is another person who is experiencing the conversation in his way.
It is possible to return to the sentence:
The exercise invites you to check whether it is possible to stay in connection even when the two experiences are not identical, without one of you having to erase himself so that the other will feel understood.
At the beginning of the article I wanted to tell you I was hurt, and I already knew what response I would like to receive.
Now I can distinguish between my desire that you meet me in a certain way and the knowledge that I have no possibility of determining in advance how you will meet me.
I can choose my words, the time when I will speak, and the degree of disclosure that fits me. I can say what I am feeling and ask for what I need. After I do this, I will also meet you.
To show you who I am means bringing into the relationship something real from me without knowing in advance what you will do with what you saw. There, between my desire to be seen and your freedom to be who you are, closeness can be created.
If the subject of vulnerability, courage, and the ability to be seen touches you, I recommend continuing to listen to Brené Brown on her podcast Unlocking Us, where she expands the conversation on vulnerability, relationships, and the human experience.
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