I grew up in a family where emotional intensity was normal — conflict meant arguing, defensiveness was expected, and boundaries were either rigid or nonexistent. I wasn’t taught how to repair, how to stay connected during disagreement, or how to express needs without blame or shame. I learned that you either swallowed your feelings to keep the peace, or you exploded when you couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Naturally, I brought those patterns into my marriage. My husband and I got stuck in repetitive cycles — feeling misunderstood, unheard, and disconnected. We argued about intimacy, money, responsibility, emotional needs — always circling back to the same places. I wanted more closeness, more safety, more tenderness… but I didn’t yet have the relational skills to create that.

 

For a long time, I believed the problem was him — that he wasn’t listening enough, giving enough, showing up the way I needed. Then I realized I wasn’t just observing the pattern — I was participating in it. I was reacting from my conditioning, from old wounds, from learned roles — not from self-awareness or connection.

 

That realization changed everything. Because once I understood how I was showing up, I finally had the

ability to choose something different.

 

As I began confronting these patterns, I stopped asking, “What’s wrong with him?” and started asking, “What’s happening in me?”
That shift changed everything.

Instead of blaming or pursuing, I learned to slow down and look at my own role in the dance — the ways I reacted, protected myself, and tried to control outcomes. I recognized that when I felt hurt or dismissed, I would get triggered and move into pursuit, pressure, intensity, trying to force connection through confrontation. Meanwhile, my husband would retreat, shut down, or avoid — creating the classic pursuer–distancer cycle Terry Real describes.

We didn’t know how to honor each other’s boundaries. We didn’t know how to stay connected in conflict. We didn’t know how to tell the truth without hurting each other — or hear the truth without collapsing or attacking.

 

What I discovered was this:
I couldn’t control his reactions.
I couldn’t force emotional honesty.
I couldn’t make him meet my needs.

 

But I could learn to:

• calm my nervous system

• stay in emotional integrity

• ask directly for what I needed

• tolerate discomfort without retaliation

• express myself without aggression or shutdown

 

That kind of relational self-leadership was new for me. And it changed how I showed up — not just in my marriage, but in every relationship in my life.

Despite my personal growth and our attempts to repair, we ultimately weren’t able to transform the relationship together — and after 33 years of marriage, we chose to end it.