Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
That hurt me is easier to hear than that was cruel. The wound, not the charge.
Believers are told to speak in a direct fashion and to good purpose. That hurt me is both, where that was cruel is neither.
الأحزاب
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَقُولُواْ قَوۡلࣰ ا سَدِيدࣰ ا
Believers, be mindful of God, speak in a direct fashion and to good purpose
Qur’an 33:70read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In emotionally focused therapy the same moment can be spoken as a charge or as a wound, and the two land completely differently. That hurt me invites care, while that was cruel invites a defence, so leading with the hurt keeps the conversation open.
Susan M. Johnson (2019). Attachment Theory in Practice: EFT with Individuals, Couples, and Families. Guilford
Accessing underlying emotion, Stage 1 Step 3. Johnson distinguishes the reactive secondary emotion, usually anger or numbness, from the primary attachment emotion beneath it, usually fear or grief, and holds that only the primary emotion pulls a partner closer.
Strength of evidence: seen more than once. Replicated observational or longitudinal work, not tested against a control.
Expressing hurt rather than accusation lowers the other's defences.
Where this sits: EFT, Stage 1 Step 3: sharing the hurt in place of the accusation.