Has Assume Love Helped You?

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If perchance this blog has helped you improve your marriage, would you be willing to share your story with a national women’s magazine reporter? The request appeared in Bill and Steve Harrison’s Reporter Connection this afternoon. Submit your story by Monday, November 12, 2012, at 6 pm eastern.
If you’re not up for appearing in a national magazine, would you consider submitting a comment letting me know how this blog has helped you? Feel free to ask me not to publish it if it’s private. Thanks!

About the author

Patty Newbold

I am a widow who got it right the second time. I have been sharing here since February 14, 2006 what I learned from that experience and from positive psychology, marriage research, and my training as a marriage educator.

4 Comments

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  • Hi !
    I’m engaged to be married in March 2013. And soooo happy !
    I’ve read your blog for some time now.
    I was once committed in a miserable relationship that almost destroyed family ties with my parents, brother and sister.
    Once this bad relationship was finally ended, my relationships with my family were still quite strained, especially with my sister. I was always on a defensive mode, and we had many arguments.
    That’s the trouble with a very loving family, rather fusional, and a bit over-protective of the last child in the family.
    Good and not so good, as it led to a vicious circle that I explain later on.
    Reading the blog, I found that the advices could be applied to many types of loving relationships, not just for marital relationships.
    “Assume love” could be for a husband, but also for a sister… who simply did not know how to overcome the fear and anxiety she had felt for her kid sister during that bad relationship.
    That “kid” sister, being a responsible grown-up in her thirties, has resented (quite rightly) being treated as such.
    Whether being treated as a kid when you’re over thirty is right or wrong was not the point. And I missed it completely.
    I would get truly angry at my sister (and sometimes my mother, too), for any overprotective comment, completely missing the point (not sensing the anxiety), and overreact. My reaction would thus fuel the insecurity my “big” sister felt for me, reinforcing the strain on our relationship.
    Reading the blog, and just changing my perspective by assuming love from my family, was an eye opener.
    The point wasn’t to “be treated as an adult”. It was to understand the anxiety my family had felt and to reassure them, as I could, as they’ve always loved me, and did not always express that love in the “right way”.
    Once, I’d read my sister’s comment, and it would enrage me, then I’d read it again, with my new point of view, assuming love, then the anger I felt could be diverted, and my response could then be more adequate and reassure her.
    Thus, the vicious circle of anger, anxiety, resentment, overprotectiveness, was broken. And love was reinstated, thus allowing our relationship to begin the healing process, now well under way.
    Reading the blog also helped me open up again and expect love from others. It was hard, as that bad relationship truly made me feel as if I could never be loved. But it paid off, as I’m now engaged with a wonderfully loving and caring man.
    Thank you for this help.
    Best regards,
    Catherine

  • Thank you so much for sharing your story, Catherine. You are so right that we can Assume Love from others who love us, too. Once we see the love behind their annoying acts, we can stop being annoyed AND we can find a better strategy for improving our relationship. You are living proof of this, and I am truly delighted that you are now engaged to a wonderful man and have single-handedly repaired your relationship with your sister and mother.

By Patty Newbold

Patty Newbold

I am a widow who got it right the second time. I have been sharing here since February 14, 2006 what I learned from that experience and from positive psychology, marriage research, and my training as a marriage educator.

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