How to Know If You’re Healing or Just Accommodating Your Wounds
1. How to Tell If You’ve Healed Your Wounds
The distinction between healing wounds and accommodating them lies in how your wounds influence your behavior and relationships:
Healing: You can sit with your pain, validate it, and seek support when needed. Your triggers occur less often and do not significantly harm your life or relationships.
Accommodating: You might avoid triggers, walk on eggshells, or adapt your life to avoid discomfort. The pain remains unresolved and continues to impact your behavior negatively.
If your wounds are still causing you to hurt yourself or your relationships, they likely need more attention and healing.
2. How to Encourage an Avoidant Partner to Work on the Relationship
Getting an avoidant partner to engage in relationship work can be challenging. The key is to validate their resistance:
Acknowledge their fears: They may have valid reasons for resisting, even if those reasons aren’t entirely rational.
Create safety: When people feel heard and validated, they are more likely to be flexible and open to growth.
Add validation into the relationship: This is part of the work and lays a foundation for deeper healing conversations.
3. Moving Past Flirty Texts in Your Relationship
If your spouse has sent flirty texts to someone else, here’s how to move forward:
The behavior must stop: This is non-negotiable for healing to begin.
Engage in healing conversations: These conversations should involve acknowledgment of hurt, understanding why it happened, and building safety moving forward.
Address the deeper issues: Look at the underlying dynamics in the relationship that led to this behavior. This could involve insecure attachment, emotional disconnection, or unmet needs.
4. Are Ultimatums Ever a Good Idea?
Ultimatums can be healthy if used appropriately:
When Ultimatums Are Healthy: When they are about setting healthy boundaries and communicating your limits clearly.
When Ultimatums Are Unhealthy: When used as a control tactic, a way to manipulate, or if they involve inappropriate demands.
Example of a Healthy Ultimatum:
"I need emotional safety in our relationship. If we can’t work through this together, I won’t be able to stay."
5. Is It Time to Leave the Relationship?
If a behavior persists for years and impacts your emotional safety, it may be time to re-evaluate:
Have you given it enough time?
Have you done your own work to address the issue?
Is the behavior a part of a negative communication cycle?
If you’ve done all you can and still don’t feel safe, it might be time to consider what kind of future you want.
6. How to Bring Up Attachment and Growth to an Avoidant Partner
When discussing attachment and growth, approach the topic with a balance of emotional safety and assertiveness:
What to Say: "To feel safe and close in a relationship, I need to know we're both willing to learn and grow. That's not something I can compromise on."
Address the Trigger: If this triggers them, be curious. What’s causing the reaction? Is it fear from past relationships or childhood experiences?
If your partner is willing to explore their triggers, there’s potential for growth. If not, it may signal bigger challenges ahead.
Related Resources for Healing and Growth
Attachment 101 Course: Understand your attachment style and how it influences your relationships.
Understanding Shame Workshop: Dive deeper into how shame impacts your emotional responses and relationships.
The Secure Love Podcast: Listen to real-time couples therapy sessions and learn how to navigate attachment issues.
Individual and Couples Coaching Sessions: Get personalized support to heal wounds and build healthier relationship patterns.
Julie's Group: Join bi-weekly discussions focused on relationship health and emotional safety.
“Healing means sitting with your pain and supporting yourself—accommodating means avoiding the pain altogether.”
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Understanding whether you are truly healing your wounds or merely accommodating them can be challenging. Healing involves sitting with your pain and supporting yourself, while accommodating often means avoiding the pain altogether.