Our spouses can trigger our childhood wounds. They can also help heal them.

One’s spouse is the product of two decades of child rearing and family dynamics. Adult reactivity provides clues as to what happened earlier. While one may wish to communicate with one’s spouse in this current moment it’s impossible. The past and present are both at work.

Indeed “Little Leah” is the one who hears “Big Leah’s” husband Yoni ask for a cup of tea. It is “Little Leah” who screams deep inside — Don’t let him push you around! When “Big Leah” snaps back sarcastically “Can’t you find the kitchen?”

“Little Yoni” feels the sting of shame. Under attack yet again he has a tantrum — most unbecoming in a man six feet tall. “Little Yoni” remembers fondly how his mother always brought his father tea. Big Yoni didn’t realize that he can’t ask his wife for the same service. Her rebuke triggers old feelings of being unfairly reprimanded for being “bad.” And so seemingly simple and straightforward marital communications get badly twisted somewhere between the “now” of the moment and the “then” of the past. Both husband and wife are left bruised and confused barely understanding themselves let alone each other.

Old Roots

Does your spouse’s communication seem completely unreasonable? If so it probably stems from his or her childhood.

For instance Leah saw that her father treated her mother as a servant rather than as a beloved partner. She wanted no part of such a relationship for herself. Her husband’s innocent request for tea triggered her childhood vow that she would never participate in such a marriage. Her bitter response makes sense from the point of view of her inner child. She is responding to her father not her husband.

If Yoni had not been triggered himself by Leah’s unreasonable response he could have initiated the healing process immediately. However his inner child was in no shape to help Leah work through her issues. He was too busy licking his own wounds reliving the pain of unjustified parental criticism and blame. The couple will have to wait until they both calm down a process that can take anywhere from minutes to hours to days.

Straightening Out Tangled Communication

Fortunately despite the torrents raging beneath the surface adults will eventually return to emotional stability. Now is the time to sit down together to try to figure out what went wrong. As they do so they will actually be able to heal the wounds of their childhood while simultaneously repairing the injuries to their marriage. An excellent process to employ for this purpose is the healing dialogue constructed by marital therapist Dr. Harville Hendrix.

Either partner may make a statement that sounds like this: “When you do X it reminds me of Y which makes me feel Z. What would really help is if you would do ABC instead.” (If the behavior does not remind the person of anything they just leave that part out.)

Leah could say to her husband “When you ask me to bring you tea it reminds me of the way my father treated my mother which makes me feel like a servant instead of a wife. What would really help is if you would sometimes make yourself tea and offer to bring me some too instead of just expecting that I’ll always be the one to do the serving.”

After Yoni responds (hopefully agreeing to do what his wife asks of him) he can express his own wounds as follows: “When you make insulting sarcastic remarks it reminds me of how my parents used to make me feel awful for doing just regular kid things and it makes me feel really bad. What would really help is if you could try to tell me in a straight way that my request makes you feel uncomfortable instead of speaking sarcastically to me.”

Unique Sensitivities

Each person has his or her own sensitivities stemming from childhood experiences. The Hendrix formula allows a person to name a sensitivity and ask for consideration. Giving that consideration shows love and caring. For instance a person who is “allergic” to being told what to do can ask his or her partner to work with that vulnerability (perhaps by phrasing requests in a more open-ended way). When the partner listens compassionately and tries to help love trust and understanding grows between them. Since it is common for husbands and wives to trigger each other’s deepest wounds each spouse must be willing to both express his or her own pain and respond to the spouse’s pain.

Sometimes couples will be able to do all their healing by themselves while at other times the help of a professional therapist will speed things along or yield more profound results. Marital suffering is an invitation to heal; when couples accept it deeper personal and marital happiness results.