# Emotional Connection



## maplesky (May 14, 2010)

This is about emotional bidding or people's bids for connection with others. 

I'm reading the book The Relationship Cure right now, as I hope to work on healing a lot of relationships in my life and starting off with some strong relationship skills to apply to future relationships. This book really speaks to me as my husband recently told me that I am a selfish person, and that things are all about me. 

This book explains how people make emotional bids towards one another and how we can choose to respond (turning toward, turning against, turning away). I can now look at the years we shared and specific moments and remember how we both turned towards. And I can also see how my husband and I both turned away and turned against. I had a tendency to turn against and when I turned against, he had a tendency to turn away. Sometimes he could turn against, but usually tried to turn toward and pushed down any feelings of turning against so that it would only come out at a breaking point. 

Last year, I did a lot of turning away. Prior to that I did a lot of turning against. I didn't have the skills to turn towards. But the occasional time we both turned towards, the result was beautiful. These are the moments that I cherish fondly. However I do believe I turned against far more than I should have. Eventually, my husband turned away and he couldn't turn towards. I catch times when he is turning against my bids now. So I guess this is where prayer is going to come in as I am serious about making these changes and to take a chance at turning towards one of my bids.

Recently, I believe he felt he made a bid by saying he would be open to talking about our relationship. I didn't know what talking meant, so I tried to clarify how (what medium) he'd prefer to use to communicate. He quickly turned against when I did that. And I realize that even though I thought he unrightly snapped at me, I can see that I should have just said "Yes, I would like that." He also said that he was waiting for me to go first, but I didn't know he wanted that. All of our previous emails he initiated, I'd respond, then I'd wait a week for the next one. So I do believe that perhaps maybe he couldn't see that I was trying to bid towards and yet I was trying to be sensitive to his prior requests for me to only respond to his emails (and not send others during the week).


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## cmf (May 21, 2010)

I think when your Husband sees how you are changing and evolving things will greatly improve.


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## maplesky (May 14, 2010)

cmf said:


> I think when your Husband sees how you are changing and evolving things will greatly improve.


I hope so, cmf! (thanks for saying this) I'm worried that he'll never trust me again, and I don't blame him. This is where the prayer comes in. 

I'm making these changes for me, and reading books like this one is helping all relationships in my life. It's good to be able to look back at patterns and understand how things got to be the way they are and what to do to not make the same mistakes in the future. 

I highly recommend this book to others. I can only read a little each day as I find that the stories and information needs a little time to sink in, but I find that a couple of pages gives me lots to take with me to work each day. I'm applying the strategies there and already seeing some small positive changes. The hard part is in the phone with family, but I will succeed!


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