Helping Others To Face Their Feelings

[Pallero]

This is a question that has been bothering me and I can't figure out what's going on.

So there was this person in my life who used to question my feelings. I would say "I feel x" and sometimes she would believe me but often she would not. She would then give me a logical explanation why my feeling is not what I say it is, or ask me questions like "if you feel x, then why do you do y?" Most of the time I couldn't answer them and she would conclude that I must not really know how I feel.

All I had was the feeling (or feelings) and I couldn't explain why I felt it and how it affected my behavior. Her way of undermining my feelings from a logical basis felt horrible and scarred me emotionally. However, it did force me to grow as a human being. I now can identify my emotions, explain them with little difficulty and I'm becoming better at accepting them for what they are. I have also become quide good at seeing what other people are feeling which helps me understand them.

My dilemma is related to my relationship with my current partner. He is not as good in talking about his feelings as I am. He hasn't had as much practice. Often I can tell what he is feeling even when he cannot. If I ask him how he feels about something, and he can't answer me, I often ask if he's feeling this or this or this, and I can tell by his body language when I'm on the right track. He says I know him better than he knows himself and that I've helped him.

This situation is making me feel uneasy though. My own experience shows that questioning another person's emotions is hurtful to them. If they say they are afraid of x, you should respect that, even when you clearly see that they are actually afraid of y (they just don't know it). I feel like only a trained medical professional such as a psychiatrist should force people to face their real emotions, and the rest of us should respect if people just aren't ready. On the other hand sometimes it might be useful to point them in the right direction. And there is of course always a possibility that I may be wrong. I don't want to go around planting false feelings in people's minds. That's emotional abuse, I think.

I'm torn between being kind and accepting of my partner's feelings, and helping him to deal with them and learn to identify them. I feel like I want to do both but don't know how.

[Nathalie]

@Pallero thank you for your statement..

Up to now, I always considere that a lot of people just don't want to show "you" their feelings maybe because of a lake of faith..

That they eventually don't recognize their feelings them self put the whole issue in another light, so to speak..

So again, thank you for sharing