What we know about emotions cross all cultures is that all humans feel the same basic emotions. These six common cross- continental emotions are:
Anger, sadness, surprise, excitement, disgust, shame, or joy.
One of the assumptions of one of the best forms of couples therapy, called Emotionally Focused Therapy, is that problems improve when we can express our real underlying emotions and feel understood by our partner. When things are not going well, read: you are not feeing safely connected, we often only show our partner surface reactions. While you may be feeling, for example, rejected, you could be reacting outwardly with any of the following behavior; criticizing, blaming, shutting down, withdrawing, lashing out, whining, withholding love, exaggerating, provoking, judging, being sarcastic, etc.
This tends to be counter-productive. Often this behavior exacerbates the problem or further disengages you and your partner from connecting. In therapy, one of the tasks of healing is communicating our true emotions to our partners. When working through a challenge in therapy processing can slow down to include time to express these emotions. Some research shows that in this therapeutic model, even certain older men who may claim to be too manly to express emotions report finding benefit from the model of expressing true feelings.
It can be difficult to share vulnerable information with our partner in times of crisis. Sometimes the challenges being faced have created a difficult dynamic or burnt bridges of openness. One of the things that is true of doing Emotionally Focused Therapy with a therapist is that couples tend to become more brave, open, and ready to work on challenges. As those intimate emotions are shared, couples report a sense of hope and budding of trust that has been previously lacking.
If either you or your partner have a hard time expressing the real emotions when they are needed the most. Consider seeking counseling and work on rebuilding those bridges of communication with a professional bridge builder.
