Parenting my inner child

I have been reading articles that suggest that fights in relationships are more reoccurring old fights than spontaneous new ones.

They suggest that we get embroiled in the same fights by falling into old patterns of communicating which inevitably lead us down the familiar road to old arguments.

This explains why we fight and settle only to fight again over the same/similar issue, because at the bottom of the issue is a deeply held belief that "so and so doesn't respect me", or "so and so thinks she is better than me" or "so and so is just selfish".

So our interactions with them flare into fights that justify what we believe to be true about the person, almost like a self fulfilling prophecy- "You see! I always knew she never liked me!"

These fights are triggered by unresolved feelings rather than unresolved issues, and escalate by force of habit as we revert to old patterns behaviour.

Haruna and I have had "new" fights over the same old issues too.

I get annoyed with him when he doesn't call me spontaneously some of the time. Reasons being that I associate the activity to how much he misses me or is thinking about me.

When this occurs, what I am really getting aggravated about is not the small sin of omission to call but the big sin of commission of not caring enough or missing me at all. After all if he crossed my mind in the course of my day I would give him a buzz and because that's the language I speak, it becomes the language with which I have interpreted his actions as well.

So I would begin to act out according to my belief:

"He doesn't miss me or he would have called"

And what do I want?

"Him to miss me."

So what do I do.

"Withdraw, cut off communication, become scarce"

So that what would happen?

"So that he would miss my presence and have to call to find me."

It's amazing how my inner dialogue would kick into gear with varied suggestions of what I would do to achieve my objective. I would hear my thoughts schedule how I wouldn't talk to him for another three days and I would picture how our following conversations would be and how offended I would act and feel. Lol! (I really can't wait to get older and more mature. Oh, the perils of childish ways!)

Sometimes I would address my inner child and say I was only feeling this way at the moment, and I would feel different in a matter of hours and if I then wanted to call or be amicable when he called, I would act based on how I felt then and not premeditate my actions to suit feelings that would have changed.

So I decide that to be scarce is to be missed right? Then what?

Sometimes he would miss the signal and assume I was busy and sometimes he would call and I would be distant and he would leave me alone. 

The theories suggest that to break the pattern, we have to change the behaviour we choose when triggered by the feelings we have not resolved, which is not being missed in this case.

This means that rather than withdraw to achieve being missed I engage and talk to him about how my mind interprets this omission and the feelings it triggers and also deal with it within by parenting that inner child that feels she isn't being missed or is being taken for granted when she isn't called on the premise of a whim.

 "Hush now Behbeh, of course he misses you!"