Cultivate

Too often, we hear "Marriage is hard." But we have to be careful that we don't take the "Marriage is hard" line as a reason to keep accepting behavior that is not acceptable. We have to be careful that we don't mislabel abuse as "hard."

"Marriage is hard" should not be used to excuse, minimize, ignore, or rationalize the following :
Manipulation
Addiction
Infidelity
Rage
Gaslighting
Financial control
Coercive control
Name calling
Emotional neglect
Threats
Withholding of information
Dishonesty
Betrayal

These are tactics of control and abuse. These are not things that make "marriage hard."

If these things are happening in your marriage, it is not because "marriage is hard;" it is because abuse is present in your marriage.

If this resonates with you, the best thing you can do is start individual counseling to receive the support you deeply deserve.

Vulnerability and authenticity are valuable parts of forming genuine connection. AND vulnerability and authenticity can also be misused. When that happens, they become forms of boundaryless behavior.

Boundaryless behavior is when we 1.) do not respect other people's personal boundaries and 2.) do not engage in self awareness and other awareness and appropriately contain ourselves so that we don't spill over into others.

What are examples of this kind of boundaryless behavior?

Oversharing
Expecting others to share information with you when they do not want to/don't feel comfortable doing so
Asking questions that you have not "earned the right" to hear the answers
Overfunctioning
Using your children as confidants, sounding boards
Sharing things with your children that they are not old enough to understand
Emotional entitlement (spewing your emotions rather than appropriately sharing them)

We share in relationships that can bear the weight of the share. When we do not practice that principle, we can unknowingly engage in boundaryless behavior and that actually damages the strength of the connection.

Empathy is often be misunderstood, and too often, people think to be empathetic we need to have walked in someone else's shoes or we need to imagine what it is like to walk in someone else's shoes.

That isn't necessarily empathy.

Empathy is understanding the other person experience of walking in those shoes. Empathy is about the other person- their feelings, their experience.

Being empathetic does not mean we imagine what it would be like if what was happening to the other person happened to us. We do not need to insert ourselves into their story like that. That is not how we connect. When we do that, we are making the situation about ourselves- imagining what we would do, what it would be like for us, rather than focusing on the other person's experience and trying to understand their feelings.

Empathy does not mean we join our story to theirs. Instead, we want to listen to understand, not necessarily to share or compare. Practicing empathy is not an opportunity to share about yourself. It is an opportunity to listen, understand the other person, and give them the gift of feeling seen and heard.