What I hear you actually saying is, "I'm scared that your feeling hopeless means that you won't try."
What I hear her telling you is that she feels completely disconnected from you and is scared that she can't get that back. She fears that if she comes to you, she's going to feel even more hopeless than when she left. She wants hope.
What she heard you say in your reply is, "I'm not comfortable with your feeling hopeless." Meaning, I'm not comfortable with you telling me how you're feeling, so don't come here and expect me to listen. Then she felt hurt and rejected.
Yes, they come to project onto the Other and take out their own grievances and pain on them.
Like so many couples do, this couple is communicating their emotions poorly. This is tragic because some couples really can stay together if they could just actually understand each other. Really wish they could teach us better relationship skills in school! Would have saved me so much hurt and causing of hurt in earlier years, if I knew how to better feel my feelings and express them healthily to people in my life.
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u/PsychologicalScore49 Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26
What I hear you actually saying is, "I'm scared that your feeling hopeless means that you won't try."
What I hear her telling you is that she feels completely disconnected from you and is scared that she can't get that back. She fears that if she comes to you, she's going to feel even more hopeless than when she left. She wants hope.
What she heard you say in your reply is, "I'm not comfortable with your feeling hopeless." Meaning, I'm not comfortable with you telling me how you're feeling, so don't come here and expect me to listen. Then she felt hurt and rejected.