here are certain things - natural things - that we feel we should be able to do on our own. Love is one of those. We’ll happily take driving lessons and dancing lessons, but when it comes to being in a relationship we think that it should be natural. We don’t worry about the fact that relationships don’t come with a handbook, because we believe that being in love will see us through. But love is not enough. Even in love we lose our way sometimes, falling into criticism, anger and pain. It is only when we can see why we do this that we are able to break free and fall back in love again.

We shouldn’t feel ashamed when we lash out in anger, or cut someone with criticism, we are all doing the best we can. Each of us lives with the hurts we picked up in childhood and the day-to-day knocks we experience now. We do our best to be kind to those around us.

Yet so many of these painful moments are preventable. If only we can see the unconscious processes that create them. Each person has a unique blueprint of pain that lingers under the surface, and each will react differently. For example, one might cry instead of fight, and the other might fight instead of cry. And sometimes when one partner cries, it can trigger anger in the other. Of course the person in tears then feels rejected, judged and isolated. They assume, quite understandably, that this anger is the attack it seems to be.