ur love, and then suddenly you become withholding, judgmental, 
critical, angry, or controlling. 
9. You are attracted to your partner, and then when he or she makes a commitment you lose 
your attraction or you find others more attractive. 
10. You want to have sex with your partner, but when he or she wants it, you don't want it. 
11. You feel good about yourself and your life and then, suddenly, you begin feeling unworthy, 
abandoned, and inadequate. 
12. You have a wonderful day and look forward to seeing your partner, but when you see him 
or her, something that your partner says makes you feel disappointed, depressed, repelled, 
tired, or emotionally distant. 
Maybe you have noticed your partner going through some of these changes as well. Take a 
moment to reread the above list, thinking about how your partner may suddenly lose his or her 
ability to give you the love you deserve. Probably you have experienced his or ber sudden 
shifts at times. It is very common for two people who are 
madly in love one day to hate each other or fight the very next day. 

These sudden shifts are confusing. Yet they are common. If we don't understand why they 
happen we may think we are going crazy, or we may mistakenly conclude that our love has 
died. Fortunately there is an explanation. 


Love brings up our unresolved feelings. One day we are feeling loved, and the next day we are 
suddenly afraid to trust love. The painful memories of being rejected begin to surface when we 
are faced with trusting and accepting our partner's love. 

Whenever we are loving ourselves more or being loved by others, repressed feelings tend to 
come up and temporarily overshadow our loving awareness. They come up to be healed and 
released. We may suddenly become irritable, defensive, critical, resentful, demanding, numb, 
or angry. 

Feelings that we could not express in our past suddenly flood our consciousness when we are 
safe to feel. Love thaws out our repressed feelings, and gradually these unresolved feelings 
begin to surface into our relationship. 

It is as though your unresolved feelings wait until you are feeling loved, and then they come up 
to be healed. We are all walking around with a bundle of unresolved feelings, the wounds from 
our past, that he dormant within us until the time comes when we feel loved. Then, when we 
feel safe to be ourselves, our hurt feelings come up. 

If we can successfully deal with those feelings, then we feel much better and enliven more of 
our creative, loving potential. If, however, we get into a fight and blame our partner instead of 
healing our past, we just get upset and then suppress the feelings again. 

Now Rep ressed Feelings (me Up 

The problem is that repressed feelings don't come up saying "FL, I am your unresolved feelings 
from the past." If your feelings of abandonment or rejection from childhood start coming up, 
then you will feel you are being abandoned or rejected by your partner. The pain 

of the past is projected onto the present. Things that normally would not be a big deal hurt a 
lot. 

For years we have suppressed our painful feelings. Then one day we fall in love, and love 
makes us feel safe enough to open up and become aware of our feelings. Love opens us up and 
we start to feel our pain. 

Why Coupies May Fight During Good rimes 

Our past feelings suddenly come up not just when we fall in love but at other times when we 
are feeling really good, happy, or loving. At these positive times, couples may unexplainably 
fight when it seems as though they should be happy. 

For example, couples may fight when they move into a new home, redecorate, attend a 
graduation, a religious celebration, or a wedding, receive presents, go on a vacation or car ride, 
finish a project, celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving, decide to change a negative habit, buy a 


new car, make a positive career change, win a lottery, make a lot of money, decide to spend a lot 
of money, or have great love making. 

At all of these special occasions one or both partners may suddenly experience unexplained 
moods and reactions; the upset tends to be either before, during, or right after the occasion. It 
may be very insightful to review the above list of special occasions and reflect or. how your 
parents might have experienced these occasions as well as reflect on how you have experienced 
these occasions in your relationships. 

THE 90/10 PRINCIPLE 

By understanding how past unresolved feelings periodically surface, it is easy to understand 
why we can become so easily hurt by our partners. When we are upset, about 90 percent of the 
upset is related to our past and has nothing to do with what we think is upsetting us. G enerally 
only about 10 percent of our upset is appropriate to the present experience. 

Let's look at an example. If our partner seems a little critical of 
us, it may hurt our feelings a little. But because we are adults we are capable of understanding 
that they don't mean to be critical or maybe we see that they had a bad day. This understanding 
prevents their criticism from being too hurtful. We don't take it personally. 

But on another day their criticism is very painful. On this other day our wounded feelings from 
the past are on their way up. As a result we are more vulnerable to our partner's criticism. It 
hurts a lot because as a child we were criticized severely. Our partner's criticism hurts more 
because it triggers our past hurt as well. 

As a child we were not able to understand that we were innocent and that our parents' 
negativity was their problem. In childhood we take all criticism, rejection, and blame 
personally. 

When these unresolved feelings from childhood are coming up, we easily interpret our 
partner's comments as criticism, rejection, and blame. Having adult discussions at these times 
is hard. Everything is misunderstood. When our partner seems critical, 10 percent of our 
reaction relates to their effect on us and 90 percent relates to our past. 

Imagine someone poking your arm a little or gently bumping into you. It doesn't hurt a lot. 
Now imagine you have an open wound or sore and someone starts poking at it or bumps into 
you. It hurts much more. In the same way, if unresolved feelings are coming up, we will be 
overly sensitive to the normal pokes and bumps of relating. 

In the beginning of a relationship we may not be as sensitive. It takes time for our past feelings 
to come up. But when they do come up, we react differently to our partners. In most 
relationships, 90 percent of what is upsetting to us would not be upsetting if our past 
unresolved feelings were not coming up. 


Now We Con Support Each Other 

When a man's past comes up, he generally heads for his cave. He is overly sensitive at those 
times and needs a lot of acceptance. When a woman's past comes up is when her self-esteem 
crashes. She de 

scends into the well of her feelings and needs tender loving care. 

This insight helps you to control your feelings when they come up. If you are upset with your 
partner, before confronting him or her first write out your feelings on paper. Through the 
process of writing Love Letters your negativity will be automatically released and your past 
hurt will be healed. Love Letters help center you in present time so that you can respond to 
your partner in a more trusting, accepting, understanding, and forgiving way. 

Understanding the 90/10 principle also helps when your partner is reacting strongly to you. 
Knowing that he or she is being influenced by the past can help you to be more understanding 
and supportive. 

Never tell your partner, when it appears as though their "stuff" is coming up, that they are 
overreacting. That just hurts them more. If you poked someone right in the middle of a wound 
you wouldn't tell them they were overreacting. 

Understanding how the feelings of the past come up gives us a greater understanding of why 
our partners react the way they do. It is part of their healing process. Give them some time to 
cool off and become centered again. If it is too difficult to listen to their feelings, encourage 
them to write you a Love Letter before you talk about what was so upsetting. 

A Healing Letter 

Understanding how your past affects your present reactions helps you heal your feelings. If 
your partner has upset you in some way, write them a Love Letter, and while you are writing 
ask yourself how this relates to your past. As you write you may find mem ories coming up 
from your past and discover that you are really upset with your own mother or father. At this 
point continue writing but now address your letter to your parent. Then write a loving 
Response Letter. Share this letter with your partner. 

They will like hearing your letter. It feels great when your partner takes responsibility for the 
90 percent of their hurt that comes from the past. Without this understanding of our past we 
tend to 
blame our partners, or at least they feel blamed. 

If you want your partner to be more sensitive to your feelings, let them experience the painful 
feelings of your past. Then they can understand your sensitivities. Love Letters are an excellent 
opportunity to do this. 


YOU ARE NEVER UPSET FOR THE REASON YOU THINK 

As you practice writing Love Letters and exploring your feelings you will begin to discover that 
generally you are upset for different reasons than you first think. By experiencing and feeling 
the deeper reasons, negativity tends to disappear. just as we su ddenly can be gripped by 
negative emotions we can also suddenly release them. These are a few examples: 

1. One morning Jim woke up feeling annoyed with h's partner. Whatever she did disturbed 
him. As he wrote her a Love Letter he discovered that he