Do you know how to tell if a dog has been abused before?
One way to find out is to raise your arms. If a dog has been hit before the simple act of raising your arm can be all he needs to believe that he is about to be hit and he’ll react accordingly.
This means that if you’re around a dog that has connected a raised hand with abuse, you could nonchalantly stretch your arms out while you yawn and (unintentionally) cause the dog to cower in fear.
You didn’t want to make the dog cower, but you did. And if you were unaware of the dog’s history you might even be really confused as to why the dog is so scared.
The same thing might be happening in your relationships.
Have you ever been in a fight with a significant other that left you thinking, “What the heck…”? You probably pushed a button.
We develop buttons throughout our entire life. Most buttons connect us to painful or scary memories in our past. Like the dog, we see a raised hand and immediately connect it with the only memory we have of a raised hand: violence and abuse.
Maybe your history includes your parents sitting you down for a “serious talk” when they told you they were getting divorced. If this news devestated you then the words “serious talk” might send you into panic mode because you’re positive it will be bad news. Your button has been pushed.
Maybe you were teased about a speech impediment as a child and when your significant other asks you to repeat yourself you immediately become insecure and brace yourself for the teasing you are sure will insue. Your button has been pushed.
Many of a couple’s worst fights happen because of pushing buttons we don’t even know our partner has. We unintentionally cause pain, fear, or anger with actions that are innocent yet so powerful.
Important conversation to have:
What buttons do you bring to the relationship? What events or words are connected to past hurts for you? What are your spouse’s buttons? How have you inadvertently hurt the person you love by pushing their button?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Great Post!
Doing the work of figuring out your buttons is important stuff. My wife and I just had a spat over the weekend and we realized some interesting things about buttons.
My big one is ‘feeling stupid’ – hers is ‘feeling insignificant/disrespected’…the funny thing is, when my button gets pushed – I say words that disrespect her…and when hers gets pushed…she says words that make me feel stupid.
Amazing how it works. But we figured it out in the process of working through it!
Thanks for the comment, Stu! And thank you so much for the additional insight about how when a button gets pushed we often go straight for the other person’s button. You’re so right, and it’s so important for us to be aware that that’s what we’re doing.