Never make the mistake of attaching your unhappiness to the wrong thing especially in a marriage.
Look at what happens when a person is triggered into their own unhappiness.
So when a person is negatively triggered by their partner they are likely to blame their partner for the feelings they then experience.
The “you made me feel…” is a common sentence.
They are totally unaware their partner is physically not able to make them feel that way.
This is because each person is the creator of all their own life experiences through their senses and so no one can make anyone feel anything.
Being triggered is the extent of another persons ability to influence them.
The person experiencing the emotional pain and discomfort will have a filter of expectations, needs, beliefs, values that all form a pattern of experience.
If those patterns are incorrectly set up, the person will be triggered and then experience the uncomfortable disconnects within their own emotional system, resulting in their own unhappiness.
This is where they wrongly blame others for how they feel.
The fix
What would happen it the filtering process was changed and the person repatterned?
What if when a person is triggered, set out before them was a series of choices of how they could respond to that trigger.
Now the person wouldn’t feel so out of control of their emotions and they certainly wouldn’t blame other people for their feelings as they themselves chose what to do and experience next.
“Am I making myself unhappy”?
What I find for so many people is their distorted thinking is making them unhappy and they have attached that thinking to their partner and their relationship.
Anyone doing this could end up removing the wrong problem from their life and then end up more unhappy as the problems continue into future relationships.
As your unhappiness comes from your own feelings and you are the creator of those feelings what should you change first?
Your outside world or your internal world?
Yes of course change your internal world first.
You may need to change the outside world, but I would not do that first unless you are in certain danger.
By changing your internal world first, it means you can accurately assess the relationship you are in minus the distortions.
This is because whilst a person is in a fear state their emotional filters are driven very differently and can lead a person into decisions they could later regret.
Remember, healthy relationships are about magnifying the emotions we want.
Emotions such as love, passion, fun, adventure humour to name a few. The point of being with another person is that happiness is magnified.
That means each person must bring all that energy to the table.
In an ideal world, we should create an amazing life and vision then find someone that shares that vision and wants to add value to that life with you.
Sadly many people are using the relationship to heal or make them whole in some way and now there is pressure on the relationship.
That process of bringing a needy energy means the person will NOT be focused on contribution and adding value.
They will only be focused only on taking what they can get from the relationship and that only drains it of energy.
If the triggered person is out of control of their own emotional states through poor thinking and sabotaging belief systems any relationship is going to suffer.
Plus that disconnected emotional system will only help that person to be driven by their own fears.
It’s not much of a life when fears are in the driving seat.
Far too many many people are unaware their fears are driving them because they have done it for so long that pattern becomes their home.
Once the fear system is removed the person can see two things.
- How to choose the emotions they want
- How to add significant value to their partner
What this creates is an understanding about how you feel about you when you do this and if you partner is able to be triggered positively.
Ideally, we are looking to end up with natural reciprocity on both sides and a team with a vision.
Harley Street Expert | Founder & High Performance Coach
With two decades of experience helping couples out of crisis, Stephen the founder of The Marriage Breakthrough Program, uses his proven system for rescuing and rebuilding relationships on the edge of divorce. A trusted advisor to CEOs, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders globally, his work blends emotional intelligence with strategic clarity. Known for navigating highly complex relationship challenges, Stephen helps individuals and couples find clarity and direction when everything is at stake.
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