That may seem like a silly question. I mean, if you have been alive any length of time, you have certainly been hurt by someone. It may have been a cutting comment, a rude response, a betrayal, and the list goes on. So, the obvious answer to the question is, “Yes, I’ve been hurt.”
Perhaps the more relevant question might be, “When you have been hurt, how do you respond?” If your answer is something like, “Well, I let the person know that I have been hurt by their action and I ask for them to not treat me that way in the future,” I would say “Bravo!”
However, if you are like so many, you may find that when you are hurt that you lash out, call names, demean, or worse. Or, others will bury their hurt and not say anything, at least in the moment. Instead, they will bite their tongue and their hurt turns into anger and resentment and shows up in all kinds of places. For example, a spouse arrives home late for dinner with no phone call or text letting the husband or wife know that they were running late. Rather than address the seeming inconsideration at the time, that hurt may show up later in the evening in a discussion/argument about the upcoming weekend, or nitpicking about what they are going to watch on TV. In other words, the issues they seem to be arguing about are not the issues at all – it is the underlying hurt.
So, I have two tips today: 1) When you experience hurt from your partner, pause and address it in the moment, and 2) If your mate is displaying annoying behavior, attempt to look beyond that and see if it might have its real roots in some type of hurt.