Feeling Guilty Is A Result Of Violating Your Core Values
By Steven Stosny and Patricia Love
Here's the crucial point regarding the most important things about you as a person and as a partner. Every time you violate your core values - even if you're just reacting to your partner - you feel guilty.
For example, if one of your core values is to be a loving partner and you forget your anniversary, you'll feel guilty. Guilt is the direct result of your beliefs and actions being out of alignment with each other. It's your brain's way of warning you to get back in line with your core values.
If you're a woman, guilt stimulates a deeper, unconscious fear of isolation, deprivation, or harm. "If I'm not a loving partner, he won't love me and I will be left alone."
If you're a man, it taps into your deepest sense of failure as a partner and protector.
Whether you're a man or woman, going against your values causes a state of tension in your body and in your psyche. The only way back to a calm and peaceful state is to be true to yourself, which means being true to your deepest values.
Discovering Your Core Values
The best place to start if you want to change old patterns and begin realizing your enormous power to strengthen your relationship is to write out your answer to the following question.
What is the most important thing about you as a person?
There are a lot of important things about you; we want you to write down the most important. You would be a different person without this quality. Note: Some people cite important qualities like honesty or loyalty. These are certainly important qualities but not the most important. Think of how you would like your children to describe you when they are adults. Would you like them to say the following? "We always knew that Mom and Dad were honest; we're not sure that they always loved us, but we know that they were always honest." Or would you rather they say this? "Mom and Dad were human and made a few mistakes, but I always knew that they loved us."
Next write answers to the following questions:
What is the most important thing about you as a partner?
What is the most important thing about your life in general?
The overwhelming majority of men and women in love relationships write something like the following:
The most important thing about me as a person and partner is my love, protection, and support of my family.
It's not always direct, though, and maybe it wasn't for you. Sometimes we have to "work the whys" to get to the person's most important thing.
For instance, many men will say that their intelligence is the most important thing about them. So we ask, "Why is that important to you?" He'll typically say, "Because I can get a better job." "Why is that important to you?" "It makes me successful." "Why is that important to you?" "Because I can provide for my family better."
Sometimes women will write something like "Knowledge that my family cares about me" as the most important thing about them. "Why is that important to you?" we ask. "Because it will be safer to care about them," they usually say. Almost invariably it comes down to caring for the people you love.
Although there is more variation in answers to the third question, on the most important thing about their lives in general, most people write something along the lines of: Making the world a better place, at least in some small way, for someone else family, community, country, humanity, nature, or God.
Here's the crucial point again regarding the most important things about you as a person and as a partner. Every time you violate your core values you feel guilty.
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God bless your family and your marriage.
Jim Stephens