Cold Feet

Currently it’s 39 degrees outside. I have the space heater on in my office to supplement the main heater in the building in the hopes that my feet will eventually warm up. However, being cold is uncomfortable and tends to make me feel the need to rush. I find that when I am cold I am both sleepy and too uncomfortable to consider sitting still. I have to find a way to get warm. This has, at times, meant telling my husband, who is trying to tell me something, that I will see him at some designated indoor place as soon as we can get there. Or, hopping up and down to try to keep warm while my husband is trying to talk to me. When I’m in this mode, I cannot comprehend what he is saying. It’s not that I become stupid or that I am trying to ignore him, I’m just too cold to focus on anything beyond getting warm.

When I stopped to think about the implications of my cold feet on my marital communications I couldn’t help but giggle a little bit. There are so many physical things that get in the way of our emotional well being in marriage. It’s winter time. It seems that everyone has a cold, is getting over a cold, or is taking vitamin C supplements to avoid the cold going around at work. Colds clog up our ears and sinuses, making it hard to hear, and hard to breathe. Sore throats make talking hard. Fevers make being civil difficult. Even when we’re not sick, though, there are lots of little things that get in our way when we are trying to be good spouses (or good spice?).

An argument at work or a frustrating encounter at the grocery store can block our empathy when we get home, causing us to feel justified in being snippy with our significant other. Unfortunately, when we bring that home, then our partner is less inclined to be particularly kind and generous with their emotions. And why should they be? It’s not safe to talk to someone who is being snippy and unkind for unestablished reasons that have nothing to do with us.

The purpose of a relationship is connection. At it’s core, a relationship is a connection, and hopefully a safe one. It’s hard to stay connected when we are feeling combative. However, there are things that we can do to reconnect. A recent New York Times article by Mandy Len Catron explores what it takes to fall in love, and I’d like to maintain that some of that might be really helpful for staying in love.

Take a few deep breaths, and ask your partner for advice, or an intimate question about them. Tell them something that you think about often but don’t talk about often. If you’ve had one of these cold feet kind of days, perhaps reconnecting and falling back in love, with an apology for earlier poor behavior, is precisely what both parties need.

This week, I encourage you to have your eyes open about your contributions to your relationship and what you can do to make it better. Share the idea with your partner. Make it an experiment in self responsibility. Make it an experiment in romance. And most of all, make it fun. Be open to being surprised by both yourself and your significant other. After all, sometimes being wrong is really quite entertaining.

Nyssa Hoerner is an LMFT-Associate, supervised by Bill Woodburn, LPC, LMFT, MEd, and is currently accepting new clients. Sign up for her newsletter by visiting her website at www.nyssahoernercounseling.com. To learn more about the upcoming couples group that she is co-leading please follow this link and follow the group on twitter @CouplesBootcamp.

Photo credit: F is for Feet and Freezing by Stuart Pilbrow, https://www.flickr.com/photos/stuartpilbrow/