My hope is you and your spouse can use story work to improve your understanding of each other. But for this to happen, you have to create the right space.
The value of story work is sharing a painful story with an empathetic listener. Without empathy, this exercise could do far more harm than good. You should be curious about the story, but empathy must temper that.
Odds are you will already know the facts of the story your spouse shares. But do you know the impact the story had on them, and continues to have on them?
Lori and I have heard very similar stories from different people, and their reactions can be all over the place. One saw it as a speed bump, a second a problem, and for a third it was a train wreck. A number of factors determine how things hit us. One of those is whether we were able to share the story with an empathetic listener when it happened. Without that, bad events can result in significant trauma.
The fact that what happened to your spouse would have had little impact on you doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them being hurt far more. Understanding their pain could be a long process, but you must be able to accept and validate it from the start.
Listen to the story. Offer sympathy for the hurt. Then ask questions. Your job is not to change how your spouse feels about the story, or to solve it. Helping them more fully engage the story will help them heal and grow. It will also help you better understand who you married.
~ This is Paul, reminding that empathy is a vital marriage skill
So the hoop house survived another winter intact.
Frost heave had moved the cinder block foundation enough I had to make adjustments to get the door open, but it’s ready to go now.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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