Who Do We Hurt When We Hurt Others?

Often times I joke to clients who are in the middle of divorce proceedings - "you treat your spouse as if they were your greatest enemy in the world. you will do whatever you can to ensure they are not happy. But have you ever considered that the rest of the world probably cares even less about you than your spouse?"

But of course, it never works. We still continue to inflict the most pain on those who, at least at some point in the past, were the closest to us. 

But lets leave aside the past. Even the people who continue to love us, our family, how much pain we inflict on them. Why is it so difficult to make peace with the ones we love, the ones we know love us? 

Part of it is the nature of love, I imagine. We want not just to be loved, but also accepted in so many different ways. So a slight, a word said in anger, a slap cannot be allowed to pass. Or maybe it was the proverbial last straw on the camel's back. 

And yet, who are we hurting? For one, just because we act petulant doesn't mean that the other person is about to apologize (and perhaps that wouldn't be very healthy either). So we just cause hurt both to ourselves and the other person, and then the ego takes over.