Emotions are powerful. If they have only three outlets as mine did, it can cause “emotional constipation.” Emotional constipation is when a person has many more feelings than he or she has the skills to express or identify. This constipation will show itself differently in various people. Some fly into rages, while others pout or stop talking to their spouse for days at a time. Regardless of how this constipation manifests, it never moves a couple toward intimacy.
If you don’t have the ability to identify your own emotions, then how can you share them with your spouse? You can miss the blessing of sharing yourself emotionally with your spouse, not because of spitefulness, but simply because you honestly don’t know how.
This goes back to a skill that was never developed. The good thing about this problem is that the solution is simply a skill issue that can be learned! It took a little time for me to learn my own feelings, but once I did, our miscommunication problem happened much less. I truly can’t remember when we had our last big emotionally constipated disagreement.
Once you complete this skill-building program you will be able to better identify your own feelings and effectively share them with your spouse. You will truly be amazed at how emotionally connected you can become in a very short period of time when you are faithful to do the feelings exercise. You will find that overcoming emotional constipation will dramatically help you to build and maintain connectedness or emotional intimacy.
You can access the feelings exercise through the other section in this app.