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The Way You Treat Your Partner is the Way You Treat Yourself
When people experience pain in their lives, that pain must be expressed in one way or another. There are two ways that pain is expressed. Either the pain will be inflicted onto others or the pain will be inflicted on oneself.
But let me be clear. No one inflicts pain onto others one hundred percent of the time and no one inflicts pain onto themselves one hundred percent of the time. Like many other things in life, this is on a spectrum.
Some people inflict pain onto others the majority of the time but will still have some darts to throw at themselves every now and then. Others are largely super-critical of themselves or make life needlessly difficult for themselves but they will have some choice words about someone or something they dislike.
In terms of our relationships, the unresolved pain within oneself will be expressed at some point. The only question is, who is going to experience the pain?
The most common example of this is the schoolyard bully. People think that a bully merely emulates what they see at home, but the mechanics are more insidious. Based on what they experience at home, it is the pain that they feel inside that they are compelled to express to their peers.
