Do you share problems with loved ones?

Do you need to share your worries with people close to you? For example, health problems, in relationships with superiors or colleagues, material difficulties that have arisen, a feeling of insufficient success on your own, and others that cause you anxiety or a feeling of depression? Of course, when you tell someone about it, you feel some relief. You temporarily dumped this burden of feelings from yourself, received emotional support and once again made sure that you are loved and understood. But after all, a person close to you still cannot solve your problems for you. Isn’t it selfishness on your part to throw your problem on another for temporary relief, just to relieve your tension? Isn’t that immoral?

Many of us answer yes to this question. And, out of concern for those they love and do not want to hurt, they prefer to keep all problems to themselves.

There is one nuance to this altruistic and even sacrificial position that most of us do not consider. After all, a person close to us is close because we experience mutual empathy and feel and understand each other almost without words. We feel the state of a friend by facial expression, by look, by a random gesture, by intonation of voice — in a word, by everything that our right hemisphere is so receptive to. A friend feels our condition and at the same time understands without any questions that we do not want to share something very important for you with him. He feels our anxiety or sadness, but does not know its cause — the cause cannot be understood without a story. And then, accepting our reluctance to share with him and not understanding its reasons, a person who loves us may not risk asking direct questions. But, not understanding anything and only feeling our pain, he can only worry more about us.

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This is how we create a problem for the one we love, and a more serious problem. Because agonizing doubts can be added to sympathy, misunderstanding and inability to help us. The first and quite predictable reaction is: “Have I offended him/her? Otherwise, where does such secrecy come from?

Meanwhile, if we share our problems with someone who loves us and whom we love, allowing him to express his warmth and desire to help, this brings relief not only to us, but also to him. After all, he does the most important thing for him — he puts his soul into you just when you especially need it. And his sympathy and the emotional resonance that his desire to help finds in us gives him the feeling that he is doing what he must and can, and you love him and believe him. There is something very important to us in sympathy for another, which finds its expression in words and actions. If people are close, the willingness to help is not a duty, but an internal need.

Finally, there is another aspect of this willingness to share your problem with others. This is an open discussion of the essence of the problem in the process of dialogue. When everything is called with complete frankness and without trying to disguise something from the other and from oneself, it suddenly turns out that the situation is not so hopeless. Sometimes this happens even if you are honest with yourself and write down everything that comes to mind. But with others, with close people, it comes easier.