Two Realities, One Relationship

Learning goal: Learn to hold both your pain and their experience as simultaneously true, without one canceling out the other.

Here is where things get complicated. Your pain is real. Their struggle is real. And these two truths can coexist without competing.

You are allowed to be hurt by their absence. They are allowed to be struggling with something they do not fully understand. You are allowed to want your relationship back. They are allowed to be caught in a pattern they cannot easily break. Both things are true. Neither cancels the other out.

This is one of the hardest things about loving someone whose screen use has become a problem. The temptation is to pick a side. Either you are the victim and they are the villain, or they are the sick one and you should just be more understanding. But real relationships are not that simple. Real compassion — the kind that actually helps — holds both realities at once.

In the field of Motivational Interviewing, which we will explore much more in the next course, there is a concept called "developing discrepancy." It means helping someone see the gap between where they are and where they want to be. But that only works if they feel understood first, not attacked. And it only works if you are also honest about your own experience.

You do not have to choose between their pain and yours. You can say, "I love you, I see you are struggling, and I am also hurting." That is not a contradiction. That is the truth.

Exercise: Practice this sentence, out loud or in writing: "I believe you are struggling. I also need you to know that I am struggling too." You do not have to say it to them yet. Just let yourself feel what it is like to hold both truths.

Key takeaway: Both your pain and their struggle are real. Holding both truths at once is the foundation for everything that comes next.

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