I just had an epiphany

Duv had left me a voice mail, asking that I go out to theraphycounseling.com and ask if it is ok for me to forego my boyfriend’s feelings and give my opinion all of the time?  Whatever answer they give would dictate how we handled these situations in the future.  As I was listening to the message, something occurred to me.  Duv thinks that whenever I spout my opinions, good or bad, about something, I’m thinking something like ‘I know that this will not be taken in the right way, or it might hurt his feelings because I am not on board with what he is saying, but I am going to say it anyway.’  I realized that’s it’s not that at all.  Just about every single time, I don’t have those thoughts at all.  What I mean is, it never occurs to me to stop and think if what I am about to say is going to hurt someone’s feelings.  I don’t have that wall within me that says ‘stop and check what you are wanting to say before you actually say it’, like the verbal equivalent of a mirror.  I also think that when it seems that I am showing that kind of concern around people that I don’t know all that well, I am not watching out for their feelings, because I don’t have those thoughts even then.  My only concern is whether what I am about to say will make me look stupid, or if what I will say will make that person think badly of me.  In other words, during those situations, I am only thinking about myself, not about them.  And when it comes to those people that are closer, like my boyfriend, or my ex-husband, I feel safer, so I am not worried as much about being made to feel stupid or bad, so that one little barrier is not there to stop me.  So, the real question is how do I develop caring feelings towards those that I am close to, so that I actually take the time to hold my impulses and stop an action, whether it’s saying something that might hurt another’s feelings, or doing something that might hurt that dynamic, such as taking an action that would somehow slight that person (such as spending when I know the other person would be disappointed, etc)?  That’s what I really need to be asking.