Help! I’m Sabotaging My Relationship.

Have you recognized yourself really liking the person and yet, something just feels so off? What could be wrong? He/she is everything right!

If you come from a background of toxicity in a relationship, then your perspective of a healthy relationship is unsettling. Here’s what I mean.

You know that every person ought to be in a healthy relationship, right? What does that look like? How does this play out in an every day dating relationship?

Say you come from a background where you were taught that emotions are a sign of weakness so, you decide to push them aside. Nobody likes feeling weak, right? Yet, in situations where something feels wrong, your learned behavior is to get mad and in turn, it just makes the situation worse. Well, that’s is a prime example of two people coming together and not knowing how to have healthy communication in a tense situation. Spread that consistently over the course of time, you may find yourself craving validation. “Oh! Is that what that is,” you may think. Here’s where things will go south: say your partner shares a variation of validation. In reality it could be very diluted and we could call it a “half-apology.” Being that your craving for any amount of validation, what little bit that you do receive could be interpreted as the whole package. You become used to that version of validation.

Let’s fast forward in time. Lets say that a new Mr. Mister or Ms. Thing comes into the picture and they have it together! They listen. They validate. They apologize. This is going to feel very foreign and nobody enjoys uncomfortable situations. So, what’s the solution? It could be a number of things such as:

·       Pulling away from the relationship and asking for space.

·       Blame shifting and accusing your partner as being too soft or a pushover as if their role is supposed to look different.

·       Ending the relationship with a solid, “it’s not you. It’s me.”

This list by no means is all-encompassing. If you do see yourself in any of these scenarios, your next question might be: “What now? How do I not be that way?” I’m glad you asked because here are some practical ways that you can address this.

First, you have to recognize that these are thought patterns. By drawing attention to your perspective allows you to gain awareness of what you truly believe. Remember in our story, when we identified you learned emotions as a form of weakness. Perhaps that is not you. My point is that you may need to identify what you did learn about emotions. Ask yourself this question: if you allow yourself to be vulnerable with people, what will happen?

Here's the skill: examine the evidence. Can you find proof that what you believe about what happens when you are vulnerable is true? Does this happen with all people? If not, your believe is overgeneralized. Simply because one person or a small handful of people in your past have invalidated your emotions or ridiculed you for your vulnerability does not mean that all people will.

Lastly, it is helpful to reframe those thoughts. You can do this by calling it for what it is. Again, you may have been invalidated and accused of a negative label. Call it for what it is. That person or those specific people did that to you and…well, how about you finish that sentence. What is your “and?” Meaning, what else is true about your experience. This exercise allows you to see the full picture and not a small portion of your experience.

Here's a bonus tip. Despite what happened to you, what can you recognize about how you survived? Do you have any lessons that you learned along the way? These are your strengths and your abilities. Hang on to them because they offer you future potential. Like a return on an investment: you don’t gain much when you first sign up but after time passes, somehow your investment multiplies and you yield a greater return. Life lessons tend to have that effect. In the moment, negative emotions seem only to take from you yet, if you have increased tolerance to them, you’ll begin to recognize a strength inside of you that you didn’t realize you had.

Now, happy digging! I mean digging for those pesky thought patterns. Cheers!

Does Relationship Commitment Seem too Far-Fetched for you to Grasp?

com·mit·ment

/kəˈmitm(ə)nt/

The state of being dedicated to a cause or activity.

Relationship commitment is a tall ask. In many cases, it is not easy and can be difficult. In some ways it is even scary. To be dedicated to a cause or an activity requires levels of vulnerability. That’s not all that commitment asks of you. To be committed asks that you be selfless and considerate of others. Need a break yet?

So, you’re ready to take the plunge? Say you really like the person yet, something keeps you from giving your all. Have you asked yourself questions like, “I just need to get over it.” Or, perhaps you told yourself, “I need to stop being this way,” and yet, that seems a lot easier said than done. Well, you’re not alone!

Many of our unwanted behaviors, beliefs, and urges originate with childhood wounding. When a child endures a significant physical or emotional injury that is not followed by needed comfort, reassurance, and support, that child gets stuck in that painful moment. Being stuck in the past means that childhood state of mind can get triggered in adulthood.

Let’s talk about some personalized ways that this may come out. Say you imagine yourself being affectionate toward one another, but you find yourself unable to do what you just thought of. Something is holding you back. Another example is when your partner is vulnerable and expresses deep emotion to you and you don’t seem to have anything to say in return. You might think, “What’s wrong with me?”

Much like what we discussed earlier about childhood wounding, these are the behaviors that now come out in your adulthood. The adult part of you decides to act in ways the childhood part of you could not.

One practical way for you to assess what keeps you from demonstrating the behavior that you do want to display is to ask yourself the following questions:

• When was the very first time that I develop discomfort over [the behavior that you want to display; i.e. showing affection]?

• What does it mean for me when I extend [the behavior that you want to display; i.e. saying terms of endearment]? And why is that a bad thing?

• When you extend [the behavior that you want to display; i.e. showing affection], what does it cost you?

• When is the first time that cost started to demand more than you could handle or wanted to give?

These questions are not exhaustive in helping you build relationship commitment. They will help you get started in giving you direction of some of the personal work that you can do to lower the walls that childhood wounding established.