Escape From Emotional Hell – End Your Difficult Close Relationships
The idea that our closest relationships must be difficult is a myth.
Life is destined to be difficult; our close relationships are meant to help us get through life. In tough times, we bond more closely – relationships themselves shouldn’t create the tough times.
They are meant to make us feel good despite what is happening in the outside world. In close relationships, it pays to do your best to support the others you associate with, right?
However, not everyone thinks that way.
If you find yourself in a situation where you’re thinking ‘well, I know relationships are meant to be tough, but I didn’t think they had to be. is difficult ‘, and you have been thinking this for some time, it may mean that you are missing a fact that looks you in the face but is too painful to face yet:
- you are not in a relationship worth having.
In fact, you may not have any relationship. The relationships are bi-directional. At least two people see themselves as in ‘a relationship’; contributing and benefiting from that relationship and each cares about the experience that the other is having. The most important factor is the feeling of confidence. By thinking about them well, you have opened your Unconscious Mind to this other person and now they can dive in and affect your feelings directly, so trust is vital.
The main criterion for developing trust in a relationship is that all participants relate. If the relationship is blocked by mistrust, there is no relationship. Do they distrust you?
If the other person or people refuse to relate to you as you wish to be related to you, if they treat you with mistrust, or if you find them untrustworthy, you should acknowledge this and decide accordingly.
Your commitment, your investment of time, love and energy, the hopes and dreams you have for the future of this relationship could be yours and yours alone.
Those negative emotional responses you might be having, the occasional outburst of anger or crying or pain in response to how you are treated or not treated and then you feel guilty or really bad? Those are signs that your Unconscious Mind knows what is happening, but your Conscious refuses to listen to it.
We are surrounded by relationships that work well without so much distress. The people in them have no difficulty making them work. They just work. You can have those kinds of relationships too, but you have to accept that not all of them are right for you; not even, unfortunately, a blood relative.
No, you cannot genetically change your blood relative, but you can change whether you relate physically and emotionally to him or not.
If you are dealing with blood relatives who hold the threat of ‘family excommunication’ over your head while acting abusively towards you, relying on the myth that you have no choice but to put up with it (a myth you can perpetuate yourself and need to change) I suggest you challenge those relationships.
But there is a risk of losing them. I have. Two blood relatives continuously borrowed money from me week after week for seven years.
One paid me by stealing while the other ended the relationship when I explained to him that I did not care as much about lending the money as I did about the lack of warmth and communication in our family: when I was lending money I ‘liked’ it, but if I did not lend money or the money was not wanted. They looked down on me. I wanted us to be a proper family. I was met with a cold, ruthless look and a ‘I never want to see you again’ in response.
I respected that decision.
There are other blood relatives that I have disconnected from for similar reasons, but I haven’t actually disconnected from them as much as I made it clear what kind of relationship I was willing to have or not have and stood firm. I used to be very emotionally ill because I could and didn’t want to make this kind of difficult decision: relationships that don’t serve you and others emotionally involved are a form of self-imposed torture system.
I haven’t come out of these things completely guilt-free, I often got negative emotions along the way. But I have learned that when I feel powerless to make a relationship work it is because the relationship usually does not work.
We do not have the power, the right, or the ability to compel others to please, respect, or value our contribution to their lives. When we feel powerless in a situation like this, it is because we are truly helpless!
The benefit of going through this experience is that as a result, we get better at detecting, participating in, and enjoying empowering relationships and avoiding those potential relationships that would leave us high and dry and possibly emotionally sick again.
Testing your relationships
One way to check whether or not you are in a relationship that is worth having is to ask the other person directly whether or not they believe that the two of you are in a relationship that is worth having; when they ask why you are asking, just tell them you are going. through a testing phase of all your relationships.
How do each of you feel about the relationship? Each of you should be able to explore the ups and downs and the concerns and the history of the relationship without either of you getting too defensive. This is not intended to be a libelous coincidence, it is to explore the wonder of being in a relationship. How does each of you see the development of the relationship?
Talk about the future of the relationship. This may seem strange and scary, but we have to break that other myth: relationships are like magic and if you talk about magic, magic will no longer work.
In each and every relationship I’ve had that has worked (and still works), this kind of discussion was seen as perfectly natural and valid. In those that did not work, and in those that were extremely painful to work, these types of discussions were taboo and were met with aggressive responses.
My personal experience is that making difficult decisions in this area of life is of paramount importance in emotional self-care (not only for you, but also for others involved).
