In Any Relationship, You’re Either Contributing to It or Taking Away From It.
When you take away from it, you are pulling out the main ingredients of what makes a relationship healthy and enjoyable. When you are contributing to it, you are strengthening it you are giving it the life and vibrancy, it needs to stay healthy and last long.
One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that the more you show up as your true self with almost everyone in your life, life becomes a lot easier.
For example, I used to show up as someone different in my romantic relationships. I would be one person to the outside world and be another person in my romantic relationships.
But for the most part, 95% of the time, how you show up in any relationship should mainly be how you show up in almost every relationship because that means you’re not trying hard to please anyone. You’re not trying hard to make them think differently of you.
In my personal romantic relationship with my girlfriend, I am showing up mostly the same way as I do with other people in our lives. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be giving away all my secrets to friends and family, but this is the person who knows everything about me. And I want to be able to feel good and safe, sharing things with her that I wouldn’t share with anybody else.
The more I am myself with romantic relationships, and the more I am myself with friendships and family, the easier life gets. I don’t have to think about who I want to be. I show up as me.
It’s not always easy, though. I don’t always accomplish showing up as my authentic self. But I think it’s a great path to take to make life easier.
In my past, when I got into romantic relationships, I was hurtful to my partners because I didn’t want them to know the real me. I didn’t want them to know my vulnerabilities. I would be passive-aggressive, and emotionally abusive. It was an awful way to treat someone.
I did that for years because I didn’t want to show up as who I really was. But as soon as I started honoring myself, and actually telling people what I wanted and telling people when they crossed the line (boundaries), my relationships became real. I felt better inside because I was standing up for myself. I wanted to show myself that I was important enough to stand up for.
Some people aren’t going to accept that, and that’s fine. I’ve had people come and go in my life because I wanted to be who I am.
You still have to protect yourself from toxic people. If somebody says your feelings don’t matter, that’s all you need to know to know who they are to you. You can ask them what they mean by that comment. You can tell them their words are hurtful.
If they choose to keep that perspective, then you can guess this relationship isn’t going to go anywhere. And I know that can feel terrible after investing so much into it. But there’s a point where you need to move on when someone doesn’t care about your feelings.
When you ask yourself, Was I wrong for feeling that? You’re asking if your emotions are wrong.
Your emotions are real. How you feel inside is real. You can think and feel any way that occurs to you.
If something frustrates you, that’s what you’re feeling! It’s not wrong to feel that way. You’re not wrong to feel frustrated.
If you feel like you’re not being heard or seen, that’s how you feel! If somebody says you’re wrong for feeling those things, that tells you the kind of relationship you’re in.
Your thoughts and feelings are 100% valid because they’re yours. You can think and feel any way that comes to you. If something frustrates you, that’s valid.
In emotionally abusive relationships, when someone tells you that you’re manipulative or a narcissist when you express how you actually feel, that’s a big red flag. The manipulative person, not you, is the one calling you names to shift focus onto you.
Someone blaming you for something they’re likely doing is a pattern I see often. They want to keep control and make you feel powerless.
If there’s one person in a relationship that believes they’re always right, and they make you question yourself, something’s wrong. That’s not a balanced relationship between two or more adults.
In emotional abuse, there’s one person who is in power and control, and the other feels like they can never do anything right.
If you’re being yelled at, belittled, or put down, they are trying to keep dominance over you so you feel powerless. They want you that way so that they can get away with things.
Sometimes, we “let” that happen by submitting to their abusive behaviors. But when we do that, they realize their behavior words, so they repeat it over and over again.
You deserve to be heard, validated, and treated nicely.
Asking someone to treat you with respect is a perfectly normal and healthy request. I wouldn’t suggest that with violent people (You have to pick your battles wisely), but you don’t deserve to be stuck under somebody’s thumb. Life is too short for relationships that are hard and hurtful. You deserve better.
Important: If you believe that you may be doing emotionally abusive behavior and would like to change that about yourself, sign up for the life-changing Healed Being program over at healedbeing.com.
If you are in an emotionally abusive relationship, I created the podcast Love and Abuse to help you navigate through the difficulties.
