Relationship Mistakes
“What about your mistakes in this relationship?!” I was asked by an ex of mine.
I made many mistakes in relationships.
My mistakes in that, and other, relationships (including family-of-origin) were the following:
Moving forward, investing in and continuing the relationship despite numerous red flags and deal-breakers
Being fixated on the potential of the person and the relationship; and my empathy for, and my relating to, the person’s deeply-hidden loneliness and pain
Placing the person and relationship above my Faith; i.e. idolizing the person
Being trauma-bonded and attached to the person
who didn’t genuinely and authentically love me
who lacked in empathy, remorse, transparency, honesty, emotional-maturity, and desire for personal-growth
resulting in my experiencing constant rejection and abandonment by someone who I loved; read: absolute emotional torture
Believing that the emotional-torture (caused by constant rejection and abandonment) would end if I just stuck with the person and the relationship, and especially that my being in the relationship was the only way to end the torture
the emotional torture continued even when I was not around the person and/or ended the relationship—which, many times, would drive me to go back yet again for another try
Trying to make myself small and non-threatening to the person’s ego in attempt to get the emotional torture to stop
Believing the person would change
i.e. would put a stop the red flags and deal-breakers
Believing the person was in agreement with me, carried my same value system, as to what was appropriate and inappropriate, right and wrong, moral and immoral
Trying to force myself to be tolerant of red flags and deal-breakers
Thinking something was wrong with me for not being able to effectively tolerate and essentially “rise above” the red flags and deal-breakers
Being in denial about who the person really was and what the person really wanted
despite who and what the person claimed to be and claimed to want
despite any nice gestures, experiences and words the person offered me and my life
despite the title of our relationship
Overexplaining and justifying my concerns, thoughts, feelings, perspectives, beliefs, experiences, etc.—instead of simply accepting we weren’t on the same page, didn’t have the same values, and were a mismatch
Trying to teach the person how to stop the red flags and deal-breakers
Trying to teach the person why the red flags and deal-breakers were inappropriate, disrespectful, immoral, and/or unethical
Dissociating from concerning, disturbing and psychopathic comments, threats and behaviors
Choosing to endure the toxic relationship rather than accepting that I’m truly alone
as such, not wanting to fully face and accept my life-long deep, painful loneliness, without any genuine allies and connection
Believing and being terrified that I couldn’t handle doing life alone
Believing and being terrified that even worse circumstances awaited me should I leave the relationship
Staying in the relationships too long
Reacting poorly to the red flags and deal-breakers
I affiliate my poor reactions with
my desperation to make the relationship better in order to end my lifelong fears of doing life alone and deep, painful loneliness
not wanting to admit what was so obvious—that I was barking up the wrong tree and trying to get blood out of a turnip—but yet not wanting to leave
not wanting to leave, yet being miserable with the person
not wanting to give up on who I thought the person was and what the relationship could be because
- I chose and honed in on this person
- I loved and badly wanted to have a fulfilling relationship with the person
I dug myself into a deep hole with each of these dysfunctional relationships. I take responsibility for moving forward, investing and staying when I should not have. In staying, I reacted with desperation, frustration, depression, upset, disappointment, misery and/or anger to the other people’s deal-breaker behaviors and actions. And then those people focused on my reactions rather than what they were doing to provoke the reactions; further, they tried to cause harm to me and to my life beyond what was caused within the context of our individual relationship with each other. What a disgusting mess.
All I would have had to do was get away from such people and have nothing to do with them. And then I wouldn’t have made any of the above mistakes.
However, the torturous trauma bonds and attachments I had with each of these people—plus dealing with my painful loneliness in life—made it extremely difficult to walk away.
Had I healed my emotional issues and fears earlier, I wouldn’t have been attracted to such people. I would have respected and honored my relationship needs, my deal-breakers, and what I desire to give to the right people.
“Abandon all attempts at sincere communication when communicating with the terminally insincere.”
-Richard Grannon
What a difficult but critical life lesson I learned. It took me decades to learn it too. But at least I am following this rule now:
Do not respond or react to red flags and deal-breakers. Do not get involved. JUST WALK AWAY.
Never again will I repeat these relationship mistakes. I am grateful to not have any of those people in my life anymore. I’m free!
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Joshua 24:15
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