LOST IN RELATIONSHIP

LOST IN TRANSLATION

 "We teach people how to treat us."

~ Dr Phil McGraw

Most of us have heard this but what does it really mean? 

Here are some questions that may be of help:

Do you often neglect your deepest wishes and desires to accommodate and yield to your partner’s wishes and desires?  

Are you a people-pleaser, and usually worry about what other people think of you?

Are you mostly gauging your partner’s/ friends’ moods in fear of retaliation?

If you have answered yes to any of these, you may have to call yourself  ‘a doormat”!

“I just enjoy peace, and I am a really nice person” you say. 

Yes, you are….. But at what price to yourself, to your growth until there is nothing left of you?  

We are told in Scripture to ‘love our neighbours’ but we are to love them as ourselves! (Mark 12:31)  

We are unique, we have so much potential and we must respect ourselves so that we can be great friends, great companions and great partners to those we love the most.

Here below find the confession of a people-pleaser:

“Recently, I realized a simple truth: Making sure people are pleased is not my job! I’m not in control of their reactions. I can’t sway them one way or the other. If someone doesn’t like the way things are going it’s not my fault–nor should I take it personally, thinking “if I had just done more I could have made them like things.”

THE RESPECT-CONNECTION

I believe our answer lies in what I call “the respect-connection”; if it is present we know it and are at peace. When we cling to a relationship that is failing our first question should be “is there respect here?”

Susan Johnson & Hara Estroff Marano state that the couples they see have taught them that it is almost impossible to be accessible, responsive, emotionally engaged with someone if you are not able to experience and express your own vulnerabilities.

Is our love bond a source of strength or a source of pain?

Wigglesworth & McEvoy believe that there are three primal cries from everyone’s hearts:

Are you there for me?

Do I matter to you?

Will you come when I need you?

(based on Attachment Theory)

When reading this we begin to understand why so many bad decisions are made in relationships especially in those seeking life partners. Who can fulfil that void within us? Do we just give up looking for that special someone and make do with who is available?

I just love Solomon’s wisdom on this: “Don’t lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart.  Earn a reputation of living well in God’s eyes and the eyes of (the) people.” (Proverbs 3:3-4 MSG) 

That is it, isn’t it? We are often so busy holding on to a bad relationship, we have not even realised that Love and Loyalty  have long since flown the coop. It is no longer reciprocated and desperation becomes the order of the day.

Our primal cries will be met through Love and Loyalty in action, a reciprocal Love committed to the other person’s good and a reciprocal Loyalty that brings security of position in the relationship. Strength in the knowledge we are in this together.

Then Life becomes so much more than waiting for the storm to pass...

it is learning to dance in the rain!