The previous post suggests that many people are unhappy due to failed relationships. It also hinted that the root-cause of many failing relationships is due to their adolescence being a combination of excessive acceleration early in the period and then a failure to release it and move to adulthood later in the period.
One characteristic of those failing relationships is they repeat in predictable, Groundhog Day cycles: The "Bum Magnet" or the "Serial Failure" at the same stage. The pathological extreme is the enabler who is caught in an abusive relationship.
According to Romi Chaffee, if you are the person who is trapped in one of those cycles, the key is to mentally figure out the first time you experienced it. The fact that you keep living it is evidence that you have unfinished business festering from that relationship.
Then, very meticulously comb through the events that happened BEFORE the fire-ball and mushroom cloud.
Perhaps your partner injured you in some extremely painful way.
Perhaps YOU injured your partner and you rationalized that you HAD to do it.
If you were injured, work at forgiving that first person who hurt you in that way. Attempt to honestly assign accountability to yourself for the words and actions that may have contributed to the other person acting as they did.
If you were the person who inflicted the wound, learn some humility and ask that person for forgiveness (to the extent that it is safe). If you cannot ask that person (perhaps they are dead), then find a proxy and use them. Then atone for your sins to the best of your ability.
Only then will you be able to exorcise the ghosts that keep planting the trip-wire in your relationships.
Sounds a lot like the 12 step program. That's a good thing
ReplyDeleteWilson was a genius and his work is far more accessible than Freud.
DeleteThe "to the extent it is safe" is a straight rip-off from the Big Yellow Book.
Genius and some would say inspired. His directions have changed my life. A satisfied follower since Feb, 1976. 😉
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ReplyDeleteSome people go through life totally ignorant of personal signals given off by others and especially themselves. When they try to deal with other people, it's like watching a bumper pool game in slow motion...and sometimes the observer isn't smart enough to look in the mirror.
Many people just quit on a relationship. It requires work and sacrifice and will not be pleasant 100% of the time. One of my friends whose parents remained married are divorced. 90% of my friends whose parents were divorced are divorced themselves.
ReplyDeleteI am not suggesting staying in a toxic or abusive relationship but some people change partners about as often as they trade in cars.
For some of those people 'toxic' or 'abusive' is actually 'not being a door mat and an echo chamber doing exactly what *I* want at all times'. I do not mean physical abuse or co-dependent ones but the bar seems to be pretty low for some of these females..
DeleteYou have to ask yourself the question "Do I want to be Right or do I want to stay married?"
ERJ, I struggle with introspection, and I consider myself fairly introspective. My impression - and it is only an impression - is "introspection" is not a skill or task taught or valued in the modern day.
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