How Can I Trust You Not to Hurt Me, When You Can't Trust You Not to Hurt You?

PAST

I’ve realized in perusing prior blogs that I need to correct one statement:

“To me, love is not only when you can put the welfare of someone else above your own needs—you don’t love someone if you will cause them pain to get your needs met—but also when you just love who they are.”

Well. I don’t need to correct it. I need to amend it.

The reason I need to do that is, Chi would have read that and said, “But I AM putting the welfare of someone else above my own needs! I won’t cause them pain to get my own needs met!” while at the same time sitting there with a wife who’s on Facebook for hours all night and doesn’t even appear to notice he’s in the house. 

So, let’s be a little clearer about that.

It’s important to include yourself among those whose needs count. And it’s important to make your needs AS important as other people’s. NOT, “more important than,” AS important AS. There’s a difference, and it makes a big difference to the quality of your life and to all your relationships.

The codependent says, “I can’t do that, because other people ARE more important than me. I can’t see it any other way because I know that I am not good enough. I am subservient to other people’s needs and wants because I am so unworthy that this is the only way I can make myself attractive enough to other people to even have any other people around me.”

But there’s a problem with that.

And that problem is: If you are doing that, you are hurting yourself.

And this is how it works. You have a lifelong dream, say it’s to write a novel. You’ve had this dream almost twenty years. Yet, you’ve never done it, because your significant other does not support that. When she wants to go do social activities or participate in some club you first met in, you WANT to say no, “I really want to stay home and write.” But that person attacks you in some way. “What do you need to do THAT for?” Or, “But everyone will really miss you. What about X, Y, and Z that we used to do together? I will really miss you.” And you go, Why am I doing this? I am just being selfish. (Especially if
you’ve just had an affair. Now you really feel guilty.) And you put the pleasing of the other person and the fulfillment of their needs above the pleasing of yourself and the fulfillment of your needs. 

And you and she agree that in so doing, you are a good person.

And the problem with that is: You’ve just hurt yourself. 

That lifelong dream meant something to you. It was really, really important. It was fun, it was fascinating, you’ve been collecting research for that project for years. You’re not going to be here forever. When are you going to get to DO it??

If you keep saying yes when you need to say no, the answer is never.

Sometimes it may be that you come upon that carton of your old research on the floor, shoved up into a corner. And when you see it, it hurts. Oh, well. I guess that will never be me. When will I ever get to do that? I guess never. Others want me to do other things instead, and I don’t want to hurt them, so I guess that will be never.

Now, let’s get real, here. Is your relationship getting a bit one-sided? And who really is being hurt the worst? Yep, I did the same thing, but my husband was dying. Dying. This is a little bit different. What the two of you are trying to do is live. Harmoniously.

Think of your relationship like a seesaw. In the perfect marriage the seesaw balances in the middle. My needs; your needs. They balance on the fulcrum. When you give up your lifelong dream so the other person gets to have you around in the way they want you to be, you move a weight from their side of the seesaw and add it to yours. Now the other person feels “up” a bit more in their life, and you feel a bit more “down.” Look at the gift of understanding you’re giving. That person is sad not to have you with them. You feel the empathy with that person’s sadness. But when you ask for some empathy: “But this is my lifelong dream. I’ve been wanting to do this my whole life,” what are you met with? “What do you need to do THAT for?” With the subtext, Don’t you know you are supposed to be just like me? Like what I like, want what I want? Be my absolute companion in absolutely everything? Be me with me, and sometimes even FOR me??

You’re not getting back that empathy you’ve just shown. Another weight moves to your end of the seesaw. Now you’re even lower. That person doesn’t understand me. I guess I’m really not worth caring about. Down goes your end of the seesaw again. 

Would it really kill that person to go to an event by themselves? “My sweetie is home writing their novel, they’ve wanted to do it their whole life and I’m so proud of them. Multitalented, that one I married!” 

What a gift that would be! But they can’t give you that gift, the gift of being yourself. You give them the gift of being themselves, but in this area it isn’t returned. And their end of the seesaw goes even higher, and your end goes even lower.

Now imagine you are doing this EVERY time there is a decision to be made, in EVERY area of your life with this person. What are you going to do for a living? Other person’s favor. Where are you going to live? Other person’s favor again. How is the inside of the home to be kept, and who performs what labor? Other person’s favor AGAIN. Do we have sex or not? When? How? Other person's favor A-G-A-I-N.

YOU call this “being kind.” “I can’t hurt that other person by saying no.” 

But at the same time, your end of the seesaw is going waywaywaywayway down. And you feel bad all the time.

Does the other person care that you feel this bad? You don’t know, because you won’t tell. If the other person really doesn’t care about your feelings, is this a relationship you should be in or stay in? You don’t know, because you won’t tell. 

You aren’t talking up, and in any relationship, talking up is your job and your responsibility, and this seesaw example illustrates the reason why. 

You are hurting yourself. And you can’t trust yourself to speak up for yourself, be the real you, and stop your end of the seesaw from hitting the dirt.

Let me tell you a little secret. When your end of the seesaw is deep in the mud, that’s when you decide to have an affair.

And that really hurts the other person, more than it ever would have hurt if you had spoken up about all those million little decisions all those months and years before. 

Some of those decisions hurt you way more than they would have hurt the other person to let them go your way. They really, really did. And you let it happen. Worse, you lied about who you were and what makes you happy and what doesn’t. That person thinks they know you when really they do not. Now you’re trapped in a lifetime of role-playing.

That really hurts.

And you can’t trust yourself not to hurt yourself. In a new relationship, when all these little moments come up, you’re still doing the same thing. “I must make this new person happy. I must make this new person happy. I’m no good if I don’t.”

And your seesaw is going down again.

Let me tell you that no one who really loves you wants either YOUR end or THEIR end to go down. And if you give a living shit about your relationship, YOU DON’T WANT EITHER END GOING DOWN, EITHER. Because the end of that road is, somebody’s seesaw seat is knee-deep in mud, and that person in distress finds someone else.

If you can’t trust yourself not to let your end of the seesaw go down, they can’t trust you not to have an affair.

Which is why I named this post, “How Can I Trust You Not to Hurt Me, If You Can’t Trust You Not to Hurt You?” 

Let David Flynn tell it, if you don't believe me.

And Jane's side of the story...