Tag Archives: Interpersonal relationship

Self-sabotage

Posted on by l0velyjune
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I’ve been hearing a lot of talk of self-sabotage and while this is a a real and true problem that applies to most of us (addiction, by nature, is self-sabotage), I feel as though it is being misused in many ways.

Self-sabotage, according to Psychology Today is, “behavior that results from a misguided attempt to rescue ourselves from our own negative feelings.” In other words, self-sabotage is self-destructive behavior that keeps us from living and growing up to become healthy adults. Addiction is self-sabotage. Addiction is a behavior or defense mechanism that we believe is soothing us and helping us to avert pain and suffering, whereas in reality, it is blocking us from living a healthier, happier life.

But many here are using the term self-sabotage to explain how they are finally finding truly healthy mates, but instead of giving into them and accepting their goodness, they are running away.

This is where I tend to believe the idea of self-sabotage is misused. I believe, as humans, we have a gut instinct about people. We know what we like. And I think that most of us, if given the opportunity, would not turn down a good, healthy relationship. Heck, love addicts will settle for a bad relationship because they want one so badly, so why wouldn’t they adapt to and accept a good relationship?!

I too used to believe I was sabotaging myself by running away from some men. In retrospect, I ran away from those men for a reason: I simply didn’t like them. Whether they were healthy or not, wasn’t the point. The point was, we had no chemistry, no attraction, and little in common. But in my mind, at the time, I thought I was a fool for turning down someone who was seemingly healthy. I must be sabotaging myself, I thought. And yet, what I was really doing, was not recognizing the nature of attraction. You can have two completely normal, healthy, good looking, smart loving, ready individuals and NOTHING will come of them. Why? They’re not attracted to each other. Period.

Because we come from the love addict perspective, it is often skewed. We tend to think in black and white.If someone is healthy and I turn them down, that makes me unhealthy. But that’s entirely NOT true. We cannot blame some of our choices on self-sabotage, but must instead, hold accountable, our ability to recognize someone we like and can ultimately love. We have far more strength in this department than we give ourselves credit for. And if you don’t believe me, here’s a little test: look back at all the men and/or women you’ve dated. How many times can you recall, upon first meeting them, that despite a sense of chemistry and attraction, you detected RED FLAGS? That tells me, that most of us have it in us to sense danger and sense attraction. WHere we go wrong is not in the sensing part, but in the taking action part. We recognize the red flags, but we choose to ignore them.

The same can be said for situations where you meet someone with no red flags but also, little to no chemistry. You sense the no red flags, and you sense the no chemistry, but you ignore the lack of chemistry and date anyway. After getting sexually involved, you wonder why you are not attracted to someone who has no red flags. You blame yourself. You think it’s self-sabotage.

I don’t think it is. I think our instinct for attraction is far more powerful than we give it credit for. And think we can be attracted to good people and bad. It is in the logical choices we make or don’t make (to choose someone good or settle for someone bad) that creates in us the “addict’s brain.”

OUr true self-sabotage comes not from giving up good relationships, but from remaining in bad ones. When we finally have the recognition that we should seek a healthy person, that does not mean that EVERY healthy person will be right for us.

Lastly, I think that many people get involved too quickly after recovery (myself included). When we don’t have a strong sense of self and knowing who we are, we have trouble recognizing someone who might be right for us. So, it makes dating harder. And it makes it seem like we are throwing away something that could be good for us. You don’t know what’s good for you until you really take the time to get know someone. And that takes years.

Eight months into my new relationship with D, I was on the brink of throwing it away. I had a very silly (immature) notion that I should be dating a scraggly, dark-haired, wild musician-type. That’s who I was physically attracted to. And I felt that if I dated D, who was blond, German, all-AMerican, clean-cut family man, I would be giving up that fantasy forever. This made me heartbroken. It hurt to have to say goodbye to a long held fantasy. But I realized that in order to grow up, I had to start valuing other things more than my fantasies and my childish notion of beauty. I had to really THINK about what I had with D and if it was worth throwing away. D was generous, kind, attentive to me, caring, he made me laugh, he was intelligent, he was good looking, we had chemistry, he was mature, and he had no red flags.

Growing up and making the right choices is what life is all about. I had to give up thinking with my EMOTIONS and I had to think with my HEAD. When I did that, everything fell into alignment.

I do believe, as my own personal story shows, that wecansabotage ourselves by giving up something good. But it takes A LONG time to realize you have something good. And it takes a lot more than throwing away healthy to sabotage yourself. To this day, I can still fall into a pattern of being ungrateful for what I have. So, I have to bring myself back, constantly, to a remembrance of my VALUES.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on self-sabotage? Share ‘em!

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Learning to let go

Posted on by l0velyjune
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When I was a kid I had what many kids have– a security blanket. I also sucked my thumb and had a goofy-looking teddy bear I creatively named “Teddy.” And while I was able to get rid of the thumb sucking and the teddybear, I was unable to let go of the blanket. In fact, it followed me well into my married life. I slept with it nightly.  And it served one of the most important roles of any object around the house– it comforted me when I was sad or angry or upset or in pain. I would roll it up in a ball and press my face into it and touch the binding. And lo and behold, it worked. It calmed me down.

Unfortunately, as I got older I learned to cling to more destructive things– smoking cigarettes, food, people, shopping. These things all served the same purpose. To comfort me. Yet there was a paradox. The more I clung to these things to comfort me, the more uncomfortable, out of control and painful my life became.

Relationships are a perfect example. No matter how real and fulfilling the relationship was for a time, if it had come to its end for whatever reason, I needed to respect that end, not try to emotionally (or physically) drag it out, which I was doing. The trouble was, I had made the relationship not only my security blanket but the be all and end all of my existence. It was the entity which validated me, comforted me, defined me, saved me. And while every good relationship can and should be considered a comfort, it should not be considered something that saves, validates, completes or defines us. That’s when we seem to get into trouble. And that’s when we hurt the most if the relationship ends.

HOw so? Well, when we cling to a relationship that is clearly over, we sabotage ourselves. Sure, the relationship may have been beautiful at one point. But when we do not let it go or respect the passing of it, we do great damage to the self and stunt our growth. It’s like mourning the dead for too long, or worse, having a relationship with them. We deny ourselves a true present. And we fail to take care of that deep human need in us to be loved–not by others, but by ourselves.

But in order to let go, we need to know why we are hanging on.

My thoughts on this are simple. We hang on because we don’t believe we have anything else. We don’t believe we can do better, or find someone that will accept us or love us with what we believed was the best love imaginable.  And most importantly, we fail to recognize that we–ourselves alone–were so much more than the relationship and still are. The relationship ended, we did not. Also,  we hang on because we do not (nor possibly ever did) have a clear sense of the actual health of the relationship. Wanting the relationship to work more than wanting to face the truth puts us in a position of denial. But, if we are to be brutally honest with ourselves, the relationship might not have been a healthy one, it may have been broken in spots that could not be fixed. This, in no way, means we have to beat ourselves about how we lived through the relationship. But we do have to be honest and face a truth that we might not want to face, NOW. Facing the truth, and not holding on to a fantasy, helps in the healing process and helps us to move on.

Finally, it happens often with relatively healthy people too, but when it comes to relationships, some people give everything away. They sacrifice their identity and become the other, they give up their hobbies to follow the other’s hobbies, and they lose themselves almost completely to the relationship. When and if the relationship ends, what do they have left of themselves? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this. I proudly called myself a chameleon.  And for what? Looking back, I find it strange that I was so proud of having no identity of my own and could change so easily to fit into the lifestyle of whomever I was dating.

When I was a teenager, I spent a summer working on the boardwalk down the shore. I sold t-shirts for a young, but wise Israeli man named Eyal. I had fallen in love with another of my co-workers, and at the end of the summer, when he went back home, I was devastated. I felt like my whole world blew up in my face and I had nothing. Everything that was important in my life was gone. Eyal and I talked about this one night and he said this: “There is an old, Israeli saying that when you fall in love,  give everything to the other person, but keep three finger for yourself. This way, when you fall,” and he made pretend that he was falling to the ground, ”you have something to catch you so that you can get back up again.   And he held up his hand with three fingers.

Where are your three fingers? Have you given them away in this past relationship? Do you feel like you have nothing to stand on? Guess what, you still have them! Find them and stand up again. When you do, it makes letting go a lot easier.

For a great blog on “letting go” try this one from tiny buddha.

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More on Values…

Posted on by l0velyjune
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When we decide to make an emotional and/or physical commitment to someone, we get all the baggage–good and bad– that comes with that individual. That means that we not only inherit a potential fun, charming or good looking partner, but we also inherit all his or her idiosyncrasies, habits, fears, neurosis, behaviors, skeletons in the closet, past relationships, and even some long-standing childhood insecurities that still might be lingering. We get it all.

So, the object of dating is to determine what you might inherit, before making an actual commitment to someone. Because, let’s be real, once we make a commitment to someone, be it marriage or co-habitation or even a promise to remain together, it’s a very difficult bond to break once you have second thoughts. It’s your job, therefore, to know what you can handle and what you can’t. And this is where I always seemed to mess up. I thought I could handle anything! Oh, how wrong I was.

Here’s an example of what I mean.

Take G, for example, an old PoA of mine with whom I was madly in love. I used to say he “only” has four issues (count ‘em, four!). Who can’t handle four little issues? Trouble was, I seemed to have a very difficult time dealing with these four little issues to the point of near-complete frustration and pain. So, what were his issues (according to me?) Here there are:

  • He smoked pot
  • He was too individualistic (meaning he did not want to move in together)
  • He dressed like a street person (he got away with this one because he was a musician)
  • He didn’t enjoy having sex–like, ever.

When I looked at this list on its own, it was a no-brainer. There was no reason I should stay with this guy. But I didn’t do that. Instead, I focused on his positives and shut my eyes to these other issues. I mean, I didn’t want to complain about four little problems. G was, after all, funny, intelligent, and creative– all things that were very important to me. He treated me fairly well, we never fought, we got along well, he called me on the phone incessantly, we laughed all the time, I was attracted to him, and we were “in love.”

And yet these four issues of his, no matter how much I tried to ignore them, kept rearing their ugly heads. They wouldn’t go away. And I certainly couldn’t change him or inspire him to change (despite trying!) In fact, I ended up saying the old cliched line: “If you really loved me, you’d quit smoking,” or “If you really loved me, you’d move in with me.”

Eventually, as is usually the case, those seemingly inconsequential problems became bigger than his good qualities. These four issues outweighed all G’s positives ten to one. But I still couldn’t figure out why, or why I was staying.

And then, one day, I learned about VALUES, and it hit me. I had none. I thought I could handle anything, but I couldn’t (no one can). I thought I was strong, but it turns out I was dumb. And I thought I was courageous, but really I was weak. I was weak because having a relationship (any relationship) outweighed the idea of living a healthy life or being alone. It became more important than my own well being.

Also, I set little value to my own personal core beliefs. I really could not handle having a close relationship with someone who smoked pot, did drugs or drank heavily (heck , my dad died of a drug overdose). And yet, I would date men that had addictions. I really could not handle the idea that a man wouldn’t want to have sex with me. Hello! I’m sexy. How could I date someone who simply wasted this valuable asset of mine? And yet, I did.

Why did I get into this predicament if I knew I couldn’t handle certain things? Who wants to be neglected? WHo wants to be teased or disrespected? Or treated badly? No one. But when you don’t know your values, you think you have no choice. You think you have to inherit junk.

When you have no values, how do you know what you can and cannot handle? Well, I did some soul searching, and wrote out a iist and soon found out what I could and could not accept in my life.

G’s issues ultimately became the foundation to my personal list of VALUES. And when I began dating after him, I had a road map. I let my values be my guide. I knew what qualities, behaviors, or idiosyncrasies to stay away from and I knew what qualities I liked.

Here’s a list of my most important values:

1. I will not remain in a committed relationship with someone who drinks heavily or does drugs. Absolutely no way.
2. I will not remain in a committed relationship with someone who lies.
3. I will not remain in a committed relationship with someone who cheats.
4. I will not remain in a committed relationship with someone who cannot take care of himself
5. I will not remain in a committed relationship with someone who does not treat my children or his with decency and respect
6. I will not remain in a committed relationship with someone who hurts or abuses me mentally or physically.
7. I will not remain in a committed relationship with someone who does not enjoy physical affection and sex.
8. I will not remain in a committed relationship with someone who doesn’t allow me my space
9. I will not remain in a committed relationship with someone who is an avoidant
10. I will not remain in a committed relationship with someone who is not mutually committed to me.

Most importantly, I knew how to place a boundary around myself when I encountered someone who did not share my same values. This was hard to do. Why? Because it takes a few dates to know if someone shares your values. You start to make an investment and have hope. And oftentimes, after I had started to feel an emotional intensity for someone, I would have to give them up because I learned they did not share my same values.

It was also difficult because I had to give up a lot and change my habits. It meant staying home alone when all my friends were going out to bars to try and pick up guys (I didn’t want to find someone at a bar if one of my most important values was “no alcoholics!”). And it meant I could not have a relationship with just anybody, simply because we “clicked.” I would, after all, be inheriting more than just a “click.” So, I learned to be patient and not invest my heart so quickly. I learned that dating is not about immediate gratification, but rather, deferring gratification, and simply enjoying people by learning about them first, before getting hot and heavy.

And lastly, I learned that absolutely everyone has issues, shortcomings and drawbacks, but that I can handle some of those problems, whereas others I cannot.

D, for example, is sometimes overly sensitive and I have to watch my “tone” around him (no Italian screaming). That’s a problem I can handle. He sometimes forgets to call the repair guy, or put the toilet seat down, but he never forgets my birthday, he never forgets to say I love you, and he never forgets to help me with the dishes every night. D complains sometimes. And yet, he is aware of the bigger picture and quite grateful. He’s sometimes very wasteful when it comes to food, water, electricity or other resources. And he probably fools around on his cell phone more than I’d like. But I can handle ALL of those problems because D shares my core values. He does not drink or do drugs, he’s healthy, not afraid of commitment, very passionate, never neglects me, I love the way he dresses, and so much more.

Do you see how one set of problems can be handled, whereas another set cannot? And we are all different too. Different values will show up on each person’s list.

So, here’s your challenge: What are YOUR values? How does your current or past partner stack up? Are you willing to make changes and place your personal values above all else? What does that mean to you? What would you have to give up to be true to yourself?