One of the best feelings is when you have put yourself out there, resume dating, and meet someone you enjoy spending time with.
It is exciting to find a connection and explore the possibility of a relationship. It is even better when things turn into an exclusive partnership.
There is a flip side to this dynamic.
We can be overly strategic in our approach to new relationships and create problems that don’t exist.
It feels like you are trying to be cautious and take the safe route, so when you attempt to prevent roadblocks you’ve seen in the past, it feels like you are doing the right thing.
While that can be true in moderation, you can go overboard, and something once healthy has turned into a bad situation.
You have unknowingly sabotaged the relationship consciously or subconsciously.
When we think of self-sabotage, we think of the things we are aware of doing: substance abuse, procrastination, etc.
We don’t realize there is another set of behaviors we might not be aware of and introduce, equally damaging our relationships.
We use our past to dictate a new direction so we can avoid mistakes in the future.
Sometimes, avoiding mistakes from the past is the exact thing that creates failure in the future.
Let’s create a healthy system moving forward.
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The blame game
Do you know something that most people find difficult? Forgiveness.
We find it hard to forgive other people, but another layer on top of that is the forgiveness we can’t show ourselves.
It is hard for humans to find a reason for a problem without attributing a name to the source.
It has to be someone’s fault.
The self-sabotage in the inability to forgive is that it carries on to our next relationship.
- If we haven’t forgiven an ex for an issue they caused in our past relationship, then the next person has to come along and fix it by being twice the improvement of the previous person.
- If we haven’t forgiven ourselves, it displays itself in constant doubt, fear, and an inability to connect because we are in “defective” mode.
It sounds cliche, but you cannot move forward unless you close the gap on forgiveness.
I have an ex who did things to me that I would only open up and release to my closest friends.
It was embarrassing.
Somehow, it makes you foolish to be the victim of someone else’s actions.
If you were the one who made mistakes that ended the relationship, that was who you were in the moment. When you self-improve, you ditch your old shell and grow into your new one.
You don’t have to blame yourself and feel weakened by mistakes from the past.
Use it as empowerment and note that you are more understanding, wise, and knowledgeable because of your previous experiences, not broken by them.
Cut the hedges
The first thing we try to do when we begin a new relationship is to become hyper-aware of ways to pave a healthy path forward.
We fixate on the things that went wrong in previous relationships and do our best to prevent them from happening again.
Again, this is healthy in moderation, as I stated at the beginning of the article.
There is a way to go into overkill, however.
For example, in your last relationship, you remember that you were overwhelmed with anxiety at times, and in turn, you would feel needy, asking your partner to help soothe your mind.
So, you hedge.
You move into your next relationship, focusing on keeping your thoughts to yourself and only breaking the glass in case of emergency.
You will feel like you don’t have a voice in the end, and now the thoughts you don’t release are cycling through your head.
Inevitably, an outburst of emotion will happen.
The healthy approach is to recognize the deficiencies from your last relationship but create action items that align with good communication, connection, and conflict resolution.
More often than not, the systems we don’t have in place are more destructive than the core of the problems.
Instead of hedging, focus on a path of action items you can discuss with your prospective partner early on.
Know your worth
There is no alternate meaning to the title of this bullet.
Your past experiences can empower you or be the inhabitor to your ultimate growth.
Unfortunately, it’s the latter for most people, and I see them self-destruct because of past experiences.
I am not naive. I have been in your shoes.
There’s a value that we attribute to ourselves and simultaneously strip away as a result of our relationships.
Your value is equal to your perception. No one can determine what that is but you.
Eliminate the self-worth that you think is purely a result of your past.
You are capable of moving forward and starting fresh. The problem is that you try to strip yourself of the bad experiences.
You can start a new beginning, and those negative experiences can be the lessons that propel you to success in the future.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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