I’m chatting with two of my friends. One of them isn’t entirely over their ex and is gravitating toward the same personality. The other friend has moved on from their ex but is still gravitating toward similar personalities.
I plead with them.
“You don’t want to go down the same road,” I say.
“Why not?” they ask.
“Because you just left that heartache,” I say. “Why would you want to revisit it? Don’t you want to learn from the past and avoid difficult personalities in the future?”
They are both unphased.
They’ve decided these are the more exciting people.
The hard to get, hard to get a handle on, exhausting types.
“Look,” I say. “Do you know how to get over going after the wrong guy or girl again? Because that supposed excitement you’re feeling is not as sexy as you think it is once you know where it’s really stemming from.”
“How?” they ask.
“I stayed married for one reason,” I say. “It’s probably the biggest mistake I made because it was the most comprehensive. I refused to see anything but the best in my husband. I made excuses for his difficult and outrageous behavior. I forgave him over and over again. I ignored our marriage counselor when he told me, ‘Your husband keeps showing you who he is only you don’t want to believe him.’”
My friends don’t seem to be digesting my message.
Instead, they are making excuses about the people they now like.
Everything from…
“I don’t want to be the kind of person who doesn’t see the best in people.”
“I like being forgiving.”
“Lots of people can be difficult we are all human.”
“They are really good people they just get stressed and moody.”
“It’s more exciting to have a little ups and downs.”
“Other people are boring the volatility makes them more interesting to me.”
I try one more time.
“If you want to be happy,” I say. “You have to break old patterns and it’s not healthy to make excuses for the repeatedly bad behavior of someone you love. Adults are self-accountable and self-responsible which means they should be identifying their own bad behavior, not allowing others to make excuses for it.”
But I’ve lost the crowd.
My friends still like the thrill of a difficult personality.
I get it.
I used to be that person.
The more of a challenge a man was…the more I was interested in him. Until I grew up and spent more than a decade in the counseling and research of love and relationships.
Hard to get is nothing more than code for an extreme personality of some kind.
Confident and mature people don’t make you work that hard for a relationship.
I decided to take a different approach with my two friends.
“Look, do you know what finally made me realize I was no longer attracted to hard-to-get?” I say. “These are immature, insecure people who play games. There’s nothing sexy or attractive about those two qualities. And once you realize how self-indulgent they are it’s even less attractive.”
“Oh,” they say.
I think I’m making headway.
“Years ago, if you asked me why I stayed married to a man who was making me miserable — I would have told you it’s because I loved my husband,” I say. “I might have even told you he was the love of my life. But that wasn’t it.”
“Really?” they ask.
“Yes,” I say. I stayed married because of a personal mistake I was making. There’s something in me, aka the enabler, that refused to accept and believe who my husband was. The minute I finally identified that and absolutely saw him for who he was…I had no desire to stay any longer.”
My friends are beginning to understand what I am trying to say.
But the thrill of the bad guy and bad girl runs deep within them.
The heart wants what the heart wants.
“Without my excuses, my husband was an immature, insecure man who wasn’t acting like a husband or father should,” I say. “There’s nothing attractive about that.”
I give up on this talk.
Overly caring people will continue to make excuses and see the best in people.
It’s hard to convince people we often gravitate toward the same personality we once left. Unless we do a tremendous amount of self-discovery or have enough fear within us to avoid it.
It’s not black or white.
It’s not absolute but it is a common tendency.
The business side of me tries to meet the emotional side.
If I’d been more pragmatic during the end of my marriage I would’ve left sooner.
If someone had said, “Colleen, this isn’t love. You aren’t staying in an unhealthy and unhappy marriage because you love this man. You’re staying because ‘YOU’ have a tendency to see the best in people and make excuses for them. It’s not love. It’s your predisposition to believe they are someone they aren’t. If you allow yourself to recognize this then you will finally recognize them for who they truly are.”
Of course, someone did say this to me.
My marriage counselor did.
My sister did when she said, “Colleen it’s a wonderful thing that you have always seen the best in people. Most people don’t make it to your age still believing in people like that.”
Did I listen?
No.
I had to learn the hard way. As will my friends but hopefully not before they make a mistake the second time around.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
From The Good Men Project on Medium
 |
 |
 |
 |
***
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—–
Photo credit: Jeremy Wong Weddings on Unsplash
