I’ve seen a lot of therapists talk about how important it is to assert ourselves. As a recovering people pleaser, I could not agree more. If we don’t speak up about our needs, feelings, emotions, and boundaries, how will anyone ever know what they are? Self-respect begins at home.
However.
What few of these discussions take into account is the firm distinction between accidental harm caused, and outright abuse. When your partner yells out of frustration, that may be simply “blowing off steam” inappropriately, for example, but if they regularly yell to get you to do what they want you to do, that’s abuse. Similarly, if your partner does not pick up your subtle nonverbal cues in intimate moments, they’re probably just human, but if the “subtle” “nonverbal” cues they’re ignoring are you writhing in pain or cringing in discomfort, there are bigger problems here.
I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t just assert my way out of someone else’s abuse. It doesn’t matter how articulate, kind, savvy, compassionate, or clearheaded I am, if the other person is determined to misunderstand where I’m coming from to protect their own ego, they’re going to do it. There is a very fine line between being the more emotionally skillful or more communicative member of a relationship, vs playing unpaid therapist to someone who is avoiding accountability for the harm they do. The difference is not necessarily about what you are willing to put up with.
We’ve all learned the value of consent in our sexual lives and romantic relationships. I think we’ve learned the lesson of consent a little too well. Can you really consent to someone else’s continued mistreatment of you?
There are millions of reasons why people stay in relationships that are no good for us. We stay for the money. We stay because we are afraid to be alone. We stay because the relationship resembles aspects of the worst parts of how our parents treated each other, or worse, how they treated us. We all learn a myriad of horrible ways to treat ourselves and each other from the first people who try to love us, or abandon us, or abuse us, and we then go on to do the same to other people unless we learn different habits.
Too many of us may think that there is a minimum level of abuse we should be able to withstand. Men believe it is normal to be yelled at or cursed out by a woman who is struggling with her own emotions. Women learn it’s perfectly all right to be regularly intimidated by our male partners’ anger and what he chooses to do with it. Queer people like myself still bring our baggage into our romantic relationships — we’re human, too.
We absorb the pain because we can’t imagine existing in safety.
Meanwhile, those of us who are people pleasers, who are compulsive overachievers, who try to fix everything for everyone else but ourselves? What do we do — we go about trying to fix this, too.
We go to therapy. We beg our partners to come to couples counseling. We read books about “what he is thinking” or “what she is feeling.” We improve our empathy skills. We improve our communication skills. We work hard.
Relationships are supposed to be work, right?
We work at our relationships. They improve. For a time.
Maybe, eventually, we might learn that the problem was never ours to begin with. Any problem in a relationship is shared between two people. The most you can ever do is fix yourself. However, the reality of that is there’s no guarantee the other person will ever change one bit.
Even if they do change, grudgingly, out of guilt or spite or shame, is that really why you want somebody to alter their behavior? I don’t think so.
I think you want a partner who treats you well, all the time. Even when you don’t threaten to leave. Even when you don’t lift five times your own weight in their emotional baggage. I bet you want a partner who treats you well, or at least not badly, no matter how badly they feel inside.
The trick to finding that person is to find someone who has the skills already to communicate to you what they want and need, before it gets to the point where it explodes all over you. That means finding someone who either has those skills already, or recognizes the lack and is willing to work on it alongside you. Someone who is taking steps to manage the parts of themselves that are not healthy is always going to be an improvement over someone who needs those parts pointed out to them, and who responds to that gesture by trying to dodge accountability.
None of us are perfect. All of us are works in progress. You still get to find yourself someone who is progressing in the same direction as you are.
You still get to find someone who values you enough to do the necessary work to become the partner you deserve.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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