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Relationships
Save Yourself From Unnecessary Heartache!
A pound of prevention may cost way more than an ounce of a cure.
Posted January 6, 2018
“Half the promises people say were never kept, were never made.”
—Edgar Howe
What do the following sentiments have in common? “I thought you were coming over tonight . . . I trusted that we were exclusive . . . I expected you to be supportive about my work. . . I assumed you’d pay me back as soon as you got your paycheck.” Some things the statements have in common are a sense of betrayal, disappointment, blaming the other person for their hurt, and yes, victimhood. Another thing the statements have in common is that the very real suffering was unnecessary. Find out why.
I have worked with so many heartbroken people who found out that their loved one (or hoped-to-be loved one) has deeply disappointed them. Their hurt and anger rippled out through their lives and made them afraid of love and distrustful of possible lovers. “I’m never going to fall in love again!” was the conviction that made them feel protected from further pain.
The following is the story of one woman’s experience and how what she learned changed her love life. She found a way to stay open and still protect herself from unnecessary suffering.
“When I was in my late twenties, in my first relationship after a divorce, I fell wildly in love with my sculpture teacher. I had high hopes of growing artistically and enlarging my body of work and had quit my job as a gallery assistant director. I agreed to live with my love in his downtown warehouse loft. I planned to use part of the big space to fabricate a sculpture “garden” of about twenty, eight-foot-high abstract plants. I wanted to give my garden viewers a dizzy, delighted, sort of Alice-In-Wonderland feeling.
“But after all the changes I had made to be able to do my artwork full-force, I was not actually working at all. And I was depressed, anxious, and confused about my nonproductivity. I was really scared because I had never been unable to produce. I had thought I was Ms. Productivity USA. I knew I needed help. I wanted to find out what was the matter and to get back to my producing self. Since I ever-so-luckily come from a family that considers people who go into therapy as the cream-of-the-crop, I went to a therapist to help me figure out what was wrong.
“My Night of the Necklace opened my eyes. I loved making unusual ornaments to wear to art functions. On The Night we were preparing to attend a museum opening. I sat at my dressing table, admiring my new creation, a flashing silver Mylar necklace. It was bedecked with silver rat skulls and wispy fluttering feathers. I caught my boyfriend’s angry eyes in the mirror. I turned to him to see what the matter was. “Please take off that necklace. I don’t want anything to detract attention away from me.” I was stunned. And I complied—after all, his career was certainly more important than mine. Or so I thought in those olden days.
“Through my therapy, I realized that I had made an assumption that, because he was an artist, and a teacher, and supposedly loved me, my boyfriend would support my artistic ambitions. I had never asked him directly to be encouraging. And I had never clarified for myself what specific behaviors I would find encouraging, so that I could ask him if he would do those behaviors. I never asked him to reflect back to me what he understood about what I was asking for.”
“Now I that was alerted, I began to ask more questions about his desires. Lo and behold, I found out that his vision of a perfect relationship is with someone who wants to cook and have more children with him and never do any art work at all—ever.
“I had learned. Never again would I not ask what kind of relationship another person wanted before I actually entered one. Never again would I not ask for what I wanted. Never again would I not say what was important to me. I left my sculptor boyfriend and the loft. And my depression and unproductiveness left me too. I had learned the painful results of assuming and not making an actual request. I was far from soured on relationships; I was inspired to practice my new learning! On first dates I’d ask something like, “What’s important to you in your relationships?” And my research paid off. I’ve been happily married now for 11 years.”
I love hearing the happy outcomes when people really put into practice the skills they learn. It's a choice: Give up or learn and try again. I vote for trying again. And I'm glad she did too.
