After dealing with “Mr. Soul Mate Speech” (the EUP who sparked my “Relationship Aha Moment”), I realized many things about breakups. Our crazy Love Antics had us in a cycle of making up to breakup. During our relationship, we called it quits a whopping eight times. Yes, eight times! Who on God’s green earth breaks up eight times? Two people with unhealthy habits- that’s who! In retrospect, we had eight scary breakup sequels because we weren’t learning our life lessons about love.
We would stress each other out to capacity. It took me a while to wake up and acknowledge that this was happening with “the same person but a different package.”
Our “breakup talks” would often turn into marathon four to five-hour conversations (nuts, I know). I would beg for them to love me back, give me attention, not push me away, make time for the relationship, etc. I would even obsess all day and night about if someone emotionally unavailable misses you when you are gone (they might but in a very convoluted way).
(Sidenote: Our “love” was significantly more intense than others I had because, to a Tee, he catered to my unhealthy beliefs.)
This particular pattern became a staple in the majority of my EUP relationships. When we stubbornly continue to engage in unhealthy situations instead of seeing the signs and letting go of emotionally unavailable relationships, we can lead ourselves down a painful road.
(Side Note: This is a Flashforward Post) Read more about the content structure on the About Love & Life Antics page link in the post’s header or footer.
My Love and Life Antics™ Taught Me the 7 Following life lessons about love:
These experiences kept reappearing in my life like a bad nightmare. Although it took me a while, I eventually connected my bad love habits with my poor relationship experiences and made changes. I decided it was time to respond healthier to these tumultuous splits, and though I couldn’t be with him or the other EUPs, I could walk away, learn the love lessons, and grow.
Consider this, the pain from an unhealthy relationship with an EUP is a gift disguised in the form of lessons. When you learn them, they stop reappearing, and the pain lessens.
“Love has an education for us-learning what it is and what it isn’t. If we pay attention, we can graduate and pass the test, and experience personal growth.”
Jacen-J – Love and Life Antics-The Love and Life Blog
Without further delay, I share with you my love lesson.
1. You cannot earn what does not exist is a prime life lesson about love relationships.
- I greatly advocate for addressing your self-defeating habits and relationship beliefs (read: understanding your contribution to the madness). One tough pill lesson I learned is that you don’t have to prove you are good enough to be loved. If this is your core belief, you will find yourself in situations where you will choose someone who gives you less and less while you fight for more. They will push your “approval triggers,” setting you up to fight to get your needs met.
- If you go down this road, you’ll feel like you’re a featured performer at Cirque Du Soleil (known for its often-dramatic circus art)-contorting your body, doing stunts and shows just to get attention from them- doing all of the emotional work. Don’t stunt for anyone!
- You should notice this pattern and make a swift exit from the relationship to save yourself unnecessary pain. They are not worth the trouble; know your self-worth!
2. True love is NOT a “prize” to be won.
- If your habit is to siphon love from a reluctant, incapable, and unavailable source, you will star in what I like to call Love Olympics™. You will do anything to win the “prize”, including being mistreated, abused, and used.
- Your thoughts will be this premise: “If I don’t ‘win’ love from my unavailable partner, then it must be true that I am not good enough.” You will set yourself up to be treated in any manner and accept mistreatment “in the name of love.” You are looking for validation outside of yourself from the WRONG source at all costs- a deadly plan. Don’t do it!
3. Good loving relationships are not a power struggle: “You win, I lose” or “I win, you lose.”
- Have you ever felt like they had the upper hand, when they rejected you, ended things first, and beat you to the chase? How about the thought that he/she is better or “stronger” because they moved on so quickly, making your head spin (indicating you didn’t matter that much)?
- Or what about, it’s not fair that they seem to get a free pass after treating you less than in the relationship (while you are suffering all the heartbreak)? You should have ended it first, right? Well, dang!
- If this sounds familiar, you have a thought process that supports the belief that relationships are about a power struggle. In your mind, there’s always a “weaker vessel” in the relationship (you will gravitate toward this if you were raised in a manner where your needs were minimized as insignificant). Don’t believe the hype! Emotionally available relationships are about both parties “winning” together as a team.
4. In healthy relationships, you don’t have to assume ALL of the responsibility and do all of the relationship work.
- One of my former unhealthy relationship habits was to jump into and lock The Dependency Cage. While going through past breakups, I would often find myself thinking, “Well, maybe if I am less nagging, less demanding, more understanding, need less, tell them that I love them to ‘Reese’s Pieces,’ we can work things out, and things will get better.
- This is total rubbish and Co-dependency at its prime. A relationship is about two people BOTH having an equal share of responsibility. You are not all-powerful and need to chill!
- If you had a mutual and reciprocal relationship with two grown adults present, you BOTH would be doing the “relationship work” TOGETHER (and it would be some work but wouldn’t feel like hard labor). Don’t ever try to teach a grown-ass adult how to be a decent human being, in a proper relationship, with you! They are not the right person for you. That is for the birds! Next, please!
5. All unhealthy situations and relationships are crappy and MUST eventually end for the sanity of your mental health!
- Another of the many powerful life lessons about love is that you don’t have to stay until it gets awful. In fact, you shouldn’t. You can’t extract and demand love from another person. Either it is there, or it isn’t. They either want you, or they don’t. If they don’t, then walk away. Be glad and let it burn if it is terrible, unhealthy, and you’re fighting for their love.
- We often learn our relationship habits from our family system. Growing up, we can be trained to believe that no matter how bad it gets, you must stay and take on the mission to “make” it work out.
- My relationship template taught me to fight for love at all costs. I would constantly fight for people’s approval, fight to get accountability for people’s mistreatment of me and stay to the bitter end even when things were as toxic as a landfill. You don’t have to stay, but you can develop a plan to eventually leave the unhealthy person or situation. This may take time, but you can do it!
6. When it’s unhealthy love, you will leave with less than what you entered, and your insecurities will be amplified.
- When it’s unhealthy, the scales will always be imbalanced. You will always have more of your emotions invested than them and more on the “emotional line” than them. Why? Well, the less they invest emotionally, the easier it is to cut the cord on you when they’ve had enough of you bugging them to give what they can’t-genuine love.
- Also, if you step into an unhealthy relationship with a distorted self-image that’s already fragile, you best believe that because it’s unhealthy, it will draw out the worst in you, including your insecurities.
- I’ve experienced this dynamic with the Narc EUP (Emotionally Unavailable Partners) subtype. There are many EUP subtypes. (I will cover them in future posts). These kinds of EUPs are of the narcissistic variety and will often hone in on a flaw of yours (which they loath in themselves) and cut you down for that quality they hate. They will project their misery upon you. If you are not solid in your soul, this can break you.
7. If the relationship was bad for you, but you feel lost when it ends, you didn’t have a solid sense of your self-identity from the jump.
- When we enter into a relationship, we need to enter as a Whole Self, NOT half. No “two halves make a whole” nonsense! No “we complete each other” mumbo-jumbo. You need to enter the relationship as a whole part of yourself. This way, if that person leaves, it will be disappointing but not devastating. And, if they leave, they won’t be taking the other half of you with them. Go get your life back!
- Disappointment is a legitimate healthy negative emotion. It is productive in that it allows you to healthily be sad about something not working out but you’re still able to keep it moving so you don’t get stuck. Depression and devastation are irrational unhealthy negative emotions that will keep you shackled over things not panning out as you expected.
- If you are feeling lost, you are feeling devastation, and that is not a productive emotion because you can’t move on. Not being able to move on gets in the way of your goal to eventually have a healthy relationship with the right person.
Wrapping Things Up:
My particular relationship template was a high level of dysfunction. I was raised primarily by my mother. My mother was a single mother who tried her best but, at times, was inadvertently unavailable to my emotional needs growing up.
Also, my biological father was utterly truant in my life and continued making things hard for my mother and me (e.g., using her rent money to purchase drugs). Jacked up! I know, right?
Also, his side of the family was super cray cray- many folks on that side of the family were always involved in criminal activity or shady dealings. This played a significant role in forming my belief system about love and relationships. (Thank Jesus, the criminal legal patterns from that side of the family genogram skipped me entirely).
Sidebar: The past is the past. Things are different now with Madre. I am happy to report that I’ve been fortunate to heal my relationship with my Mom. This was a long, painful process for both of us, but we did it, and now we have a healthy bond. However, not everyone is that fortunate. Mom, if you are reading this, you are the world’s best !-*smooches*.
Even though our relationship is healthy now, I’ve still had to do my soul work to rewire my brain and undo any unhealthy beliefs I developed growing up (it’s unproductive to continue to blame our parents).
Looking back at my behavior (particularly within my Relationship Aha Moment™, you would have sworn I was on crack or something. I remember begging “SMS (Soul Mate Speech)” not to leave, not to reject me or abandon me. Yada. Yada. Yada. (Eye-roll and a hair flick).
This was embarrassing behavior at best because he wasn’t worth it- his capacity to care for me was limited, and pleading for him to change made me look cuckoo for Coco Puffs.
Remember that all relationships (healthy or unhealthy) are chock-full of life lessons about love. Examine the patterns (yours and theirs) to extract the important lessons and grow. If you learn from your Love and Life Antics™, you can heal the unhealed parts of yourself, leading to more fulfilling relationships.
Are you learning or ignoring your love lessons? What are some of them? Don’t worry, the pain won’t last forever, I promise! Your thoughts?
Remember, no matter what you are going through, you are never alone!
Signing off for now.
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