Challenge In Dating — We Involve People in Our Relationship To a Degree We Shouldn’t.

Sometimes we talk about our relationships with friends and family more than our partners.

I’ve made this mistake in the past, especially at the beginning of a relationship.

I relied too much on the opinion of my single friends and family members instead of having a conversation with the person I was with about what was bothering me.

This goes hand in hand with another Challenge In Dating blog I wrote.

This one is a little different.

Here I want to talk about and reflect on some of the reasons why we’re more inclined to have discussions about the issues happening in our relationship with people who are not a part of it.

We let others make decisions for us about what we should do when we’re facing challenges in the relationship.

When we’re having issues with our partners, our stress is on another level.

I know this because I’ve navigated and still navigate issues and challenges with my partner.

What I’ve learned is that instead of taking the time to reflect on an issue that may be taking place, we vent our frustrations to friends or family.

We give them every single little detail about how we’re hurt and make our partner the villain of the story.

Which inclines them to give us advice that may not be helpful in dealing with the actual problem. And instead of taking this advice with a grain of salt, we take it at face value.

We don’t take the time to analyze and ask ourselves if their advice indeed applies to the situation and is actually helpful in healing the relationship.

Why do we do this? Because it’s exhausting. It’s easier to outsource our decision-making — it takes less energy and causes less stress.

Solving issues with your partner takes a lot of mental and emotional energy. And depending on the type of temperament you have, you’re either better or worse at handling this kind of energy drain.

So instead of taking a break, listening to what our feelings are telling us, and trying to come up with a solution, we default to what we hear from others.

We’re used to hearing ‘expert’ advice from people of the same sex.

We assume we’re supposed to go to our girlfriends and female family members with our relationship troubles — I’m speaking from the female point of view because I am one.

After all, the people whom we hear giving ‘great’ advice are those we relate to the most, hence people of the same sex.

It’s good to have a close circle of friends and family that can hear you out when you're having a hard time.

It becomes troublesome when you make them the to-go person every time there’s a problem or an argument has happened with your partner.

The truth is, your friends and family members who are females or males can understand you, but they are not in a relationship with you.

Because women and men think differently, it’s tough to have vulnerable conversations and try to understand one another.

It’s easier to have these discussions and feel seen and understood by your friends.

The problem is, you’re not gonna feel seen or understood in your relationship if you don’t make the effort to communicate to your significant other what’s bothering you.

You can’t always rely on your friends to be your emotional crutch whenever you’re facing a difficult situation in your relationship.

It’s not fair to them to constantly carry that emotional weight, and it’s not gonna get you any closer to fixing the issues in your relationship.

We’re afraid of being vulnerable with the one person whom we need to be to fix the issue.

I mentioned this briefly before.

It’s easier to speak to someone who isn’t part of the issue because they’re not as emotionally involved, hence friends and family.

Vulnerability is hard, especially when both of you seem to keep saying the wrong things to each other, hurting each other, and not knowing how to make amends.

This is not easy.

To understand your partner and for them to understand you, both of you will need to have long, difficult, and emotional conversations about what’s not working.

It’s going to require you to go very far out of your comfort zone.

And most people are not educated properly about this — check out my other challenge in dating blog about this topic:

Instead of being told that a relationship will challenge you and require a lot of patience and compassion, we’re told that if things don’t work right off the bat, leave immediately.

If you’re not constantly happy and always riding a wave of excitement, this probably isn’t the right person or ‘the one.’

This is all BS advice.

If you subscribe to this kind of stuff, I can guarantee you no relationship is ever going to work out.

If neither one of you is willing to go deep and talk about what’s truly bothering you and what’s hurting both of you, you’re never going to resolve the root problem.

Your frustration and resentment are going to pile up until one of you reaches a breaking point.

And at that point, it may be too late to try and save the relationship.

As hard as being vulnerable is, it’s the way to a solution. Not resolving your issues is just as hard, except it leads both of you and the relationship nowhere.

If there’s more you’d like to add, please leave a comment, and thank you for reading!