When You Enter Relationships in Seeking Mode, You Will Be The Underdog
The chaos of life leaves us hungry to connect and thirsty for someone to hold onto. Our over-exposure to other people’s success triggers a craving to matter. So, we give relationships all we’ve got, only to be met with disappointment before long.
The formula for relationship success feels like a 21st century mystery because we continue to look for external solutions to this internal problem.
I am fortunate enough to be in a 27-year marriage with a man who still purrs like a kitten when I stroke his neck as I pass by him in the kitchen. But, within those same 27-years, I’ve had 20 new best friends if I’ve had one.
Some friendships have lasted just a couple of weeks, some have lasted a couple of years. They have been male gym partners, younger co-workers, older mentors, and community peers of all ethnicities. To my regret, most of these relationships faded without warning.
I’m emotionally tough. So, I don’t mourn lost relationships. New best friends are easy to find. The problem is that they are so darn difficult to keep.
Fortunately, as I heal from childhood trauma, I see myself more clearly. Now that I have cultivated a trusting relationship with myself, I approach relationships with more ease.
I released my unconscious attempts to possess people and learned to have authentic relationships based on respect instead of fear. As an advocate for survivors of childhood trauma, I have had 1000s of conversations about relationships, and I try to teach what took me so long to learn.
The Cycle Unbroken
When your heart is in crisis from abandonment or betrayal from decades ago, and your mind is imprisoned from trying to capture the love that the world keeps telling us is unconditional, your definition of love is distorted. You look for someone to make you feel a certain way. You look for someone to make you feel.
Unfortunately, when you enter relationships in seeking mode, you will be the underdog.
Your expectations will often not be met because you have a hidden agenda for that person that you assume they can meet. You won’t take the time to invest in who they are or what they have to offer because you don’t see them. You only feel them.
Good feelings are easy to create in new relationships. Being the center of attention, getting exposed to new activities, and sharing details of your life with someone who listens will draw any two people together. You pay more attention to your internal response and less on the experience of the other person.
You believe you are paying attention to the other person. In one way, you are paying attention. You are paying attention to how that person is making you feel. You rely on the person for an inner sense of significance.
From that point on, your behaviors in the relationship become unconsciously manipulative. You may create conflict with the person, so their decision to remain with you feeds your need for significance.
Conflict is a state of arousal that some couples substitute for intimacy. Becoming passive in the relationship so that the person is not tempted to leave is the path of least resistance, based on fear. Sometimes helplessness or neediness is used to guilt the person into remaining.
There is a pattern you exhibit unconsciously to manipulate a person into making you feel significant. Moving into your mode is the beginning of the end of most relationships, whether they are intimate, business related, or friendships.
Until you figure out and accept what your pattern is, you will continue to believe that the world is full of mean people while others find companionship.
How Attachment Falls Apart
Not all unhealthy relationships end within a short time. Some last for decades, but that requires decades of one partner making themselves small. Sometimes both partners live small, unhappy lives with each other.
They mistake unhealthy attachment for significance. There is certainly irony in feeling significant by making yourself small to fit into someone’s life.
Those early good feelings lead to attachment. However, a quality relationship requires healthy attachment, an ability to form meaningful, functional relationships. They have a sense of safety and trust.
People rely on one another for soft landings when things go wrong and support each other’s growth. This level of support increases our ability to take risks and recover from disappointment, a cornerstone of growth and development at any age.
The ability to form healthy attachments is highly influenced by our childhood relationships with our caregivers. To the degree that we faced adverse childhood experiences such as abuse, mental illness, or addiction in the home, we may not have developed an optimal attachment with our caregiver.
Unhealthy attachment is signified by insecurity and uncertainty in relationships. There is a desire for constant affirmation, which you get plenty of in the beginning. As relationships settle, instead of trust and safety forming, fear of abandonment grows.
One rejection can feel like 1000 pricks with a needle and can literally leave you breathless. Emotional or physical space can fill with doubt about your worthiness. The initial feeling of significance grows into a sense of insignificance. You swear you won’t let this happen again. But, it does.
The reason the pattern gets repeated is that unethical, emotionally injured, or psychologically unstable people have plenty of room to roam around in the lives of people looking for significance.
Unhealthy people use us as a scapegoat in the relationship or target us for abuse. Sometimes they stay around and play the needy role and suck the life out of us. Unfortunately, we stick around and label ourselves a caregiver instead of healing.
Building Healthy Relationships
When you come across healthy people, you have to engage them in ways that allow them to grow. If you stifle or smother them, rightfully so, they will not stay.
They do not want to be your teacher or your therapist. They do not want control over your life that you readily offer them. They will not tolerate the conflict that you bring, and they are too busy living well to use you as a scapegoat.
It’s not that everyone you meet is unhealthy. It’s that the people you invite close.
Attracting healthy people can be tricky if you have never been in a healthy relationship. Healing is essential for healthy people to gravitate toward you.
Resilience to succeed in a career does not transfer to relationships when it comes to adverse childhood experiences that resulted in unhealthy attachment.
The relationship with yourself has to take priority over your relationship with others. Try healing your own heart to capture the heart of others.
When you do build a relationship with someone, whether they’re a friend, co-worker or lover, try not to get caught up in just your feelings. Evaluate the person’s lifestyle early on to assess if it is compatible with yours.
Please know that trauma is not a trait of compatibility. Building relationships from shared victim stories is initially affirming, but frequently a recipe for disappointment.
Be open to relationships with people from different demographic backgrounds than you.
Your ideal friendship may be with someone 20 years younger or older than you. Your intimate companion may be a different race than you. Your most supportive co-worker may have a different gender orientation than you.
The most compatible person may be your least likely suspect. Make sure you explore their perspective of the world, not just invite them into yours.
Remember that relationships are a reflection of how we see ourselves. How you see yourself should evolve. So, trust the process and do not try to hold onto everyone who offers you a pillow to rest your heart, or a piece of bread to feed your soul.
They may not be meant to travel with you, so the only way for you to keep them is for you to stop moving on your journey. Leave room to invite people into your life and for them to leave. Also, you have to give yourself permission to leave.
References
Got Your Ace Score? Aces Too High. Aces Too High News. https://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/. Retrieved June 2, 2019.
Ambruster, E. & Witherington, D. (2016). Adult Attachment and Parental Bonding: Correlations Between Perceived Relationship Qualities and Self-Reported Anxiety. The Professional Counselor, Volume 6 (1) p. 33–49. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1109924.pdf. Retrieved June 1, 2019
Arousal Conflict. Changing Minds http://changingminds.org/explanations/needs/cia_arousal_conflict.htm, Retrieved June 2, 2019.
Dennstedt, J. (2018). A Review of Too Much Love Is Not Enough. Medium. https://readmedium.com/a-review-of-too-much-love-is-not-enough-bff4c77d0e9a. Retrieved June 3, 2018.
Healthy Versus Unhealthy Relationships. Hall Health Center. University of Washington. http://depts.washington.edu/hhpccweb/health-resource/healthy-vs-unhealthy-relationships/. Retrieved June 2, 2019.