Did you think about those questions?
OR did you immediately get defensive and say to yourself, "The problems of this relationship are not about me! It's the other person that needs fixing!"
Defensiveness is good for one thing: attack. Since the goal of most relationships is to embrace (and not attack), defensiveness has no place when setting this boundary. The first question I posed to you yesterday was this:
What am I not giving to this relationship?
It's a deep question on so many levels. On the one hand, when you've hit your breaking point in a relationship, you feel as if you've gone the distance... and still it's not working. On the other hand, somewhere, deep down you know that we only attract who we are. If the person in your life is not acting appropriately, there's a level to which you need to ask yourself, "What am I not bringing to the table?" Only when you can fully say "I've done and given my best" will you be 100% able to end the relationship, establish a new boundary and move on. So long as you wonder whether you could've done more, you will forever live in the regret of what might have been.
When you ask yourself the question, "What am I not giving to this relationship?", you are focused on a number of different areas:
- how much time and attention you've given to the relationship
- how open you've kept the lines of communication, esp. about what's bothering you
- how often you've given the other person compliments, appreciated what you do value about him/her and made this person feel like a welcome addition to your life (rather than a burden or an unnecessary tag-along in your life)
- to what extent you've become more critical and judgmental of the other person as compared to when the relationship first began
- to what extent you've deceived and/or lied to the other person about who you are, how you really feel and what you really wanted out of this relationship
The truth is known to each and every one of us... but how often do we speak that truth to other people? Until you've come clean in the relationship, you aren't free to end it (and I mean end it in a way that truly means it's over emotionally, physically, spiritually, etc.). Before you can have that boundary conversation, you need to get clear with yourself about your role in where the relationship is. You need to own your own stuff so you don't take it to the next person. Whether it's work or love, what you don't own about yourself you will carry into your next encounter... and, then, will be forced to learn the lesson you didn't learn this time around. Don't go through the same experience twice. Evaluate your role in where the relationship is, own your piece of it and then walk more confidently into answering the second question.
Tomorrow we'll go over what it means to ask yourself:
How have I demonstrated and given what I'm asking for in this relationship?
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