The Most Common Relationship Issue

The Most Common Relationship Issue

Joe Whitcomb, PsyDc, LMFT

www.facebook.com/therelationshipsociety

We all have one thing in common when it comes to relationship.
We are scared to really be ourselves and tell the full truth while in relationship.
We avoid conflict, shrink, play nice, and run away. At an extreme, some of us will allow others to dictate our life’s course and will allow our parents or culture to push us around. At a more mundane level, we justify why we can’t tell our boss, friend, or lover, what is really going on inside of us.

If we are honest, we are just scared to be ourselves.
The most common places we hold back our truth is in our own families and intimate relationships.

I work with a lot of people and have plenty of friends who simply won’t tell their parents or spouse that they smoke pot, drink, look at porn, or that they talked to an X-lover on facebook. All supposedly “shameful” behaviors.

Why is that? What is going on here? And what would be the cost if we just came out and told the truth?

Answering these important questions will help us begin to untangle the sticky web we have created for ourselves. It will help us own what we are withholding and choose consciously if we want to keep doing that.

For example, you might have justified your withhold by saying something like, “I don’t want to hurt her feelings” or “I don’t want to rock the boat” or “I didn’t want to upset him, he’s already got so much on his plate.” We all do some version of this.
But why really do we hold back our truth?

Problem: Other and Self-Preservation at All Cost

Layer One: We are protecting them. Up front we might think we are being considerate because if we told them how we really feel, they might feel bad, mad, or sad.

Layer Two: You are protecting yourself. If we dig deeper and look at why we are protecting someone else we will always find that we are “protecting them” to avoid a feeling or experience in ourselves.

For example, if I tell the truth and see them upset, I will have to feel _______.” Usually we are avoiding some form of discomfort; a yucky feeling, an uncomfortable sensation, or a fear of judgment, abandonment or rejection. Bottom line? In our seemingly noble guise to “protect” the other person, we are really protecting ourselves. We are basically scared to feel whatever we’ll have to feel and face seeing them react to our truth.

When we do this, we are actually robbing the person the opportunity to grow having received our truth. We cut the legs out from under someone by assuming they can’t handle what we speak, share, or communicate. We disrespect their intelligence and the notion that they can indeed take care of themselves.

If someone gets hurt or upset by what we say, especially if we are coming from a place of honesty, love, care, and service, it is their problem, not ours and we can’t do anything about their reaction. But we can do something about our reaction to their reaction.

Lots more to say but I’m working on keeping my posts shorter so, we’ll go a bit further on this in the next post as we discuss co-dependency.

In the meantime, notice the ways in which you play this out and choose if you want to keep doing relationship this way.

Joe Whitcomb MA Mft