CHAPTER 36


Take Responsibility for Your Dysfunctional Relationship

This one is dear to my heart because it comes from my own real-life story. Years ago, I was a responsible party in creating a relationship that wasn’t serving either of us. I wasn’t being treated well, the relationship was going nowhere, and I stuck around for it. For years, I was committed to thinking:

“Eventually, he’ll change. Then the relationship will be great.”

In the meantime, I scrambled and hustled to be what I thought I needed to be in order for him to change. Smart, right?

The years passed. Nothing changed.

I was too scared to leave, to start over, and to be alone. To possibly spend my thirties alone was terrifying.

I was in love and addicted to a fantasy of this life that I longed for. And every day I woke up and hoped that would be the day my fantasy would come true. And guess what?

It didn’t.

Once I stopped blaming him for my miserable life, then I started to see things more clearly and move on. I see this over and over again: people in relationships who wait around for their partner to change. How many people do you know who spend ample amounts of time bitching, complaining, wishing, and hoping for their partner to change and then, voilà! One day they do change! All the pushing, pleading, and complaining worked.

Zero.

Like I’ve said before: You are the only one that can control you, and you are the only one that can make you miserable.

If you’re in a relationship where the other person treats you like crap, remember: You’re the one who is sticking around for the crap, deep down knowing it isn’t going to get better.

And perhaps you’re sticking around because you’re hanging onto the “if only …” notion. If only he would propose. If only he would get a job. If only he would stop cheating on me. If only he would stop drinking.

If you’re in love with the notion of “if only,” remember that it is an imaginary fantasy that isn’t going to show up to give you the love and respect you truly deserve.

And ask yourself this: Are you really in love with your partner … or are you in love with the glimmers of hope, the “if onlys”? With the fantasy you’ve made up of how it could be? Are there two different stories going on here — the reality of what is happening in the relationship and then the fictional story you’ve made up? If it’s the latter, take a look at the current reality in your relationship. If things keep going exactly how they are, is the story going to turn out how you want it? And if you think it is, how long are you willing to wait? Ten years? Forever?

This bears repeating over and over: You deserve love and respect. It needs to come from you first, so if you truly love and respect yourself, you wouldn’t stay in a destructive, dysfunctional relationship. I know this; I was that girl in the relationship where, looking back, I didn’t love and respect myself. I wanted to, but I didn’t know how.

So, how do you?

1. Be okay with the fact that you don’t exactly know how to respect yourself. You can spend years lost in a cycle and feeling like a victim to “not knowing how.” Resolve to get off that merry-go-round.
2. Take inventory of what you’re tolerating in your relationship. You’ve probably made the mental list 100,000 times in your mind, so now’s your chance to organize it, write it down, and see it in black and white in front of your face. Is there emotional disconnect? Is there infidelity? Disrespect? List it all out.
3. Decide that you are not going to tolerate anything but love and respect in your relationships. If you’re in a relationship that isn’t serving you, where your partner is anything from disrespectful to abusive, please hear me when I tell you that it is highly unlikely that this person is going to change. Yes, there might be .005 percent who do, but these people go through years of therapy and help before they change. And many times, the relationships don’t last through the changes. This is a hard truth to swallow, but a necessary one.
4. Get professional help if you’re committed to helping the relationship. Couples counseling works and saves relationships. But, both parties need to be not only willing, but committed. If your partner is unwilling to get help in your relationship, I hate to say it … but that is an indicator that this person really does have issues that need to be helped (and he/she is afraid to face them), plus it’s not a good sign of a healthy future for the relationship.
5. Get to know yourself. What do you want in life? What do you not want? What do you think of yourself? How do you want to change? Hopefully this book will help you get to know yourself a little more. (If you’re still totally lost, see Chapter 51.)

And one more thing … if you’re not ready to leave, you’re not ready. Everyone has a different threshold for pain when it comes to difficult relationships. Some people can stick around for a whole heap of crap before they’ve had enough. You need to decide where you draw the line in the sand and cannot tolerate any more. My hope is that at the very least, this chapter will help you realize exactly what’s going on, what you’re putting up with, and what the future really looks like.

Because your future deserves to kick ass.