Coping with Guilt After Ending a Toxic Relationship

Hey there everybody, and welcome to this presentation on overcoming guilt after ending a relationship. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this video, we're going to define guilt and then we're going to explore some common themes that trigger guilt after ending a relationship and issues to reflect on to determine whether it is healthy guilt or unhealthy guilt. So let's start out with what is guilt? Well, anger is a reaction to a threat. Guilt is anger at yourself for something that you did that you think you shouldn't have done, or something that you think you should do or should have done that you didn't do. Guilt indicates that something threatens your self esteem or, or causes you to fear being judged or rejected by others or maybe even yourself. A lot of times when we feel guilty, our inner critic is telling us what we should or shouldn't have done. Sometimes it is appropriate to feel guilty. Guilt is part of our conscience and it can tell us when we've made a mistake, when we need to make amends, when we need to learn from it. But holding on to guilt doesn't do anything but drain our energy. Holding on to anger doesn't do anything but drain our energy. Guilt and anger are designed to motivate us to change, to motivate us to make amends when appropriate, and to learn from the situation so we don't make that same mistake in the future. Sometimes, though, we may feel guilty for things that are out of our control. If you have guilt over ending a relationship, write down a list of all of the reasons you feel guilty and then identify which ones are things that you need to make amends for or learn from so you can forgive yourself, you can quit being angry at yourself, and you can use that energy to nurture future relationships. And which ones are things that you feel guilty for that are out of your control. Some of the things people tell themselves after ending a relationship contribute to their guilt. And most of them have the word should in them. I should have tried harder. Well, what were the problems in the relationship and were they even reconcilable? Or if you tried harder, or would it have just prolonged the inevitable? Was the relationship even worth saving? Sometimes there's problems in relationships that are not reconcilable and it's just not a healthy relationship and it's not worth saving. Was the other person committed to trying to save it as well? And it's important to remember that relationships take multiple people, at least two people to have a relationship. And if only one person is trying to make the relationship healthy, then it's probably not going to work. Which relationships from your past taught you that you should, no matter what the situation, try harder? If you didn't succeed, then it was because you didn't try hard enough. And for some people, this may go back to early childhood. Maybe their parents got divorced and their inner child truly believes that their parents should have tried harder to stay together and that would have given them a better childhood. They may have learned from prior relationships, somebody told them that they should have tried harder. Or maybe their culture teaches them that ending relationships is not okay and no matter how bad it is, you should just continue to try harder. And it's important to evaluate those messages and for yourself, determine which ones are healthy and helpful that you want to hold onto and which ones are not okay for for you to hold onto, which ones are unhealthy for you to hold onto, and what you're going to do about it. Another statement, I should have set better boundaries from the beginning. Well, that may be true, but let's look at it from a more objective point of view. People who regularly violate boundaries and feel they need someone at their beck and call may be drawn to people who, who need to be needed because it's easy to manipulate them. And sometimes we'll call this narcissistic. People who fear abandonment or who need to be needed may not maintain healthy boundaries from the start because they so want to be a part of the group, they so want to be liked, they so want to be loved. They so need that external validation that they may find on their boundaries a little bit. They may make exceptions here and there and allow people to encroach on their boundaries because they so desperately need that connection. But let me ask you, let me put out this scenario. If someone doesn't have a fence around their yard and they have all these beautiful flowers and you decide to go tramping through their yard and you trample down their flowers, who's the guilty party now? I'm assuming we're talking about adolescents, young adults, adults here who can make logical, rational decisions. I'm not talking about a three year old or a deer or something else, but when we're talking about rational young adult or adult human beings, was there should there have been something in the back of their head that said it? It would not be respectful for me to trample this person's flowers even though they don't have a fence up. I'm going to go around, I'm going to stay on the sidewalk. If you're in a relationship and you try to start setting boundaries and the other person throws a temper tantrum, it may indicate that the relationship was more about their need for power and control than truly caring about you. And this can be devastating to come to this realization. Unfortunately, sometimes it's the case. You recognize that you were drawn to each other because of each of your own baggage, each of your own stuff, and it's just not a healthy relationship. It's more parasitic than helpful. Ultimately, you can learn from the interaction about setting better boundaries, but their tantrum over not getting their own way is their responsibility. And if they continue to try to violate your boundaries by telling you that it's not okay to set them, that represents another boundary violation, another thing I often hear. They cannot help it. I should just be more understanding. Well, again, I'm assuming we're talking about young adults, adult human beings who can make rational decisions. Can the person truly not help it, or are they choosing not to change? And when we talk about it, what is it? Is it anger outbursts? Is it being sloppy around the house? Is it addiction? What is it? Most of the it's are at least somewhat modifiable. And if the person is refusing to change, if they're not choosing to try to amend a hurtful, harmful behavior, then you need to make a decision about what is healthy for you. And even if they can't change it, even if it's something that is ingrained in them for some reason and they can't help it, sometimes you have to make that decision that this is not something that you can cope with in your life. Where did you learn that it was your responsibility to take care of everyone else at your own expense? Sometimes this could come again from childhood where you wished that someone would take care of you. You, you wished that your caregivers would have prioritized you a little bit more. So we want to look and see. Are you trying to rewrite the past by acting the way you wished your caregivers would have? However, and we're going to talk about prioritizing self care in a minute. But what will the results be if you continue to stay in this toxic situation? What are the results going to be if you stay in a relationship and continue to make excuses and enable this person's unhealthy behavior? If the tables were turned, if you were the one engaging in this behavior, would you expect them to stay or would you recognize that, yeah, this is kind of unhealthy? I got some stuff I need to work on and it would hurt, but you could understand and respect their decision to leave. Couple other statements. That person needs me and I'm a bad person for taking care of myself and it's selfish for me to prioritize my own happiness. In relationships. There's going to be times where you do prioritize the other person's needs over your own immediate happiness, and that's going to happen occasionally. It should not be the rule. If you don't take care of yourself, eventually you're going to be too worn down, too exhausted, too sick, too depressed to be able to be there for anybody. You're not going to be good to anyone. And then what's going to happen? Is that person suddenly going to step up to the plate and take care of business? Probably not. If you feel you must provide the other person with referrals or suggestions about things they could do, and if it's safe, you may even consider telling them what must change in order for the two of you to resume your relationship. But it's important to help them understand how their behaviors impact your happiness, your health, your welfare, and let them know this is what see as a healthy relationship and this is what I need to have happen if we're going to be in a relationship together. Think about, you know, if you're telling yourself I'm selfish for taking care of myself. Is this thought based on an adult relationship or based on lessons from your relationship with your caregiver? Maybe you grew up in a house where you were parentified, where you had to be the adult and your caregivers needed you to take care of them, or your siblings needed you to take care of them and you were taught that you had to prioritize everybody else's needs above yours. What kind of model do you want to set now for your kids, your friends, your family? And again, if the tables were turned, would you want a friend or a significant other or a family member to always prioritize you over their needs for self care? Yet another guilt statement. Ending this relationship caused the other person pain and that's my fault? Well, it could be true. If you were the one to end the relationship, then you are the trigger for that pain. However, pain is inevitable in life and all relationships have a risk of pain associated with them. It's likely you both had a part in ending the relationship. You may have been the one who actually said no, not doing this anymore. But why did you do that? Why did you say that? It was likely because of behaviors from that other person. So don't take all the blame for ending the relationship. Recognize that again. Yes, you may have been the one to say, all right, we're done. However, their behaviors contributed to you saying, I can't be in this relationship anymore. It's not healthy. And really, consider when you're feeling guilty, would it have been better to stay in the relationship, delaying the inevitable or end the relationship now? What other things do you tell yourself after ending a relationship that may trigger your guilt? Add those to the comments below and don't forget to subscribe and click the little notification bell like the video and share with anybody who could benefit from this. This helps me continue to put out videos just like this one. When a relationship ends, it is almost always painful. We often second guess ourselves and minimize or deny the problems to try to convince ourselves to go back and stop. Stop the discomfort. Ending a relationship hurts, and sometimes a known pain is less terrifying than an unknown pain. So knowing that this relationship is unhealthy but it's predictable may be less terrifying, less threatening than being alone or trying to get into a new relationship. Guilt is another way we may try to convince ourselves to go back to the relationship. If we perceive something as all our fault, then the ball's in our court, so maybe we can fix it and stop the pain. And it's important to recognize and I know I've said it like three, four times now, it takes two to tango. And if that other person is not willing to change their behaviors, then you're getting back into a very toxic situation that that's probably only going to get worse. Unfortunately, when relationships end, it's often the result of multiple factors, some of which are going to be out of your control. When evaluating what is going on, consider your part, their part, the influence of other people, and the circumstances that are happening right now. Sometimes relationships end because people are going in different directions and it's just really crappy timing. And that can be part of the circumstances. But is that your fault? And the answer is no. And it's a matter of choosing so if two people are getting ready to graduate college, for example, and they both get great jobs but on opposite sides of the country, and they decide to break up, yes, that hurts. However, if one person gives up their dream to follow the other person, is that going to end up coming back and biting them in the butt later? I don't have the answer for that. Some people say yes, some people say no. But it's important to examine all of the factors that contributed to a relationship breaking up. A healthy, meaningful relationship brings out the best in you. Instead of causing distress or bringing out the worst.