Dysfunctional Relationships: Part 1

Hi everyone and welcome to the first 2020 edition of Hannah Talks About Things. So today I'm gonna start one of three, which is gonna be a three-part series of "Why Your Relationships Suck." It's a really clickbait title, but it seems to work. This is an article that I wrote June 26th, 2019, and it's on psychologytoday.com, and it's my absolute favorite because most people struggle in relationships in some way or another. And that's just a fact. A lot of times we struggle with the relationship with ourselves most, um, but what happens is we get into relationships with other people— intimate relationships, friendships, familial relationships— and it's a lack of boundaries, it's struggles with commitment, it's past wounds that haven't healed. And we can bring a lot of our past stuff into our current relationships, and then we can tell ourselves this internal shame narrative of something's wrong with me, and it may not be And if it is, there's ways to work through it. So I'm going to talk about Part 1: Why Your Relationships Don't Last. How to Stop Sabotaging Once the Honeymoon Stage Wears Off. I know this title is super harsh, but this is an important read. If something below that I've written ignites a flame of anger inside of you, use that to further navigate through the root of that emotional stimulation. Often when we are secure about something, we don't get angry or defensive. If you experience any of these emotional reactions, be kind to yourself. So that's the caveat that I put in the beginning of this article because I have a lot of really harsh opinions on things, um, and sometimes I'm also really direct in my approach. And so I like to kind of put that author's note in the beginning, and it basically is like, listen, for me— should I do this? Yeah, maybe. Um, for me, if I'm really secure about something and someone questions it or says something that goes absolutely against how I feel, I don't really get defensive. I'm not like, "Oh my god, I need to prove to you that I'm right and you're wrong." I'm just kind of like, "Okay," because I'm secure in my gut and I know my truth, and I'm like, "Yeah, that's fine if you don't agree." But when I'm insecure about something or I need that external validation because of my insecurity, that's when I typically get defensive. So if anything I say or write about or talk about really pisses you off, look further into that. It doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong, but maybe there's some insecurity there. Maybe there are some doubts that you don't want to look at. So, okay. Continuing. I don't want the ring light to like get— oh, there it is. There's the ring light. Okay. Ah, if anyone reading this has been in a relationship for over 6 months, give or take however long you may need to pass before you feel the weight of normalcy, you've experienced this. The novelty wears off, the rose-colored glasses are shattered— these are literally rose-colored— and you're sharing your life with another flawed, fallible, perfectly imperfect human being. Congrats! Welcome to your real relationship. Human beings are wired for connection. So wired, in fact, that at times we try to force relationships with people with whom we don't have a sustainable connection. We push ourselves together like mismatched puzzle pieces and get frustrated at the other person when the corners don't quite fit. We get angry at ourselves for consistently picking the wrong person. Oh, it's one of my least favorite things that people say, like, oh, I just have a bad picker. I'm like, Okay, rather than blaming your relationship choices on some like weird arbitrary picker, why don't we look at what it is in you that continues to be attracted to the wrong kind of people, whatever that may mean. In all of our relationships, despite all the problems that we may point out in our partners, the only common denominator is us. We are the only person we continuously bring along into each new relationship. Relationships are hard. We know this. But the core issues that reside in each of us, ranging from fear of abandonment to overly attached and controlling patterns, will remain active factors in our relationships until we have the courage and the resources to deal with and work through them. As in, our core issues don't just go away with time. I've heard people say time heals all wounds, which I think is bullshit. I've heard people say with age comes wisdom. I may be biased, but I think that's bullshit. And the reality is that our shit comes along with us wherever we go unless we work through it. This post focuses on the transition from the honeymoon stage to the more real part of a relationship. The feelings of monotony and boredom, the urge to self-sabotage or create chaos, the thoughts of seeking excitement and novelty elsewhere, the questioning of you or your partner's choices, the tendency to get frustrated at their habits, behaviors, and thought processes. And so on. Again, welcome to your real relationship. Most humans have a difficult time with this transition. While I don't always believe— huh— while I don't always believe that with age comes wisdom, the reality is that the more relationships we've walked through, hopefully the less surprising this stark transition will be. The reasons behind these transitional difficulties, however, are many and varied. Let's go through some of my case conceptualizations. Keep in mind that all of these observations are based on my own personal or professional experiences by no means are a comprehensive summary of individuals and relationships. Chances are high that you'll relate to at least one of these cases listed below. So part 1, I think we cover one— that's it, we only cover one, and we cover the excitement seeker. So in part 2, um, which I might just make immediately after this, uh, we cover I'm bad at commitment. Mm. What a narrative. All right. So part 1, the excitement seeker. First, we have the excitement seeker, the person who loves to fall in love, gets a rush from the endorphins, the oxytocin, and the attention, and feels depleted and sometimes empty when that excitement wears off. This person is prone to be in a multitude of relationships over a short period of time. In some cases, these relationships will even overlap. Welcome to me in high school. This person tends to have emotional or physical affairs, gleaning worth and security by falling hopelessly for someone who is out of their reach. Reframe: Welcome to me throughout my life up until— that's not relevant, but until I worked through those core issues. When these relationships get boring or the initial infatuation and lust begins to fizzle, this person gets antsy. He or she may actively self-sabotage the relationship or concoct reasons for its demise. This person may never be satisfied in a relationship and will consistently be looking for the next best thing. The problem is seldom the partner, but rather lies within the individual who has an insatiable appetite for newness or novelty. This person may have had a lifetime of inconsistency and adrenaline spikes. We can often find that this individual was a child of divorce living in different houses throughout their childhoods, or someone who has experienced a significant amount of chaos throughout their life and especially their childhood. At a certain point, chaos, excitement, and adrenaline becomes normal for their brains. They become the baseline, and anything other than that can be identified as boring. So on a neurological level, so if you're someone who is like, ah, I'm just like always on to the next thing, and, and it's really starting to impair my relationships because I always get bored, sometimes on a neurological level, your brain is in a way addicted to those adrenaline spikes. And if you're in a relationship that has lasted past that honeymoon stage, there's no spurts of adrenaline, the excitement, the lust, you know, like that spark. It doesn't mean you don't love that person and want to be with them, but it's just not the same as those early stages of a relationship. And so let's say you grew up with chaos and inconsistency or inconsistent attachment. Your brain developed being used to those high highs and low lows. And seldom had kind of this plane of stability. It makes sense that in recovery from substance use and addiction, um, people say that boredom is one of the number one triggers. And I always say boredom is simply the inability to sit with self. But really, if you've been living in chaos for so long, boredom just means stability. And stability feels uncomfortable if you're not used to it. And so when things get stable and we have this inadvertent urge to just self-sabotage and self-destruct, I've done that too. It's not just, oh, I'm a shitty person incapable of love and commitment. It's, well, what in me is seeking that excitement and chaos even when it's painful? Because painful chaos can still be more exciting than stability, which our brains can just define as boring. So something to think about. There's a re— I really should read these before I read them on here because there is a reason why in recovery from substances, codependency, and sex, Boredom is one of the most common triggers. In my opinion, boredom is simply the inability to sit with self. I really don't have new material. That's wild. A stable life feels like a boring, monotonous one. Thus we seek chaos and excitement. Unfortunately for this type of person, we cannot think our way out of these deeply rooted patterns of behavior. So just knowing your patterns doesn't actually make them go away. The solution: formal therapy or some kind of process of introspection and self-improvement. Improvement. I'd prefer the former, therapy, as we often can't think our way out of our own dysfunction. I understand that therapy isn't something that a lot of people want to hear because they're like, I had a bad experience with a therapist, or it's too expensive, or my insurance doesn't cover. And so I understand that the therapy can be a luxury, but for many people that can actually budget accordingly for therapy, or call their insurance and find out and really go through that process of trial and error in finding a good therapist, we have to be vigilant about that process. Obviously I'm biased, but not because I am a therapist. I'm biased because going to therapy absolutely changed and saved my life. Um, and you know, what I came to realize is that for a lot of us, if I say, oh, I don't have the money, um, and then I look at how many times a week I go to Starbucks or, you know, how many times I'm buying stuff I don't need or eating takeout. And it's like, is it that I don't have the money period? And that may be the case. Or is it that I'm not willing to prioritize this and work it into my budget, if I even have a budget, and say this is a bill? I remember at one point telling my therapist that I wanted to stop going because it was too expensive, and she challenged me on it and said, um, and I at that point I had enough rapport with her that I didn't think she was just doing it for the money, uh, because I understand that I think most good therapists don't do it for the money and are genuinely like empathetic and whatever. And she just said to me, is it that you don't have the money or is that you don't want to prioritize this? And I was like, I don't want to answer that question. I don't want to prioritize this, right? And so if I'm continuously getting in relationships and self-sabotaging and I don't know how to be okay with myself, and like, at what point am I going to prioritize and budget for my own mental and emotional health? That's how I feel about it. Okay. Formal therapy. Much of our behavior has become muscle memory. Just like a therapist cannot therapize themselves or a doctor cannot perform surgery on themselves, an individual with relationship dysfunction and patterns of self-sabotage cannot think their way out of it. We will continue to construct the same patterns in our relationships if we don't take some time off and do the difficult work. So, yes, I'm encouraging you to stop dating. Stop seeking. Your appetite for excitement and novelty is insatiable at this point in time. It doesn't matter if you find your perfect person— I've been there— you will continuously self-destruct and your own lack of impulse control and tendency towards novelty and excitement— oh, with your own. So it doesn't matter if you find your perfect person, you will continuously self-destruct with your own lack of impulse control and tendency towards novelty and excitement. This isn't because you're a bad person. This isn't because you don't know how to do commitment. It's quite literally programmed into your brain chemistry. Forgive yourself, take some action, and get healthy. You may think, therapy, Hannah? That's a little much. And I mean this as sincerely as possible. Let me know when you change the patterns in your relationships on your own. Seriously, I want to know. Next, part 2: the I'm just bad at commitment. So stay tuned for that video. Hope you liked this one, and if you didn't, it's not my problem. But I hope you did anyway. Okay, bye!