Dysfunctional Relationships: Part 3

Hi everyone, and welcome to a continuation of the relationship series of why your relationships aren't lasting, or why your relationships suck, why your relationships will continue to fail, why your relationships keep blowing up in flames, etc. So without further ado, why your relationships will continue to fail, part 3: how overthinking and codependency will lead to self-sabotage. And you can see this. I don't know if it's on. Hello. Okay, this is a continuation of the post Why Your Relationships Don't Last, Part 1 and Part 2. So this is it. So this it is. So this is it. Number 4: The Overthinking One. Here we have the projector/fear-based/always expecting the worst/manifestor of problems. Manifestor isn't a word, but I like it and it gets the point across. For those of you who were answering my Instagram questions and polls, @hannahalyserose1, and identified that overthinking was a problem for you, this is your segment. This individual cannot for the life of them stay present in the relationship because they are terrified of their partner leaving them. What if I lose you? What if you leave me? 'What if something horrible happens to you? What if you find out who I really am and you don't like what you see?' This can be a combination of both the insecure one and the codependent one, which is listed below. 'We will find what we're looking for.' I love that. 'I will find the evidence that I'm looking for.' So I've shared before, um, both personally and in professional settings, that we accept the love we think we deserve. But another thing that goes with that is we also will find what we're looking for. So if I truly believe that I'm worthless and unworthy of love and I'm never gonna find anything good, I will inadvertently find or create evidence that essentially validates that belief. So if I want proof that I'm not good enough, I'll find it. But at the same time, if I want to find proof that I am worthy and I am good enough and that all those things, I'll find it too. Um, so it's just— it's important to remember that we will find what we're looking for. If you are hell-bent on finding evidence that your partner is losing interest and is going to leave you you're gonna find it. On the flip side, if you're looking for cues from your partner that they are invested and committed, you'll find that too. It's important because we bring a lot of meanings to things. I'll never forget, uh, someone said to me once regarding maybe like the volume being too high on a video game and me taking it really personally, this person said to me, Hannah, they're not doing it to you, they're just doing it and you're making it about you. And so again, like, if I wanted to find evidence that this person didn't care about me at the time, I could use him playing video games too loudly as evidence, which is like absurd when you say it out loud, but it makes sense to us while it's happening, especially if we're not talking about it or processing. Be mindful of the narrative you've been constructing in your head about yourself and your partner. I love the book The Four Agreements. I've quoted it often, and in the first agreement, which is be impeccable with your word— and impeccable stems from without sin, and that means, you know, really speaking, becoming aware of how we think and speak about ourselves and our lives and others. Don Miguel Ruiz, the author, goes into detail and says basically we construct the hell that we live in, or we construct the heaven that we live in. And so my reality is so largely based on the narrative that I am creating at any given time, which I think is really important. Overthinking is a tough one. It'll rip through our psyches and cause us to feel disconnected, isolated, and alone. We may tell ourselves we're crazy, but overthinking is a common experience that most human beings are plagued with. You are not alone. You are not crazy. But if you shove these catastrophizing thoughts down and don't talk about it, write about it, or process them, they will manifest into incredibly unhealthy behaviors. Again, this is where self-sabotage can rear its ugly head. Read this article on self-sabotage here. So as again, I mean, if you're new to this and you're watching part 3 first, um, I'm reading articles that I've written for psychologytoday.com. So all of these are online and they have links to other articles that may be relevant if you find them interesting. All right, so number 5: the codependent one. Lastly, the "I'm all in to the point where I've lost myself" type. This one may have sacrificed all the parts of themselves that make them unique and individual to meet the needs of their partner. This can range from the way they dress, talk, think, and feel. They may love the person so much that they've allowed themselves to be completely morphed into a different version of themselves. And I put "love" in quotes. As the honeymoon stage wears off, so does the person's individuality. They have become a part of their partner and feel that they would be lost or die without them. It's wild because, I mean, even so, I have this tattoo on the back of my neck. I don't— here it is. Very few people know what this is from. It's not a pizza and it's not a yin yang, yin yang. Um, but basically there's a book called Symposium by Plato, and, uh, you know, it's like Greek mythology and stuff like that. And there's a chapter in it about the origin of love. Now in the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, there's a song about that story from that book called The Origin of Love. And essentially, according to Greek mythology, love originated because everyone used to be like circle people, right? Um, like a man, a man, a woman, a woman, or a woman, a man, and they were connected. And Zeus was like, these people are complacent and everyone's just like bopping around and they're probably gonna get cocky and try to overthrow me. So Zeus took a lightning bolt and separated them all in half. And it gets really graphic, like where he sewed them together was like, that's why we have belly buttons, and just stuff like that. And essentially this is where love originated, because everyone started to become really like hell-bent on this process of finding their other half, and they would try to force themselves together through sex and physical acts. But really it isn't until the souls meet their other half that they find their other half, and that's what love is, etc. The origin of love. So The kicker is that I got this when I was 18 after taking half of a philosophy class, and I don't actually believe in soulmates. Um, and what I also don't believe in, and I really try to, um, set up parameters so that I don't fall into this trap, is the belief that, you know, you are my other half. That version of love is really unhealthy because for me, if I believe that someone is my other half, that means that without them I am only half of a person. And I have come to believe that true healthy love is not two halves coming together and making a whole, but rather two whole people coming together and making something bigger. Um, and halves tend to seek each other, you know, and, uh, it's kind of like the empath and the narcissist, right? If, if someone has so much self-worth to a delusional point and someone else has such little self-worth and they hate themselves, like, that big person is gonna fill that smaller self-worth void, and then it just becomes really unhealthy and enmeshed. Moral of all of this is that we're modeled and taught in movies and in books and in potentially our parents, I'm not sure, that like love is all or nothing. Love is having a supreme being that's gonna be our, you know, be-all end-all, and it's like, that's really unhealthy. Ah! So I never want to feel like you're my other half. I feel like, oh, you're my twin flame, like, you know, I've met my match in a lot of ways, and that's super exciting and awesome, but If I ever feel like this person is my other half and without you I will not be a whole person and without you I will die, that's disconcerting. I have an email. Okay, great. Ah, let's see. So they have become a part of their partner and feel that they would be lost or die without them. Maybe they're on the other side of the extreme and are trying to control their partner to be who they want them to be. Usually these two types of people attract each other. The passive, adaptable, almost camouflaging type, and the controlling, manipulative, this-is-how-you-should-be type. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to codependency. Contrary to popular belief, being codependent doesn't mean needy. It can also— it just essentially, the way that I view it, and you can read Codependent No More or The Codependent Guide to the 12 Steps, and you can read a ton of stuff about this, it's not like you either are or not a codependent. I don't believe that. I believe that human beings are wired for connection, and so we all have different amounts of codependent traits. But if my self-worth sanity, etc., is contingent on anything outside of me, that can become a codependent relationship. So if I only feel good about myself if you're blowing smoke up my ass, right? Like, if I only feel competent if I'm getting, uh, validation, or if you're happy, I'm happy, if you're sad, I'm sad, etc. Or as they say in The Notebook, if you're a bird, I'm a bird. Like, it's unhealthy. Ah, okay. And just for the record, you don't have to be an alpha male to be controlling and manipulative. I watch women do this all the time as well. The gender roles that can come into play— the gender roles that can come into play with these case conceptualizations are hilarious to me because we can all exhibit different parts of each behavior. So we can be passively controlling, we can be, um, there's just so many different ways that this manifests. The most helpful exercise for me regarding any level of codependency, which I define as my well-being or contentment being contingent on anything outside of myself, was reading and completing the questions in Melody Beattie's The Codependent Guide to the 12 Steps. You can get it on Amazon. The stark reality is that most human beings are going to exhibit a level of codependency. Like I already said, again, we are wired for connection. Our ability to have a healthy interdependent connection is insanely hindered by cultural and societal norms as well as our upbringing. We are never provided a tool guide or handbook on how to have healthy relationships. Like, this is not taught to us in schools. If anything, what is modeled to us is incredibly unhealthy. "You're my other half" is an extremely codependent way of saying "I'm only half of a person without you," which What? Nope, absolutely not. So like I said all this already, but, um, I want to be a whole person who is able to come together with another whole person and make something so much bigger than us. I don't want to be in a dynamic where I feel that I am less of a person without my partner. Do they build me up and complement my shortcomings? Like complement, not compliment, if you catch my drift. Absolutely. Do I challenge myself to be better because of them? Absolutely. But without them, I would still survive, thrive, and do the best that I can. There are so many more types of people in relationships, but this article is becoming super long and most of us don't have the patience or attention span to keep going, whether you're reading it or whether you're watching this YouTube video right now. For now, I'll leave you with this: you are human. You are not, nor will ever be, perfect. Identify what has been blocking you from healthy relationships. Stop focusing on how everyone else falls short of your ideals. Deal with your shit instead of giving yourself an excuse to keep hurting people. Ask for help. Talk about it. Process with someone you trust. If you can afford it and are courageous enough, go to therapy. The money you spend will be an investment to your quality of life. That's my experience, at least. You are not crazy. You are not broken. You are not unworthy. You and everyone else still reading this or watching this have the same struggles. Just because you've always had a certain pattern of behavior does not mean you always will. That's This is just how I am is a giant excuse that enables you to stay comfortable in your misery. It can, and it does, get better, but we have to put the work in. Yay!