How To Handle A Toxic Relationship You Don’t Want To Lose

We cannot endure in a relationship without resentment, where we are constantly the ones who are giving and we do not feel like we get the same background. Hey, everybody, is Matthew Hussey here with the Love Life podcast, Just Me today. I told myself when we started injecting new energy into the podcast that I would do some episodes solo now and again if I just felt like there was something that could be useful to everyone, all of our listeners. Well, this is one of those days. And the thing I want to talk about is the people in our lives and the roles that we play in certain relationships where maybe you have built up resentment because you feel like you give more than the other person. Perhaps there are certain people in your life you feel have let you down a lot. You're unwilling to lose them from your life, but you also know that the way they're in your life right now creates an incredible amount of pain and resentment for you, and you don't know what to do about that. One of the things that's important is to recalibrate how much we give to a relationship based on what we get from that relationship. We can't be in relationships where the giving is always in one direction, where there is a disproportionate amount of energy in one direction. And I want everyone to understand here. I'm not talking necessarily even romantically. I'm talking about the friendships we have in our life, the family, the people where the closest to. We cannot endure in a relationship without resentment, where we are constantly the ones who are giving and we do not feel like we get the same back. Resentment arises out of a deficit. And what happens is because we've learned to play a certain role in those relationships, maybe it's how we get our validation is being the giver, being the pleaser, being the generous one. Maybe it's how we feel secure is because we feel like if we keep giving to this relationship, it won't go away. Maybe it's what we're comfortable with is part of our identity and our image that we are that person and we don't really know how to have a different dynamic with this person. And. And of course, when you are also prone to guilt, when you don't do things for people, that becomes a very bad combination because the moment you try to give less, you will feel the onset of that guilt and that fear and just that general discomfort of having done something new and created a new dynamic in the relationship. But if we feel resentful because we are constantly in deficit in this relationship and we put much more energy into it than they do. We have to be willing to take a step back and say, I am going to give less and I'm going to give less because I know this person is not about to give more, Certainly not anytime soon. That, you know, for me to expect that they're suddenly going to give more is a fantasy that me giving more and more and more doesn't equate to them giving more. So it's not like if I double down on this giving strategy, they're all of a sudden gonna wake up and give me more because they realize, oh my God, I've suddenly realized that they give me so much, I'm gonna do more. So giving more isn't the answer, and giving the same amount you have been isn't the answer because that's already making you resentful. So it gets to a point where expecting that we are going to keep doing what we're doing and that they are going to change is a kind of delusion, a willful delusion, because they've not done anything different. This is who they are. What evidence do we have for the fact that they're suddenly going to change, that they, you know, are they doing a lot of introspective work on themselves? Have they expressed to you that they are working to do better in this area? Are you seeing evidence of it? If the answer is no to those questions, then the only logical and rational response to relationships where we feel constantly in deficit and therefore resentful is to start giving less. And for those of you who are used to giving a lot, that will be an intensely uncomfortable thing to do. You will fear losing the relationships. You'll feel guilty. And by the way, those people will often make you feel guilty because they've been used to what you've been giving for a long time. So they will feel entitled to what you've been giving. And they will take for granted that giving, when you try to take it away, what no one likes, is change that affects them negatively. So they will reflexively tend to be frustrated or mad or confused or upset. What's wrong? Why are you doing this? Why aren't you doing this anymore? I asked you for this and you didn't get back. You know, you told me, no, that's not normal. There's something wrong with you. And some people may just be indifferent to it. You may come to realize there are certain people you give less to and even worse than them complaining, they don't complain. They don't even notice. But in either case, what you have is a situation where you're giving less is the recipe to starting to lessen your resentment. And that's really important because resentment is energy. It's energy that you're burning up is energy that you're wasting. And it's hurting you to hold on to that resentment. It's not making you the best version of yourself. And the problem with resentment is we end up becoming a broken record in our lives. There are people in your. Isn't there someone in your life that you share your resentment with when you complain about somebody? And how many times has that person had to hear your resentment? How many times have you repeated it? How many times have you told the same story? Enough to be a broken record, enough to be annoying, enough to be a complete bore on this subject, because the person opposite you could rightly say to you, I don't want to hear about this anymore. You've been talking about it for months or years. I don't want to keep hearing how frustrated you are with this person. I don't want to keep hearing how resentful you are of this person. Do something about it. So that resentment makes us repetitive. It makes us a bore. It makes us difficult to be around. At a certain point, the only way to lessen our resentment is to start to give less. And when we do, we will have to deal with the next set of feelings that come. As I said, the first will be fear and guilt. I'm afraid, and I don't want to hurt this person. I don't want to upset them. I don't want them to go without because I'm now not doing this for them. And then there will be the guilt. I feel bad. You know, I feel bad. I feel like I should do it. But what you have to remember is that the reason you're resentful in the first place is because you're giving so much more than this person is. While you're feeling guilty, this person isn't thinking about you in that way. If they were thinking about you in that way, they would have done more sooner. But they're not. So your guilt is an experience you're having on your own because they're not feeling that. They haven't all this time been saying, oh, it makes me feel really guilty that I'm not doing enough in this relationship. They're not thinking that way. It's just you remember that when you feel guilty. And sometimes it can be useful to have that guilt turn into or morph into some anger. I'm angry. I'M frustrated that I've been giving so much for so long and this person has given so little back. I'm mad. And someone once told me anger can be a great antidote to guilt. When you look at the inequity of a relationship and it makes you mad, that's a good antidote to your guilt. And if you're guilt prone, remind yourself why you've had to do this in the first place and you'll remind yourself of the inequity in the relationship. And that should make you a bit more mad than guilty. But there's something I want to address. When you give less, you're not giving less as a tactic because you think that by giving less it's going to give someone a wake up call and all of a sudden they're going to give you what you've been hoping for all along. It's possible that that may happen. It's unlikely. But it's possible that you pulling back is just the jolt they needed to stop taking you for granted and to realize how much you brought to their life and that it isn't free and that they do need to earn it. And they, the way they earn it is by shaping up and showing up in your relationship together. That may. But that's not why we're doing this. It's not a tactic, it's a recipe for peace. What's much more likely to happen is that you will give less and that the relationship will just find a new equilibrium. And that new equilibrium will be one where there's just less, where there's just less in the relationship. Because what you'll likely come to realize is that so much of the relationship was propped up by you and the things you were doing. So when you're not propping it up, when you're not supporting it, when you're not being the glue, when you're not doing all of this work, there will just be less of the relationship in both of your lives. And what people, I don't think talk about enough when addressing changing dynamics in relationships is they'll go as far as to say that if you give less, you will be less resentful. But a lot of people don't talk about the grief that then follows that, that when you step back from a relationship and as a result that relationship doesn't chase you. Instead it just kind of ends up being a different kind of relationship altogether. Maybe one that's less close, one where you talk less, one where you, you know, don't have that sense that You've, you know, kind of had in your head that you have each other's backs and you're always there for each other and you're always thinking about each other and you know, you know, you're thick as thieves. You just don't have that now. And that comes with a sense of, of real disappointment. And it comes with the, the necessity of grieving that relationship in its form that you had it before. And that's not to say you know what that relationship is going to be in a year or two years or five years. You don't. It could change again. That person could grow and could shift and you might end up meeting a different version of that person over time. But right now, you cannot have any of those expectations for the relationship. The really difficult truth is that you need to be ready for it to be a different kind of relationship than the one that you've been supporting all this time. And that can come with a profound sadness, especially when it's someone very, very close to you, especially when it's someone you love so deeply. And that sadness will want to make you run back to what you were doing before. It will make you want to go straight back to the old patterns in the relationship. And what you have to remind yourself of is that there's no happiness for you there in this relationship. You will not be peaceful in that relationship by going back to that place. All that will happen is brick by brick, you will start building up that resentment all over again. And once again having that conversation with that friend about this situation and how unhappy it makes you and how resentful you feel and how you feel, you can't take another day of it and it's driving you crazy and you're so mad. The only path forward that involves more peace and more self love, more self compassion is one where you find a new equilibrium in that relationship altogether. Because if you don't do these things for this person that go out of your way, that tend to their needs, that reflexively just show up to please them at every opportunity, reach out even though they're not reaching out to you, if you don't do those things, what it actually means is when you do connect with that person, you can connect with a better energy because you won't have been bleeding out this whole time with your energy. So you get to bring better energy in the moments you do have with this person. But like I said, the grieving is the knowledge that you may have less of them and the relationship may not be as close. And this person may not for a time at least represent the kind of, the kind of energy, the kind of relationship that you had always thought this relationship as being. Anyway. The reason I wanted to make this particular episode is because I think we talk about resentment a lot in relationships. I think we talk about the need to set new boundaries in relationships. I think we talk about the need to give less in relationships that aren't serving us or where people are not giving nearly as much as we are to the relationship and are acting selfishly when you're acting altruistically. But I don't think we talk enough about the grief that accompanies changing a relationship dynamic with someone we love. And I'm not talking about a romantic relationship here, because romantic relationships, it's a little more tricky. You can't have an arm's length romantic relationship, not a happy one anyway. And you can't have a relationship and still have other relationships that are intimate. At least if you're being monogamous, that offset what you don't get from that relationship. You're either in or you're out. Whereas when it comes to family and friends, you can create a different kind of relationship with somebody and offset the loss by doubling down on other relationships in your life that do serve you, that do feel more equal. But we have to be willing to let go, either temporarily or permanently, of the relationship that we've had in our head, that we've been propping up all along. And that takes grieving. Let me know what you thought of this episode. Email me podcastthewhussey.com I would love to hear from you. Thank you to everyone who listens to this podcast consistently. Our numbers are growing every month. It's really fun to watch. We've been putting a lot more energy and effort into this podcast. It's a joy to get to do it with my brother Stephen. It's a joy to get to do it with my best friend Jameson, and with my fiance, Audrey. We have an amazing crew together as the Jams and your love and support has meant the world to us as we've been going on this podcasting journey together with you. So thank you. Please keep listening and keep feeding back to us how we can make it better. And we look forward to continuing to make this show for you. I'll speak to you next time in Love Life.