Relationships are more art than science. No one really knows how to make them consistently successful, and I include myself in the pack. It's akin to venturing into a jungle with no map and no compass other than the sun and the stars (if you can see through the trees). And, like poisonous plants in the jungle, they can be very painful if you take the wrong path.
I sometimes hear my friends struggle with relationships and I usually ask: what do you want? I am not an expert by any means - I struggle like everyone else - but that is a central question to answer.
If you know what you want, it is much easier because you know what you will not stand for no matter the circumstances and what you are willing to compromise on depending on the circumstances. If you are in a relationship and you communicate what you want it sets the stage for a real relationship. If you don't know what you want, you'll fall into the river in the middle of the jungle and it will be murky waters all the way to the bitter end.
This applies to friendships or romantic relationships. A way to start defining what you want is thinking about what you don't want and from there you get to what you want. If you don't want someone you are seeing to flirt with other women or men, tell him or her. He or she is not going to guess you care about it. No judgment on my part whether that is an important factor in a relationship or not. If it is important to you, it's important. If you have a friend - man or woman - that is consistently late when you agree to meet at a certain time, you decide how important that is. If it's important, you must communicate it. Otherwise it will gnaw at you every time it happens and you only have to take responsibility for that.
How to communicate what is important to you is critical. It's not about making demands or setting ultimatums but rather about sharing what is important to you. Suggest that whatever you communicate has to be centered on you, not on the other person: describe how a certain behavior makes you feel (yes, feel!) and because of that you need the behavior to change (you are not accusing the other person of misbehaving, it's a less threatening way of communicating because you are talking about the behavior, not the person). That way the burden of taking responsibility for the behavior belongs to the other person, if the person doesn't change the behavior (maybe s/he cannot change) you have your answer. That's the time to make a decision. Are you willing to lose the person because this is truly important to you? Or because you place so much value in having the person in your life - maybe more value than you give to you? - you will compromise what's important to you? It's answering these questions that causes pain because there usually is no good answer, especially once you are emotionally involved with the other person. I submit it's more painful down the road when your legs are all itchy and raw because of those poisonous plants you found when you took a given path.
We get emotionally invested in the other person for a variety of reasons, sometimes the person fills some void in our lives. That's probably not conducive to a long-lasting relationship. Whether it's with a friend or someone you are romantically involved, we all have different backgrounds, cultures, agendas, insecurities, etc. We also carry the baggage of our ancestors, of our parents' relationship, of our own past relationships, etc. Starting a relationship by being honest about who you are and what is important to you is a key step in having a good relationship for however long it lasts. And, people have limitations. You have limitations and the other person has them. What limitations you are willing to live with is a way to understand what you ultimately want.
After making my own set of wrong turns (I still struggle sometimes), for the most part I make choices I am very proud of to not compromise who I am when the stakes are high. If it's unimportant stuff to me, I can certainly compromise. I see a lot of people around me with confused relationships, that's not for me because I am very protective of my time. Why waste it? It's also generally true that if the relationship requires a lot of work at the beginning, it also will not work out in the end. People don't change much along the way. They present themselves exactly how they are, we just don't want to see it and we hope we can change them. With friends, I communicate what is important to me and when the other person doesn't seem to care, it's okay. It informs me about the kind of friendship we have. It takes a lot of energy to have good, quality, friendships and those that don't fall into that special category are friendly acquaintances to me. They may still be in my life but in a different category :).
It's a jungle out there. But if you know who you are and what you want, you can stand strong and find the path to great relationships.
I sometimes hear my friends struggle with relationships and I usually ask: what do you want? I am not an expert by any means - I struggle like everyone else - but that is a central question to answer.
If you know what you want, it is much easier because you know what you will not stand for no matter the circumstances and what you are willing to compromise on depending on the circumstances. If you are in a relationship and you communicate what you want it sets the stage for a real relationship. If you don't know what you want, you'll fall into the river in the middle of the jungle and it will be murky waters all the way to the bitter end.
This applies to friendships or romantic relationships. A way to start defining what you want is thinking about what you don't want and from there you get to what you want. If you don't want someone you are seeing to flirt with other women or men, tell him or her. He or she is not going to guess you care about it. No judgment on my part whether that is an important factor in a relationship or not. If it is important to you, it's important. If you have a friend - man or woman - that is consistently late when you agree to meet at a certain time, you decide how important that is. If it's important, you must communicate it. Otherwise it will gnaw at you every time it happens and you only have to take responsibility for that.
How to communicate what is important to you is critical. It's not about making demands or setting ultimatums but rather about sharing what is important to you. Suggest that whatever you communicate has to be centered on you, not on the other person: describe how a certain behavior makes you feel (yes, feel!) and because of that you need the behavior to change (you are not accusing the other person of misbehaving, it's a less threatening way of communicating because you are talking about the behavior, not the person). That way the burden of taking responsibility for the behavior belongs to the other person, if the person doesn't change the behavior (maybe s/he cannot change) you have your answer. That's the time to make a decision. Are you willing to lose the person because this is truly important to you? Or because you place so much value in having the person in your life - maybe more value than you give to you? - you will compromise what's important to you? It's answering these questions that causes pain because there usually is no good answer, especially once you are emotionally involved with the other person. I submit it's more painful down the road when your legs are all itchy and raw because of those poisonous plants you found when you took a given path.
We get emotionally invested in the other person for a variety of reasons, sometimes the person fills some void in our lives. That's probably not conducive to a long-lasting relationship. Whether it's with a friend or someone you are romantically involved, we all have different backgrounds, cultures, agendas, insecurities, etc. We also carry the baggage of our ancestors, of our parents' relationship, of our own past relationships, etc. Starting a relationship by being honest about who you are and what is important to you is a key step in having a good relationship for however long it lasts. And, people have limitations. You have limitations and the other person has them. What limitations you are willing to live with is a way to understand what you ultimately want.
After making my own set of wrong turns (I still struggle sometimes), for the most part I make choices I am very proud of to not compromise who I am when the stakes are high. If it's unimportant stuff to me, I can certainly compromise. I see a lot of people around me with confused relationships, that's not for me because I am very protective of my time. Why waste it? It's also generally true that if the relationship requires a lot of work at the beginning, it also will not work out in the end. People don't change much along the way. They present themselves exactly how they are, we just don't want to see it and we hope we can change them. With friends, I communicate what is important to me and when the other person doesn't seem to care, it's okay. It informs me about the kind of friendship we have. It takes a lot of energy to have good, quality, friendships and those that don't fall into that special category are friendly acquaintances to me. They may still be in my life but in a different category :).
It's a jungle out there. But if you know who you are and what you want, you can stand strong and find the path to great relationships.
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