Relationships - Take charge, Take the initiative, and don't be a sacrificial lamb

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Another thing I learnt from the conversation with my friend the other day was that it takes true courage and maturity to decide what kind of relationship you want to be in, to keep those that nourish and strengthen you, and give up on those that diminish and impoverish you.

It is all too easy to remain in a bad relationship, pretending that somehow things will eventually work out fine. But they rarely do. It is all too easy to shut your eyes to the truth and numb yourself to the reality of the situation, thinking that if you were patient enough your problems would somehow vanish into thin air. But such intellectual and emotional dishonesty can only lead to despair, hopelessness and powerlessness.

You cannot create reality by faking reality. You cannot change the circumstances of your life by pulling the wool over your eyes and refusing to see the truth that is laid before you. You cannot take charge of your own reality if you are forever evading it and pretending that you can escape the consequences. You cannot look if your refuse to see, and you cannot listen if you refuse to hear.

Even when there is a child involved in the marriage or relationship, it is sometimes still best to go separate ways. All too often, couples force themselves to remain in a hurtful or even abusive marriage for the sake of giving their child an intact family to grow up with. But this course of action is sadly misguided. You have to tend to your own needs first before you can tend to the needs of others. You have to look after your own interests and be secure in your own power first before you can take care of others and help them find their own strength.

The appropriate analogy that comes to mind is the instruction to adult passengers in an airplane that in the event of an emergency in which there is loss of cabin pressure, they are to fit themselves with the oxygen mask first before helping their children with theirs. The same principle applies here. You have to take care of your own needs first before you can take care of your child.

Many women especially force themselves to remain in a bad marriage thinking that they are serving the best interests of their children. But their children grow up feeling their powerlessness and their vulnerability. Their children sense their unhappiness and lack of self esteem. They feel less because their parents feel less. They may grow up learning that it is right and proper to sacrifice their own interest and sense of self worth for the sake of people they love.

But unfortunately such is very seldom right and proper.

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