These are my personal opinions, always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well -being." This may disappoint some people, and I apologize in advance if it does.
If you are listening right now, don't worry, it may not disappoint you, but it might disappoint some people listening.
and that is when you love someone and you use love as the reason to continue a relationship, instead of considering all the negatives that the other person may have. If you choose not to include the negatives in your criteria for love and you base staying together and your happiness and longevity, on just love, then A.
you might miss something that you need to address that would deteriorate the relationship anyway and B.
you may inadvertently enable bad behavior and I have to be very careful about what I say here because if you are the victim of somebody else's bad behavior I don't I want to say that you're causing it.
I do want to give you a heads -up.
If you don't address it, then the other person may think it's okay to continue doing it.
One of the most common questions that I get, especially on my Love and Abuse podcast, is if they loved me, why would they hurt me?
When it comes to emotional abuse and behavior, that's a very common question.
If you loved me, why would you hurt me?
I don't get it. And this is usually the question they get after the emotionally abusive person actually starts healing.
Yes, it's possible.
I see it a lot. It requires a huge wake up call typically.
And that wake up call is usually the other person saying, that's it, I've had enough, I'm done.
If you don't stop, I'm out of here.
Or you better stop or else, something along those lines that wake -up calls sometimes shakes the other person's foundation so strongly that they realize oh I'm doing hurtful behavior I better stop and that's when the victim of that behavior says wait you say you love me and you say you don't want to lose me yet you keep hurting me I don't get it it doesn't jive what's going on so That's a very, very common question.
And I answer that in several episodes or over at Love and Abuse, the quick and short of it is the person that hurts you, believes they're right.
There's no magic formula here.
They just believe they're right.
A hurtful person typically believes what they're doing is the right thing to do.
And their bad behavior usually stems from childhood coping mechanisms, survival mechanisms as a child.
they don't know how to cope with challenges, and then they don't heal those unhealthy coping mechanisms and bring them into adult relationships.
And at the time they were healthy, but in adult relationships we handle things differently.
We hopefully develop emotional intelligence and are able to communicate and talk to people and not manipulate and control.
But if we communicate and say, hey, look that really affects me, what you're doing.
And the other person can say, what do you mean it affects you let's talk about it that's a very exaggerated but normal healthy communication style they just have a conversation.
And yes there might be hurt feelings but you have the conversation and if you don't have the conversation somebody who has poor coping skills and poor emotional intelligence is going to do something else like control or manipulate or lie They're gonna do all these other things so they can stay in their righteousness that happens a lot.
It's people think they're right, so they want to stay in their righteousness and they don't want to believe they're wrong and and this is the other part of it, they believe that you are doing things to yourself otherwise you wouldn't be hurt.
You wouldn't be sad.
You wouldn't feel the way you do what you wouldn't feel confused because all you have to do, and and this is the hurtful person talking, all you have to do is listen to me and we'll both be happy.
That's it. That's all you have to do is just listen to them and you'll both be happy, which is BS.
It's not that at all because most hurtful people, most emotionally abusive people, even when you do exactly what they want you to do, they are not happy.
They'll find something else.
They'll be triggered by something else, or you will not be able to keep up the perfection.
Most people, no one can keep up the perfection, which is why hurtful behavior continues.
And so I started this episode by saying, I'm sorry to give you this news, but if you rely solely on love, the love you have for someone else and do not include other negative qualities of the relationship, they're hurtful behaviors if they have any, they're deceiving behaviors, they're lies whoever you're dealing with that you feel love for and you even profess that love.
I don't want to leave this person, I don't want to hurt this person because I love them so much when you profess that strongly and they are being hurtful or deceptive and dishonest. If they are doing these things to you, and you use love as an override for those behaviors, then you may be inadvertently enabling those bad behaviors because they're not being addressed.
That's why this information might disappoint some people, might be heartbreaking for some people because love should be enough.
I agree, love should be enough if you love me and I love you then we're gonna make sure that we support each other we want to see the other person happy we want to see them succeed we want to see them feel good in themselves but it works both ways both people have to want that for each other and if only one of you wants it then it's not it's not necessarily love.
There might be love toward the person that is being hurtful but what are you getting in return it's not being reciprocated it's just being taken advantage of and when you have love that's being taken advantage of if you don't address that then you may inadvertently enable that.
And somebody out there might ask, how am I enabling they're hurtful behavior, they're the ones doing it.
Well, let me put it this way, again, I'm not saying that you're causing it, I'm saying that by not addressing it, it won't stop on its own.
If you don't address it, it won't stop.
And if you stay with somebody that is hurtful to you, it won't stop until you address it, because there's no accountability.
There's no one there to say, hey that's unacceptable.
You better stop or this isn't gonna work.
You can't treat me like that because I don't want to be treated like that.
I respect myself too much for you to treat me like that, so I expect the same from the person who's supposed to love me and support me.
And if that is something that you don't think you're capable of doing, then we need to have a serious conversation about it.
In my experience working with couples and people I found that the people who were the most compassionate, the most empathetic, the kindest, most generous people were also the type who beat themselves up when they were made to believe that they did something wrong or they believe they could have done better, they could have worked harder, they could have been more perfect and might believe others who say, Hey, you're the bad person.
You're the one causing the problems because they are so critical of themselves and they want to be seen and known as a good person.
The extremes exist at the same time.
The extreme compassion and generosity and loving nature that one may have. They are also the first one to put themselves down.
They are also the ones that are more likely to believe someone who puts them down, who makes them believe they're not good enough, they're not worthy of love and respect.
And I've also found that those types of people are the ones that get into abusive relationships.
Not only those people, but those types of people are the ones that start to believe what the hurtful person is saying about them.
And just to clear this up, if you've never listened to my show or you've never understood this concept.
Someone who loves you doesn't want you to feel hurt.
Just like I was saying earlier.
Somebody who loves you, wants you to be happy.
They want you to experience joy.
Someone who loves you, doesn't wanna see the pain in your face.
They don't want you to feel like you don't matter because you do.
And when you are with somebody who makes you feel like you don't matter, you have to remind them that you do.
And if they don't get that, if they don't get that, you matter, if they don't get that you are worthy of love and respect and kindness, no matter how much you've told them or reminded them or told them that you don't want to be treated that way, then we move to the opposite end of enablement, which is accountability.
That is letting the other person know that if they continue this behavior, if they continue talking to you this way, treating you this way, that you won't allow it and here are the consequences.
Now I know I make this sound easy, it's not easy.
It's not easy especially if you've been in an established relationship where you have been subject to this kind of hurtful behavior.
If you've been in a relationship like that for a while, it might be difficult and it might even be dangerous.
If you're or in a relationship where somebody has been hurtful, something I say in my Love & Abuse podcast all the time, choose your battles wisely.
Because there are some battles that you know you'll lose, either because, A, you don't have the resources, or you don't have the emotional strength to go through it, or you actually have fear that the other person will do something or say something so damaging that it'll just take you down several notches or make you feel even worse inside.
And when you already feel like you're at the bottom of the barrel, it's hard to go any lower and you really don't want to go any lower.
So I understand that this could be a difficult process to go through.
To let somebody know that their behavior is unacceptable.
But if you don't, I'll reiterate, you may inadvertently be enabling it.
And believe me, I'm not blaming you for that.
I'm not blaming anyone who is in a difficult relationship with somebody, whether it be family or romantic or whoever.
I'm not blaming you for not doing what might need to be done or saying what might need to be said.
Because there's something that goes on in the mind of a person they want to have power over you.
A hurtful toxic person wants to know they can control you.
It's called a power over model and when somebody has power over you then you are more likely to do what they want you to do, even reluctantly.
And the techniques or tactics they use to keep you in that disempowered state some of it is so subtle so hard to spot that even professionals miss it I hear this a lot too somebody like a couple goes to a couple's therapist and the therapist is listening to both people but the manipulative person knows how to talk in a way that they sound sane and their manipulative person can coerce the therapist because the therapist may not have been trained in the certain ways of emotionally abusive behavior or the type of hurt that goes on that isn't obvious the subtle stuff like emotional abuse I call emotional
abuse the daily drip feeding of bad or hurtful behavior and what that does it's like emotional acid to your system it just disintegrates you from the inside out and that's like the key to emotionally abusive behavior it is not visible from the outside it is hidden inside you and it comes out in your behaviors and what you say and how you show up in the world and other people are wondering what's going on in your life there's something different about you and this is the point where you can say but I love that person so much. Or, no, something is different about me.
There is something different going on inside me.
I need to address that, because this isn't who I was before.
This isn't who I am.
And I realize there are people that have been in relationships for many years, sometimes decades.
And when you have been in something that long, it's so routine that you may not be able to see what's going on and you may not be able to tell how it started and when it started it's just become normal and that normal might be one person has power and the other person doesn't and that creates a lopsided relationship that will not last or at least will not last with any sense of love and connection and the feeling of support from either side it just becomes two people trying to have an emotional fistfight or the powerless one becoming an emotional punching bag and that is just unacceptable.
You should be in an equal partnership, even with family.
You should have a mutual kindness and respect toward each other.
Doesn't mean you can't get upset with each other.
Doesn't mean you can't argue.
It just means you respect the other person's to be themselves.
And that is, I believe, what we all want.
We all want the right to be who we are.
And when you are around someone who tries to change who you are, unless you're a kid, unless you're a kid that has an adult in their life, a parent, some sort of authority figure, that wants to steer you correctly and hopefully not toxicly.
But if you're a kid, you might have to listen to some rules for a a while, but you'll be an adult someday, and then you can be who you want to be.
I'm not saying you shouldn't be who you want to be now, but sometimes there are rules in place that you might be restricted from doing what you want to do, and sometimes that's a good thing.
Sometimes it's not.
But you will grow up one day, so there's my good news for you.
Someday you'll be old enough to say, no, this is who I want to be.
And that doesn't take too long.
you know I was 18 eventually and then I was able to be whoever I wanted I didn't experience too many restrictions anyway but felt really good to go out into the world and say you know what this is who I am this is who I'm going to show up as and it took me a long time to realize who I was and coming back to what I was saying when you're an adult and you have another adult in your life and you have some sort of relationship with this person both of you should treat each other as equal independent adults they can make their own decisions and support those decisions even if you disagree with them.
I'm not saying this works in every case, I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, I'm not saying there aren't dangerous situations that you might need to help somebody through or guide somebody through or even make them see that it's very dangerous to them but the point is when you become a certain age and you are walking around making friendships and romantic relationships that you are connecting with another adult that will make their own decisions and wants to and they want to make decisions that are right for them just like you want to make decisions that are right for you without feeling like
you're controlled and one of my favorite parts of choosing to be yourself is you get to find out who supports you as you are.
I I love that. I love it because it weeds out the wrong people for you.
It weeds them out of your life and that can be scary because sometimes it's family sometimes it's someone close and if they can't accept you for who you are how you show up in the world then do you want that resistance in your life.
And I'm not saying those people are bad.
Just sometimes we don't get along with people because they can't accept us for who we are.
That works both ways.
Can we accept that person for who they are?
You might say that person's hurtful.
Can you accept that they are hurtful?
Well, I can accept it, but I'm not going to allow it.
There's a difference there.
I can accept them for who they are, how they show up in this world even though they're hurtful and they think they're toxic or dysfunctional but I won't allow it into my life and that is a difference if you can separate that you can get along with people I'm not saying you can't anyway but that is a good way a good start to get along with somebody that you don't agree with is just to accept that's who they are and not allow their negativity into your life not always easy and in fact I don't always follow that rule sometimes I say no don't want them in my life and I'll avoid them and sometimes
that works great sometimes you can't avoid people and you just do your best but that can work sometimes you just keep them out of your life if possible and I'm gonna bring this full circle and come right back to the first point I made which is not allowing love to override the negative behaviors that the dysfunctional, toxic, hurtful behaviors of somebody else because and I've heard this many times I love them so much I want to stay with them I even had somebody write to me a few years ago and say this person does all this bad stuff hurts me and makes me feel sad and lonely and depressed and I
want to marry them and I bite my tongue I don't want to say don't marry that person but I do want to say that.
Personally, I want to say that, but professionally, you know, as a coach, a mentor, whatever, I can't say this is what you need to do.
Because as soon as I do that, then I'm in control of your life, I don't want to be in control of your life, you shouldn't have anybody in control of your life, you should make decisions that are right for you.
I can tell you what will happen.
If you make a decision like that, if somebody says, I love this person so much. And they hurt me in so many ways.
They call me names and they put me down, they make me feel small and often I don't feel loved.
I don't feel important to them.
They disrespect me.
All this negativity!
But I love them so much. And if they say I want to stay with them and I want to get married, I will tell you what will happen.
Marriage amplifies what already exists.
That has been my experience with people with my own life marriage amplifies would already exist in fact in my own life Here's my example.
I used to have these minor triggers when I was dating my first They weren't really minor they were major there were major triggers when I was dating my first soon -to -be wife I'm in my second and final one now Let's just keep it that way But when I was dating my first soon -to -be wife I got triggered early on there were things that she did that triggered me because I was immature.
I just did not have the capacity to be accepting and loving, I was too critical and I was hurtful in many ways.
But I thought okay you know this is what a relationship is all about.
Love will override and love will conquer all.
Love will be the reason we get through all of this.
Then we got married and what marriage did and what marriage does is give you a sense of permanence like this is it and this is how it will be for the rest of our lives and that can be wonderful and it can also be terrifying.
For me I wasn't terrified but I was aware that some of the things that I didn't like about my partner I was emotionally immature I was not accepting of her.
If I was accepting of her none of this stuff would have happened.
There might have been other issues.
But I realized that there was a permanence and that meant the triggers that I was having and her behaviors weren't going to change.
I wanted them to and I believe that over time, maybe they would, you know, maybe her behaviors would change but my triggers would never change because I didn't believe that they should because I felt right, I felt righteous.
But I really believed that something would and that was the error I made when we got married because we had love and I know I'm on thin ice when I talk about this because love does have the capacity to conquer so many things it really does but love shouldn't override the problems that exist in a relationship that haven't been resolved yet those things need to be resolved before a bigger commitment of marriage or if it's the family situation, there might not be a bigger commitment there, but the family is sort of one of those things that some people see as this is forever so the commitment already
feels like it's there.
Does love override all the problems you have with family?
Again it can sometimes it can, but if it doesn't then there's a realization that this will never change and sometimes love makes us believe that it will.
Sometimes love overrides our critical thinking.
And that's a little dangerous especially if you marry into a situation or commit to a situation that is damaging to you and that's really the gauge right?
The gauge is is this hurting me?
Is this causing me to feel less happy, less content, less meaningful, less purposeful in my life.
Am I losing my sense of passion for my existence?
Is it deteriorating?
That's a gauge. Because if you're around somebody or with somebody that is making you feel that way, then it's not going uphill.
It's going downhill.
And it feels like it's getting darker, emotionally darker.
And so that's why I really emphasized at the beginning of this episode and throughout, that love can be a wonderful thing.
And it can also be what shields us from truths that we may need to address.
And sometimes we don't address those truths, because we want the love to continue.
We want that love to be real and if you're dealing with any sort of fear of abandonment or rejection or fear of being alone, you might rely on love so much that you allow so much other negativity into your life as well, and I'm only talking about the relationships that aren't healthy.
There are many healthy relationships where love perseveres and you can get through anything and that's awesome.
If that is working for you, you'll feel it.
You'll know it! There's your gauge.
Remember your You will feel the build -up, the amplified good feelings, the wonderful positive feelings that we should all feel when somebody loves us.
But if you feel that deterioration inside of you, then there are things that need to be addressed and you can't use love as the reason to continue a deteriorating situation, especially when it's deteriorating you.
So I'm going to wrap this up with some of my notes here.
First thing I wrote is love for another person should be the result of respecting kindness from that other person.
It shouldn't be what overrides a lack of respect and kindness just because your heart is big enough to hold it.
Love for another person should be the result of respecting kindness from that other person and love should not be what overrides a lack of respecting kindness, just because your heart is big enough to hold it.
Love leads to bonding and long -lasting togetherness, but love should not be the sole reason to stay together.
I know that might rub some people the wrong way, but listen to the episode again, you understand where I'm coming from.
And love should never, ever be more important than how someone treats you.
They aren't separate entities.
one cannot exist without the other meaning one who makes your life difficult maybe puts you down and intimidates you confuses you makes you feel wrong responsible and generally unhappy or makes you feel anything less than worthy and lovable is not loving.
A person who makes you feel any of that stuff or think any of that stuff about yourself is not loving you.
They're not be honest with yourself.
Don't try to ignore it.
Remember that you deserve to feel loved and worthy, and when the person you're with isn't capable of making you feel that, that's their dysfunction, not yours.
We are born to love and connect with one another.
That doesn't mean we have to be in a relationship, or even around people.
We can make a choice, that's the whole thing, we can make a choice.
but when we do make a choice to love and connect with somebody else and we want to see them happy and do everything we can to support their happiness, they should want to do that for us as well.
If they don't do that or worse, they mistreat us.
Hey, we can still love them, but we don't have to accept the behavior in our life.
That is sort of along the lines of accepting someone but not allowing that behavior into our life, not allowing the hurtful behaviors.
My goal with this episode is to make sure that anyone who needs to hear this understands that love should not override mistreatment or hurtful or abusive behavior.
Loving behaviors result in love.
Hurtful behaviors result in hurt.
Those are two separate entities that can coexist but love shouldn't be the automatic winner.
If you really want love to win, let the other person know how you feel love.
Define it for them so that they understand how you define love.
And once they know how you define love, they'll know how to treat you and they'll want to treat you that way because they'll know you appreciate it.
If someone chooses not to treat you the way you define love, even after you've told them what love is to you, then you know they either aren't capable of it or they just don't have it in them to be that way.
And that's the point where we have to look at the facts and realize that not everyone is capable of loving others in a healthy way.
They can learn and they can heal if they want to take that route.
But if they choose not to love you in the way you defined love, how you experienced love to them, then if they hurt you they are consciously doing so.
Meaning they know how you want to be loved and how you define love, but if they hurt you instead and don't treat you the way you define love they are doing so consciously and you won't be able to change people like that no matter how much you love them I hope this has been helpful it's a very deep topic and I know there's some controversy in what I was saying today because some people will say love conquers all some people will tell me love will conquer all love is the answer love is a wonderful experience love is what we should all feel toward another human being toward other living beings and everyone
and everything I wish we could all feel that way but it doesn't happen and when it doesn't happen how do we deal with it what do we do with that and that's what I'm here to share because not everyone's gonna show you love the way you would like to experience it.
And the way you would like to experience it is very likely not unreasonable.
It's very likely easy.
In fact, most people who listen to this show, I'm willing to bet that their definition of love, your definition of love, is probably quite simple.
Just do these three things and I will feel loved.
How come you can't do these three things?
Be honest, be respectful, be kind.
That might be something that I put on the top of my list of values for a loving relationship.
Just be honest with me.
Be respectful. Be kind.
That's all I care about.
I mean, let's laugh, too.
That's important to me, too, but do I need it to feel loved?
I certainly know what it's like to not feel love.
I certainly know what it's like to feel the opposite.
And when that happens, it's a lot easier to define what you want.
When you're in a relationship that you can engage is unhealthy for you, because you feel it.
When you're in that type of relationship, it's a lot easier to look at what's happening in the relationship and make the determination, make the criteria of what you would rather have. And, again, it's usually pretty darn simple stuff.
It's just that some people can't get past their own dysfunctions and unhealthy coping mechanisms. They don't know how to deal with challenges and they don't know how to share their true words and express themselves in a way that is vulnerable and connecting.
Some people don't know how to do that.
Some people are afraid to do that.
And those people are capable, so many people are capable of healing, but when they choose not to, and they continue being hurtful toward you, and you really have to prioritize yourself.
Prioritize yourself and those you care about most so that you don't expose yourself and don't inadvertently enable behaviors that you don't deserve.
I appreciate you. Thanks for listening to another episode of The Overwhelmed Brain.
If you find value in this show, visit MoreTOB .com.
That's where you can become a patron and give a one -time donation or give monthly There are people doing that right now and I appreciate all of you.
Thank you patrons for supporting this show That's over at more to OB calm and for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship Listen to this one but also if you are in the weeds of one right now Listen to my other podcast called love and abuse over at love and abuse comm we get into deeper aspects of control manipulation, emotional abuse, and just over all difficulties and complexities of relationships.
That's loveandabuse .com.
And if you know you're the difficult one in the relationship, join the program that is helping a lot of people heal over at healedbeing .com.
And with that always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions.
Be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want.
always take steps to grow and evolve.
You are powerful beyond measure and above all and this is something I absolutely know to be true about you.
You are
