These are my personal opinions always secret professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well -being.
Well this is a tough one.
I received a message from someone who says they were in a relationship with somebody for over 10 years and that person cheated on them multiple times with multiple people.
They broke up and the person who wrote to me didn't take the breakup well saying that I felt like I lost it all when we tried going our separate ways but that didn't go well and I'm still living with him even though he has told me he no longer wants to be with me.
So they are living together and it's been a couple years since the actual breakup and and they still feel stuck and have unresolved feelings.
And their question, which surprised me a little bit, said, how can I remain patient through this process?
So this isn't the main topic of today's episode, but I wanted to get this out of the way.
I don't even know if I have a good answer because I probably need more information, even though it sounds like I have all the information I need from what you shared, but your question is how can I remain patient through this process.
So my question is, what is the process?
What is the process you're going through?
Patience for what? What's going to happen?
Are you waiting to leave?
Are you saving money?
Are you making an arrangement to leave?
Or are you waiting for him to change his mind?
That's the one piece of information I don't have and why it's difficult to answer the question.
How can you remain patient through this process?
Because I don't know the process you're referring to.
My fear is you're waiting for him to do something different or you're waiting for him to change his mind or say something to you.
That's my fear because if you wait for someone else to change, you could wait indefinitely forever because they may never change if someone doesn't change you wait forever it's a word that doesn't really apply but you know forever is forever and ever and ever that doesn't really apply but if you say it if you speak it like this isn't going to change ever it will be this way forever.
If you say that to yourself...
This is how I make decisions when I need to know something.
I need clarity. I'll say to myself, this will never change.
The situation I'm in right now will never ever change.
And I could be wrong.
I'm telling you this.
I don't say this to myself, I don't say and I be wrong," I say, I could be wrong to you, which is okay because I'm still making a decision, I'm still moving forward, and if I move forward today and something changes tomorrow, I can make another decision, I can change my mind, I can do something different.
Yeah, but what if I move?
What if I find a new job, find a new relationship?
Well, are you happy?
That's the next question.
Are you happy in the decision that you made?
Because if something changes or someone changes or someone says, I want you back, like in a relationship for example, are you happy now without them?
And would you be happier with them?
Because you can make a new decision based on new information.
So you make your decision today.
And this is my personal approach. It doesn't have to be yours.
But my personal approach is I make a decision today based on what I know to be true today because I don't know what tomorrow brings and all I have is what I know and what I've known up until this point so if somebody is in my life and I've known them for years and nothing has changed with them my decision for whatever I'm gonna do with my life is going to be based on what it has been up till today and so that's That's how I move on.
That's how I make a decision.
I tell myself, this will never change.
This is how it will be forever.
I just plant that word in my head.
This is how it will be forever.
And yes, like I said, I could be wrong, but I'll make another decision if I'm wrong.
But right now, I know I'm right.
Because this is what I have. This is what I see in front of me.
This is all I have. If we went to court and somebody said this is the evidence we have you can't say in court yeah but what if tomorrow you find new evidence it doesn't work you can't say that it won't it won't hold up I object that's what you'll hear I object that doesn't apply we could find evidence tomorrow we could find evidence 10 years from now but we don't have it here today so I don't want to overemphasize that, that's how I make decisions, that's how I move forward. So that's my first comment on this person's message.
Is that if you're waiting for him, if you're waiting for something to change for you, my approach, and you can choose to take this approach if you want or not, but it has saved me so much ruminating, so much waiting around for somebody else, it saves you time, it saves you energy, it saves your heart.
Sometimes it saves you money.
Sometimes you have to spend money, but sometimes that's what you need to do to move forward. And so this is the path I would take.
And so the second part of my answer to this person, how can I remain patient through this process?
Again I don't know your process, but if I were you, I would look at my calendar and say this is the day things have to change or things will change not waiting for someone else but what you're going to do with your life this is the day put a big X on it so today is what October 8th 2024 I'm looking at January 1st 2025 and I'm gonna put a big X there and say this is the day things change if that person changes or this thing changes before then great I'll deal with it then but until January 1st, the door is open to any possibility but after that I make my move.
I do my thing. The question or fear or concern that might come up is what if I don't have the resources?
What if I don't have the money?
What if I have no place to go?
What if all these questions might come up because you've set a date in the future, You can plan ahead and you start planning as if you were going to do it tomorrow.
Well, tomorrow I don't have anything tomorrow.
I have nothing available already.
It's going to get your brain.
It's going to move it into high gear.
When you say, okay, if this happened tomorrow, what should I do?
What will I do? What resources can I get?
what could I do if this were to happen tomorrow and I had no choice but to face it." That's why I also like the somewhat morbid question, what if that person died today?
What would I do next?
The reason that question helps me is because I now have to face the reality that it's happening.
I'm telling my brain this is happening and I have no choice.
And when you have no choice, when you're back against the wall, you find resources, you figure it out, you find a way.
And sometimes or often it's not easy.
It's not easy what you have to do to get through it.
But when you're backed against the wall, your brain's gonna go into high gear and it's gonna come up with something.
And I have done this in my life I have forced myself into a decision like this and into a I have no choice but to make this decision now and what ends up happening is your brain starts to consider things that wouldn't have considered before because it didn't want to go there.
If your brain doesn't want to go there, you'll very likely not consider it.
I can't go there because I don't want to live in my car so you're gonna just scratch that off your list. I don't want to live in my car so I'm not gonna go there.
What else? And when our brain does that it doesn't explore all the possibilities.
There's a possibility, yeah, but I don't want to live in my car, but there's a possibility that that could be a reality.
But I don't want to think about it.
I don't want to consider it.
And if you don't consider it, there's no other branch of thought.
If you don't consider it, there's no other branch of thought that leads into another thought.
That leads into another thought.
For example, when I met Asha, my wife.
It was about 11 years ago now, so 10 years ago.
It's about 10 years ago now.
And we met on the phone.
Well, we met online.
And then we met on the phone.
And after a few months, we were friends.
And after a few months, we thought, hey, this would be nice if our relationship developed.
If we got into something deeper.
Because I just wanted to say friends back then and she was cool with that and but then we got closer and so she said well it's too bad you're so far away cuz I was in New Hampshire she was in Georgia and I said yeah but I really want to discover who I am without somebody else in my life because this is the first time I was telling her this was the first time that I've been single I was divorced and I was healing from that and learning a lot about myself and learning about my own behaviors and how it created a lot of problems in my relationships and I decided to be single.
But when we thought about what would it be like to date then we thought of those possibilities and I told her you know after we had some talk about this dating thing I told her you know this isn't gonna work because I'm not gonna move to Georgia and you're not gonna move to New Hampshire so I guess this is it.
And we We were both kind of bummed.
We wanted to find out if this could work but I said, I'm not moving and you can't move.
You have a kid down there and that's great.
I support that and this is just the way it is I guess.
And it was, like I said, it kind of sad but we both agreed that, okay, this isn't gonna go anywhere.
And so I don't know if it was that night or the next day I called her back and I said, you know, I don't know what I was thinking.
I mean I said I'm not going to move to Georgia but that doesn't mean I can't come down and meet you that doesn't mean that we can't spend time together that doesn't mean even if I didn't want to move to Georgia that I couldn't live down there for a while and if I didn't like it I could move back and I definitely wasn't overflowing with funds so moving down there would have felt permanent but I wasn't even allowing my brain to go there.
I had already eliminated that possibility that we couldn't date because I'm not moving and she's not moving.
So I took that off the table which took everything else off the table.
Every line of thinking, every branch of thought was off the table and so that's when we agreed not to look into dating but the next day I called her and I said I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier I could see you and if we got along and you really were a great match or we were a great match for each other then maybe my mind would change.
Maybe I would move and I had all these thoughts that I never had before because I decided to put the thoughts that I didn't want to consider on the table.
Sometimes we have to do that.
We have to put the thoughts we don't want to consider on the table because if we don't we may not realize that there are other options.
That there are other ways to think about it.
That we sometimes have to get out of our own way to get what we want.
And that's what I did.
I got out of my own way.
I said, okay, my objection is I'm not moving down there, but what if we meet and it's a great relationship and it's totally worth it.
And I decided to try it out and it was totally worth it changed my life.
But What if I stayed?
What if I chose not to date her?
And what if I just clung on to the realization that I'm not ever moving and she isn't either?
Where would I be today?
Where would she be today?
Would we be happier?
Would we be miserable?
What? I don't know.
And I don't have to find out because I decided to put a thought that I didn't want to consider on the table and find out where it went.
And when I put it on the table, new ideas came to mind.
that new idea, one of them was, if I don't like it, I'll just move back.
It's not always easy.
And maybe I wouldn't have had the funds to move back or maybe I would move down there and we wouldn't get along for awhile, but now I moved down here, but I get another job and I was okay making money and whatever, you know.
I didn't know. I didn't know what I didn't know.
So I didn't have it on the table.
But when I put it on the table, all these other thoughts came to mind.
So that's my final piece of advice for that person who asked, how can I remain patient through this process?
Patience is very difficult when you're waiting.
That reminds me of what I heard a kid say in a waiting room at a hospital once.
He said, Why does waiting have to take so long?
I just laughed, I was trying to make sense of that comment.
Why does waiting have to take, so I couldn't make sense of it.
It put me in some cognitive dissonance for a moment.
So I always think about that line.
Why does waiting have to take so long?
That's a kid's perspective for sure but waiting doesn't have to take so long if we're gonna play off of that.
When we decide we're gonna move forward anyway.
We're gonna set the date and move forward on that day or we're going to act as if we have no choice but to make a decision.
Now are very soon tomorrow or the next day, but very, very soon, and then make the decision.
So there's that. I hope that helps you.
Thank you so much for that person who shared that with me.
Good luck with that.
Stay strong and do what's right for you.
You are worthy of so much more.
You are worthy of kindness and respect and you are lovable.
And the person you're with, isn't capable of giving you that.
They've proven it time and time again.
So don't base your worth or your loveability on a person who isn't capable of giving it to you.
Now I received another message from someone I'm just gonna read you most of it.
This person said I'm an old listener from 2017 that started listening to you again.
Last year, I moved from this date to this date.
I won't tell you the states to keep their anonymity.
This year, a relative of mine who supported me through my depression moved here too.
She only knows the past version of me and constantly triggers me by minimizing my feelings or making it about how I make her feel bad when I'm upset.
I also feel like I'm a pushover when she tells me to do things because this is how I used to be when I was in the healing stage.
While I'm grateful for her support, our bond now feels restrictive.
She shares embarrassing, untrue stories about me at family events because she wants the attention.
This makes me annoyed.
She's the everyone likes her type of person because she's more extroverted while I'm introverted and harder to approach. I've been trying to disconnect lately.
To what extent are my boundaries or the things I don't want to do too much or too offensive?
Not sure I understand that but I'm gonna read that again.
To what extent are my boundaries or the things I don't want to do too much or too offensive?
Do you have any advice on how to cope with this?
Maybe. Maybe I do. First of all you said you feel like a pushover when she tells you to do things because this is how you used to be while you were in the healing stage.
I'm going to ask you and you'll just have to answer me out wherever you are in the world you say you feel like a pushover does that mean you are that's a question for you I'm not trying to say you are I'm just asking you to find out how you feel about that what do you think about that do you think you're a pushover because the only reason I asked that is because if you feel like you are a pushover you might be feeling like you're allowing things to happen that you don't want to happen and in your message here you are saying things like she triggers me and minimizes me and she tells untrue stories
about me and she annoys me she wants the attention and I've been trying to disconnect so it does kind of spell out and I don't like the word pushover but that's your words I'm gonna use it I'm trying to spell out that maybe it's not that you feel like you are you're a pushover it's that you are being one to her and I'm not I swear I'm not calling you that I'm saying that if you feel like it you you probably know that you are doing things to allow her to steamroll you and that's what I'm reading to so if anything I'm confirming your suspicions not that you're a pushover but that she is trying to
override you she is trying to have power over you and when someone has power over you you become a pushover unless you stop it stopping it is the hard part right this is what you're having a challenge with but again I'm not too crazy about the term pushover because that almost makes it sound like you're letting it happen and I I don't see that at all I just see that you may not have of some tools that you need, or maybe don't know how to stop this from happening.
It sounds like you have healed in some ways, which is fantastic.
And now you're dealing with somebody who knows the old version of you.
I totally get this, I 100 % understand this.
Because when I was younger, I was in my 20s, I moved away from home, 1 ,000 miles away from home, from my entire family.
Except I went to live with my dad in Florida, but my entire family and my stepfather, my mom, my sisters and brothers, they were all up north, and so I was away from them for so long.
And after many years, I mean every time I went up to visit them, I was still the same kid, but there was a point like in 2008 or 2007, I started making some really big changes.
And those changes affected how I showed up in the world.
And then a year or two later, I started learning about personal boundaries and realized, and this may be important for you too, I realized that I was no longer going to compromise my integrity or my dignity, or my character.
I was no longer going to compromise those things because it felt really good being in a space of integrity.
It felt really good being myself.
I felt really good in my own skin.
I felt comfortable for the first time in a long time because I finally learned what personal boundaries were all about and And to me boundaries are all about what you will and won't accept in your life.
Will I accept this person's behavior?
Will I choose to allow it in my life?
And coming to terms with that, coming to terms with my own personal boundaries where I told myself, no, I won't allow this kind of whatever toxic behavior dysfunctional behavior in my life, then what am I gonna do about it when it happens?
What am I going to do about it when somebody says something toxic to me?
Because they believe I am that pushover, like I used to be.
They used to be the biggest people pleaser.
I used to be that person so they know me as that person.
They've always known me as that person.
So who am I going to be when I see them again?
That was the big decision and that is a decision I have I've tested many times, many scary times, in front of people that knew me as the old me.
My mom was easy, she accepts me no matter what.
My stepfather, different story, because now I have personal boundaries.
Dysfunctional, toxic behaviors aren't allowed in my life anymore.
And when it comes to toxic or dysfunctional behaviors, it doesn't matter who does them, It doesn't matter the person's name.
It doesn't matter how they're related to me or not.
The behaviors matter.
So it doesn't matter who does the behaviors.
My boundaries have to do with the behaviors themselves.
And when you make your boundaries about behaviors, you don't treat people differently.
You treat yourself differently.
You don't look at someone specifically because you know them differently than other people, you look at yourself differently, you tell yourself this behavior is not allowed in my life, so I'm going to either speak up or walk away or whatever you need to do to make that boundary clear that it's not acceptable in your life.
So if one of my relatives wants to push a boundary with me or violate one of my values my first thought is I don't want that behavior in my life it has nothing to do with the person I'm not going to treat that person any differently than I would somebody else so in this person's case if a complete stranger we're telling untrue stories about you at the dinner table for example what would you say would you allow it to happen would you just listen to them and laugh just to be polite?
Or would you say no that's not true.
That's not what happened at all.
This is what happened.
It doesn't matter the person because what's also happening here is not only are they treating you like the old you, the person they've always known, you might be treating them like the old them, the person you've always known.
And they may not have changed, it's true.
But the way you treat them, the way you behave around them, shows that you still maybe react the same way you've always reacted with them.
And if you want to see this a little deeper and maybe false, this could be wrong.
But you could look at it as you don't trust them with your truth.
You don't trust what will happen when you speak your truth.
Because you see them the same way they've always been.
And again, they may never have changed, they may not be changed at all.
And they probably aren't, to be honest, but let's just say that you say, look, I don't like when you say things at the dinner table that aren't true.
And please stop doing that.
And I'm not saying that you have to give a reason, you don't have to say, and this is why you just say, please stop doing that.
And if they say, well, it's fun, and I'm enjoying myself and it's just for laughs, then you can give them the reason.
Well, it hurts me. It feels disrespectful.
I don't want stories about me that aren't true to be told and that's not true so I respectfully request that you stop doing that.
You may or may not want to say that to that person, but again what would you say to a stranger?
What would you say to someone you really didn't like at all or didn't have many connections with or any connection with and they just started spotting something off.
My point is to focus back on yourself and tell yourself these are my boundaries and no matter who does them this is how I will enforce those boundaries.
I like to enforce boundaries with love for others.
I love you please stop doing that.
I love you and that is disrespectful to me so will you please stop doing that because I want to keep our connection I want to keep this relationship that we have but But by doing that, it doesn't feel very good to me.
So I'm respectfully requesting that you stop doing that, please.
Because someone who cares about you, someone who loves you, will honor your request. Someone who wants to control you will not.
And if you're in a situation with somebody who wants to control you, then what kind of relationship do you really have with them?
and because you don't deserve to be controlled you don't want to be controlled I'm assuming then that's what you have to say to some people who appear to be wanting to control you but sometimes people need to be reminded or told for the first time what your boundaries are.
That really hurts when you say that.
Would you please not say that again?
Hey, that really hurts when you tell untrue stories about me could you please not do that anymore.
Somebody who loves you, somebody who cares about you and respects you is gonna say I'm so sorry I didn't know that hurt I will definitely stop doing that.
But someone who wants to control you and someone who doesn't really care about your boundaries which you should probably know about them that will reveal who they are and then you have a choice whether you want to keep them in your life or not.
That sounds very harsh or direct, but it might need to happen because you have to consider what kind of relationship you have with somebody who sure may seem helpful in some ways but if they, if this person, your relative really does care about you then they are also going to come through when you tell them how you want to be treated.
They're going to come through because someone who cares about you and loves you and really wants you to feel good, really wants you to be happy, they're going to abide by your wishes in you know the sense of what you want for yourself how you want to be treated.
That's what loving, supporting people do.
So my suggestion to your question, what extent are my boundaries, how much is too offensive my suggestion is is not to offend anyone it's to express what you want and find out if the other person will comply or let you know that they won't they either going to say I'm so sorry I didn't know or they're not going to comply with that they're going to say they don't care or or you're being ridiculous or you're being too sensitive, which is right in alignment with what you said earlier, or at least what I said earlier in your message about that person minimizing you, the minimizing your feelings and how
it makes her feel when you're upset.
So that is showing me already that she probably won't respond well to you requesting your boundaries to be honored.
And again that tells you what kind of person this is because sometimes even the most helpful people are doing it to fulfill something in themselves and it's not really a gift without strings it's a gift with strings.
And I'm not saying that this is what happened at all maybe she was very unconditional in the way she helped you and it all went well.
But remember that if you suddenly got a Let's just say that you suddenly get a headache and she said, oh, I can help you with that.
Here, put some ice on your forehander or whatever she suggested.
And it worked and you can thank her and this is great.
It's so wonderful that she did that.
If she cares about you to cure your headache, she should also care about you in a way that makes you feel good inside because if you feel bad by her behavior and she is a person that wants you to feel good she is going to show up in that way when you say it makes me feel bad when you do that.
Again that may not work because it sounds like she wants to be in this position of power or authority or control over you and losing that might make her feel insecure and having it makes her feel better about herself.
I don't know what's going on inside of her but there's Nothing wrong about telling somebody how you want to be treated, there's nothing wrong with that at all and in fact, anyone who loves you and cares about you wants to know.
If my wife, if she tells me how to treat her, that's what I do.
She has told me at least I won't tell you the number of times she's told me a number of times how she wants to be treated and I have complied.
She has said things almost word for word, when you do that, it makes me feel X, could you please not do that anymore?
And I'm surprised and I say, wow, I'm so sorry.
I never want you to feel like that.
I will absolutely do that or we'll have a different conversation than I do.
That's what I'll say, oh, I did that.
I don't remember doing that.
I don't believe I did it.
you know, might turn into a deeper conversation where I just don't believe it.
And then we'll talk about it.
And I'll say, I never realized I did that.
I'm so sorry, I will definitely watch that.
It usually happens after an argument.
We'll be talking or arguing about something.
And at the end, I'll say I am so sorry.
You know, if I did something that was hurtful to her.
And of course, I don't want her to hurt.
So I'm going to say I will definitely do my best to make sure that doesn't happen again I'll say something like that and I'm serious I will be serious because I care about her I love her the bigger picture for me in this relationship is love and connection and enjoying each other's time and seeing her happy it's probably my number one value in this relationship as long as she's happy I'm happy it's such a simple philosophy it's a simple concept.
And because I do that she does the same for me.
She supports me, she loves me, she wants to see me happy.
And so I believe when you give a gift like that, wanting to see someone happy, they usually want to give it back.
So I hope the person who wrote to me, I hope that your cousin wants to give you happiness.
I hope that they want to see you happy.
It sounds like they did at first. They you're going through and maybe they don't know how to do that anymore and they need to be reminded and as a heads up you might lose this relationship you might say how you would like to be treated and this is why I say honor your boundaries with love for others you honor yourself saying this is what I would like you to do this is how I'd like to be treated or how I'd like to be talked about, would you please do that?
I mean it's a very simple thing and someone who cares about you should be able to pull that off easily without question, without being upset because they care about you.
But if they're dysfunctional and they're still working on that, trying to heal through their own stuff, or they're toxic and they don't care about your feelings, they're in it for themselves, there is a risk.
You might lose the relationship and that is a risk I've taken over and over again.
I almost lost one. I don't really know the status of it right now but I'm working on it.
And I did lose another one because I chose to.
I still honored myself with love for them.
I distanced myself from them, and there are relationships in your life that you might have to do that.
You just might have to show people what's acceptable and what's not.
And those who care about you will want you to have your boundaries and honor those boundaries Because they want to see you happy.
I Wish you the best with this.
Thank you so much for writing and thanks for that first person who wrote as well really tough subjects Thanks for again for writing and thanks for tuning in to another episode of the overwhelmed brain I want to thank the patrons and the people who donate There are quite a few of you who donate monthly and I am so grateful for you I don't read the names every every week I used to but I just wanted to let you know I'm very touched that you offer anything very touched and surprised that you support the show like that.
So thank you again patrons and if you want to support the show or you find value in what I talk about here head over to more to be calm.
There are options to do so over there.
Thank you again patrons.
I'm very appreciative.
and for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship listen to my other podcast called Love and Abuse over at 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 and 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 amazing.
