It doesn’t.
It’s a bit like having a few bad jobs, being unemployed for a bit, and then getting a nice job that, while it provides you with a bit of money and some areas of satisfaction, is still not the perfect job for you. It’s not the best use of your talents and you’re not growing. As lovely as this person might be, if it’s not a mutual relationship with love, care, trust, respect, and shared values, you’re both inadvertently hiding out in a relationship that isn’t the best expression of your respective selves.
Remember that incompatibility means that you both want different things, and that can happen even when two people feel a great deal for each other. And, just because someone is nice, lovely, etc. and you still want to end the relationship, it does not mean that you like being treated badly or that you don’t like “nice people!” You also don’t owe someone a relationship just because they’re nice, or because relative to your exes, they seem like Angel! Don’t choose a partner based on your ex; choose them for them.
You need to love and respect that person (accept them for who they are, and be able to live harmoniously with your shared values) for it to go somewhere good. It doesn’t make you a “bad person” for wanting to end it with a nice person. The honorable, loving thing to do when you know that a relationship isn’t it for you is to set you both free so that you’re not blocking each other from being with the people who will make you happy.
Next thing you know, you feel trapped, guilty, and eventually resentful.
Next thing you know, you feel trapped, guilty, and eventually resentful.
When you know what it’s like to have your heart broken to feel disappointed because of that gap between your hopes and expectations and reality or you know that something isn’t right but still hope things will work out, it’s easy to see why you would be reluctant to break up with someone. However, it’s critical to recognize that as painful as past breakups might have been, it was the right thing for the relationship to end if it wasn’t mutual. You have to be careful of projecting your past experiences and fears onto someone else, blinding you to what you need to do.
This relationship isn’t the same as your last unsuccessful relationship, although it will end up that way if you try to avoid the inevitable. The danger we run when we are not honest about how we feel and when we delay doing what we need to do is that we do more damage than we would have if we’d acknowledged and shared our feelings, even though it might not have been very pretty, even though it might have led to some awkward or even painful discussions, and yes, even though it might have led to the end of the relationship.
By putting ourselves in a situation where we are going through a cycle of feeling temporarily re-invested in the relationship, only for the same old feelings and the realization that it isn’t working to return, we get into the habit of repeatedly calling the relationship into question. We cannot be committed or intimate if, as much as we might get on with someone and like aspects of the relationship, we’ve broken up with them many times in our head, maybe a few times in real life, or dropped numerous hints in the hopes that they’ll spare us the task or that they’ll, at the very least, figure out what they need to get right so that we don’t have to leave but we also don’t have to get really vulnerable and be direct.
Of course, what’s likely to follow is that you’ll subconsciously act up so that they’ll do what you won’t.
And the sequel continue....
- y.m.p -
