5 ways YOU just might be the Common Denominator
If you’ve been through hell… meaning, almost too many breakups to count… so many, that you are near convinced that you’re better at surviving them than you are at the relationships themselves… you’ve probably thought to yourself more than once, what do they all have in common? And from there, you start to piece together your type. Tall, dark and handsome bad boys who like sushi and burgers and crime dramas and are handy with the tools, and, and, and…
But as is so often the case, the most obvious thing seems to take for-freaking-ever to finally dawn on you. That being… What do they have in common?
Well… YOU!
More specifically, you just might be the common denominator in your breakup/relationship track record if…
1. It feels like there is always drama
You would swear to God and on your sweet fur baby’s life (Sorry, Bugatti ☹) that you are not a Drama Queen. You adamantly declare that you are full up to there with it. But there it always seems to be, nipping at your heels. When do you settle for drama, when what you really want is excitement?
And are you still playing along by reacting? Wanting to have the last word? Needing to be right? There is a super simple cure for drama: Do not play into it. Do not engage. (Super simple for me to say, right?)
When do you settle for drama,
when what you really want is excitement?
2. You give away your power
Frankly, you give them their way pretty much All. The. Time. You don’t voice your opinion, clearly ask for what you want. It really boils down to being a people-pleaser. Stop it. Before it turns into resentment and self-loathing.
Sometimes women who speak their mind and stand up for themselves get labeled a bitch. Whatever. If that happens to you, can you wear it like a badge of honour?
3. You didn’t just compromise. You compromised you
Let me guess… you hate conflict, right? You would do just about anything to avoid it? So, in the name of harmony and getting along and meeting somebody else half way, somewhere along the way, compromising what you like and want and need slid down that super slippery slope to compromising who you are and what you did and what you value. Do you lose you, when you’re in a relationship?
Do you lose you,
when you’re in a relationship?
4. You think you love hard, but it comes across needy and smothering
When you love, you’re fierce and intense and all-in about it. You just can’t do it halfway. And you believe the object of that love and affection should feel secure and flattered about it, right?
How’s your green thumb? Whoa! Why’s that coming at you out of left field? Because… “they” say how you do one thing is how you do everything. Do even your cacti die because you dote on them and water them and feed them and move them from the sunshine to the dark? Does that fur baby you swore an oath on earlier struggle to get out of your arms when you just can’t hug it and cuddle it enough? Does your love have a white-knuckle grip, for fear of what will happen if you let go?
It sounds so cliché… but it’s also so true: “If you love something, set it free…”
Okay. Are you done gagging now? Let’s carry on, then.
5. Your need to be in control
On first blush, maybe you think needing to be in control is contradictory to giving away your power. That power and control just seem to go together. Maybe you did (and still do occasionally) try to pull off some passive-aggressive bullshit. Close enough?
But I more mean being in control of the outcome. When you set a goal or start something new, you are gonna finish it. At all costs. You are no quitter.
So maybe even when you saw that the relationship was starting to go south, your solution was to keep doing what you were doing. Only harder. It needed more. For you to give more and do more and put even more into it.
But they say you can’t fix a problem with the same thinking that created it. What if you were true to yourself, did your best and then… surrendered?
What does it mean to you to surrender?
Bottom line:
The good news is that, where you are the common denominator, that is stuff that is in your control to do something about. Isn’t there comfort and hope in that thought?
Ready for more healthy relationships? Join me in a short video series created to get you started, making up with you. CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR GIFT. From me… to you.
-Patricia