Abusive Relationships Hurt Everyone Involved and More…

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Everybody talks about how they want to have a good romantic relationship in their life.

But what do we mean when we talk about a “good relationship?”

From what I’ve learned personally in life and the experiences that my clients have generously shared with me, I can say that a “good relationship” promotes both members of the relationship.

It’s supportive of their efforts to achieve both shared and personal goals. It offers strength and confidence to both parties.

It encourages them to overcome obstacles and prevents them from giving up on their personal and shared dreams.

So, tell me! Are you in a “good relationship?”

Are you dancing the Grand Tango of life together?

Hand in hand, moving harmoniously towards achieving each of your personal and shared goals, protecting each other from others’ attacks?

If not, let’s find out if you are in an abusive relationship.

When we talk about abuse, often people think of physical or sexual abuse.

Yes, of course, such heinous behaviors exist and are dreadful acts by which abusers control those under their oppression.

However, let’s not forget the ghastly effects of emotional and verbal abuse on those who have been rendered powerless.

Verbal and emotional abuse are very dangerous as they cause severe damage to the survivors’ self-esteem, self-worth, and dignity.

As a result, the survivors won’t dare to walk away from the abuser and take advantage of the opportunities life offers to them, because they’ve come to believe they are not worthy of those opportunities.

If you are being emotionally abused, leaving seems to be the hardest thing to do.

Remembering that YOU are worthy of happiness, will give you the courage to fight back and demand the abuser to stop the criticism and the emotional outbursts.

Reminding yourself of your strength, abilities and past successes will also inspire you to claim your life and power back and take action: attempt to amend or rebuild the ruins of what’s left of your relationship, or walk away.

I know it’s easier said than done.

But it is possible and you can do it!

Think about what it is you are teaching your abuser and your children, who are witnessing the abuse, by staying in abusive or unhappy relationships.

Are you giving the message to your abuser that it is ok to treat you with disrespect or harm you?

Are you teaching your kids to be submissive and endure abuse?

See, staying in an abusive relationship and allowing it to continue, is bad for every single one involved in that relationship.

All members of the family will give up on the dream of happiness.

They will just succumb to the status quo; a learned helplessness!

These relationships are also very damaging to those who love you and silently witness the dreadful traces of the abuse on your body and emotions but can’t intervene without your request or permission.

If you are convinced you are in an abusive relationship, then the first step is to remember that the way you treat yourself tells others how to treat you.

Take care of yourself.

Be respectful of your needs and wants, and others will follow that route; as a result, everybody ends up feeling happy.

Be kind to yourself, make plans to fulfill your needs, wants, dreams and desires.

Love and kindness start with you being kind and loving to yourself.

If your partner fails to show you the respect and affection you expect, then maybe it’s time to reevaluate your relationship.

When trying to stand up for yourself, don’t get too focused on fighting the Darkness.

Darkness wants you to exhaust yourself investing all your thoughts, actions, energy and time in the battle.

Don’t forget that by focusing on fighting the Darkness, you actually reify it!

Soon you will feel too tired to fight back and give in…

Don’t waste all your time and energy fighting the Darkness.

Stand up to it, but at the same time, be the Light! 

Spread hope, flourish and move towards achieving your goals and succeed!  

If that seems not likely in presence of your abuser, then get up and leave.

Talk with your friends or family members about the abuse.

There is no shame in being abused!

You should be proud of yourself for surviving all that abuse!

Find as many allies as you can.

If no one is available, call domestic violence hotlines and get some good information as to your rights and available legal aid, and if needed, shelters for survivors of domestic violence.

It’s ok if you are scared if you worry about the future for yourself or your kids.

What you can count on is that if you don’t take action, nothing is going to change!

Martin Luther King says: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

Be calm and do not antagonize your abuser.

Make plans and act accordingly, making sure that you will be safe in the process.

As Henry James eloquently says: “The right time is anytime that one is still so lucky to have.”

Make sure you know that you are worthy of happiness!

Then, get to work and make yourself happy, and Expect Miracles…

Deciding together: Can we be strong and independent, and yet make mutually satisfying decisions as partners?

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What I have witnessed in a lot of unhappy relationships is that two people come together to live a happy life but they don’t know how to establish and maintain a collaborative relationship!

So, now that they are together, they bring in to the relationship, their separate individual lives with their independent decision-making styles they have had before their togetherness…

They think if they are strong and independent people, they should be able to make their own decisions on what they want to do when they want to do it…

They are, unfortunately, oblivious to the fact that a relationship has a life of its own; the newly established “us.”

A relationship is a living thing…

We create it, we feed it, nurture it and then it grows and nurtures us, in return, and offers each one of us, many opportunities for our personal growth…

It’s very important to remember that anything we do and any decision we make in a relationship has a big or small impact on our partner and will either enhance or diminish our relationship together…

Then the question remains as to how to preserve our individual identities and at the same time contribute to the life of our relationship so it can flourish and become a long-lasting blooming creation which keeps nourishing us, giving us hope, and opening up possibilities for our achievements?

Well, to be honest, that is “the million-dollar question” that if answered correctly will guarantee our happiness in relationships and in life …

To demonstrate the huge impacts that a powerful co-construction of a decision can make on the relationship and each individual’s personal growth and well-being, I will give you an example:

I had a 65-year-old male client who had just started a loving relationship with a 53-year-old woman …

The relationship had started beautifully and they had been able to establish mutual respect and trust…

They were enjoying themselves and it was only when it came for them to go to places and do things together as a couple that the problems surfaced…

One instance was when he had been invited to a get together with his colleagues to celebrate his new accomplishment in research.

Dinner reservations were made and sightseeing was planned in several locations.

On the other hand, his partner was invited to a yearly special traditional dinner over her close friends’ house and it was extremely important to her that he would accompany her to that dinner party and be introduced to her friends and community.

She shared her great desire for him to be with her at that party ten days before his celebratory dinner was planned.

She did not hear from him for several days and when she once again, communicated with him that it was very important to her that he accompany her to that party, and wondered if he was going to be there or not, he informed her that unfortunately he would not be able to join her for the dinner party and that his friends had invited him to this surprise get together.

He then, added that he wished he had been on top of it sooner but the whole thing was already planned and that he felt he needed to join his colleagues as the whole day was planned in celebration of his accomplishments….

He added that he should have been more attentive as his colleagues were dropping hints as to the timing of this event…

She told me later, that she could not believe that he had not taken her honest request seriously and had let days pass without making any attempt to talk to her about the dinner invitation and letting her know about his friends’ plans…

and without asking his colleagues if they would reschedule the event for another day so they could both have their needs met, and also to show love and respect to his partner’s priorities and desires…

They broke up after many of these little seemingly insignificant problems…

He told me that he thought that she wanted him to be a strong and independent man and when he acted like one, she did not want him anymore.

She shared with me that she felt invisible and unimportant to him as he did not care enough to include her desires and preferences in his life schedule … Sad huh?

They were so compatible, in so many ways that it broke my heart when the relationship fell apart…

The question persisted for so long in my head that what if he had made sure that he talked about his thoughts and concerns or about what he wished to do about the dinner party with his partner’s friends, right after she had invited him to the party …

What if he had told her that he did not feel comfortable to meet her close friends this early on in their relationship?

What if in case he wanted to join her for the dinner, he had made sure that his colleagues who were planning the celebration party for him were aware that he would not be available on that special evening?

What if when they had told him about the party he had asked if they were willing to change the reservations to the day after as he had prior plans for that evening?

What if she would not have taken this incident too personally and would have been more curious to find out the true contributing factors to his decision as to not to spend that evening with her and her friends?

What if she would have suggested a policy for decision makings in the future to prevent that unpleasant event from happening and ruining their relationship once again?

And I still keep wondering what would have happened if they knew from the get go how to make decisions together, as a unit, not as separate entities who only spend time together…

Do they see your True Value?

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A common complaint I hear from my clients is that their romantic partner doesn’t treat them the way they’d like to be treated.

See, the problem is often not in the behaviors, but in the way, they rate and prioritize you in their mind depending on the value they assign to you.

It is that evaluation that determines the place you occupy in their life.

If they are not treating you the way you expect them to, and if you have communicated that to them with affinity several times, in many different situations, and yet they are not changing their ways, then this is probably not a behavioral problem; it’s that they do not see your value the way you expect them to!

I am going to tell you a story about myself to help clarify what I mean by “seeing your value.”

I have an old friend of 11 years, Jay.

He is an awesome person who has dared to go for his dreams and has created lots of financial success for himself.

He has a kind heart and tries to take care of his friends by giving them a hand in different ways, investing lots of time and effort.

We love and respect each other and have witnessed the struggles and challenging situations each of us had to face, during these years.

However, when we would decide to get together over lunch or drinks to catch up and spend some quality time together, quite frequently, he used to call or text me an hour or so before meeting and ask to postpone our get-together for a last minute appointment with a client which could lead to a potentially lucrative contract, or something else that had just come up and needed his attention.

This had bothered me for so long, as I am also an extremely busy person, who has put in a request to God for a few extra hours a day, decades ago …

When my friends and I want to get together, we schedule a convenient time which works for both of us, at least a week or two ahead of time.

To be honest with you, unless something unexpected happens, my friends and I are not in the habit of canceling or postponing outings as both of us know we have collaborated diligently to clear out that time slot to spend it with each other.

We value and look forward to that delightful event and prioritize it above our other engagements.

I am so lucky to have wonderful friends and family members who treat me like a queen, as I treat them like the kings and queens they are.

So such repeated incidents with Jay burdened my heart.

Everybody who knows me, knows that I am very outspoken, so I did bring this issue to Jay’s attention several times.

Each time, quite annoyed, he told me that I was being too difficult and it was not a big deal between friends to reschedule get-togethers and that he, quite often, treated his other friends the same way, without them complaining about it!

Well, I understood that this might not have been an issue for his other friends but it was for me … It was still bothering me and I was still feeling insulted by my good old friend…

And a few years ago, it dawned on me that it was not that he meant to insult me, it was simply a matter of where I stood in his life and mind!

He valued me and my friendship, but not enough to prioritize me over other engagements in his life.

I had a tenth or eleventh rating on his list which was not what I expected from him and our deep friendship!

After that “Aha” moment, I did not feel angry or hurt anymore because I understood that it was useless to try to negotiate a change in his behavior, as long as he did not see “my value” the way I would’ve wanted him to: the rating he had given to me was way below what I expected …

So now, whenever he contacts me to get together, I no longer bother to work hard to tweak my schedule and make it happen.

I just look at my daily schedule, which is typically full, and let him know that I’m too busy to meet …

And now, he asks to get together almost every week, without paying attention to my humble request that we need to schedule it ahead of time …

Even though I miss my friend, I feel O.K. about what has happened and how it is going now …

We mostly catch up over emails or text messages which is fine …

He gets to do all the important things in his life and I get to do the same without feeling annoyed by his accustomed way of scheduling time with me!

Hundreds of times, I have heard from my clients and others that “he just doesn’t listen,” or “if only she would do this or that.”

But the truth is, they have rated you way down on their list, below many other priorities in their life!

It would do you a lot of good, to realistically find out where you stand in their mind based on how they treat you and make your decision accordingly instead of getting mad or feeling hurt by what they say or do and wasting a life time trying to encourage or goad them to bring about desirable changes in their behaviors …

What say you?

The Golden Key to Successful Relationships

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Often times, we go along with our assumptions about our current or prospective romantic partner, and their values and expectations from us and from the relationship.

As far as I know, assumptions do not often lead to happy endings….

Effective communication of our wants, needs and values have been known as the golden key to successful relationships by many researchers.

A while ago, a dear friend, gave me a gift; a beautiful orchid…

It was exactly the color I loved …

it was exquisite…

Excited, I put it on the shelf and started enjoying its beauty and the joy it had brought into my life…

When it came the time for me to water it, based on my experience with other plants and flowers I have had, I assumed I knew how much and how often to water my new beauty; after all it was just a flower like others…

Unfortunately, it did not work as I had expected.

My beautiful little flower started to glow less and less every day and its gorgeous petals started to fall off one after the other.

Frantically, I modified the amount and frequency of the watering regimen.

The petals kept falling off my beautiful orchid.

I was mad at her for not responding to my loving care, for not being appreciative of how much I loved her, took care of her, watered her and finally for dying on me with such cruelty! …

Sad, isn’t it? …

It was actually my assumption that she was just another flower like all the others and that I knew how to treat her were what ended her short life…

It was the fact that I did not pay attention to her early signs of unhappiness and kept doing what I assumed was what she needed hoping that everything will turn around, she will appreciate my love and care for her, and will look happy again…

I could have asked her (or a gardener who knew orchids) as to how much and how often watering will work for her…

If only I had done that …

She would have been beautiful and happy, still sitting on my shelf, brightening up my days…

It’s unfortunate that we often do the same thing with those we are in relationships…

Don’t we often assume what they want, and provide it for them, and end up disappointed and betrayed when they feel unhappy or upset?

Let’s stop assuming and start being curious to find out what works and what doesn’t work for our romantic partner or others around us…

Let’s communicate clearly about what our expectations are and what we would be willing to invest or compromise in the relationship.

Let’s be curious about their ideas, thoughts, and plans for themselves or for the two of you as a couple.

Let’s be open and ask to find out about their expectations, wants and needs…

Otherwise, the relationship will fade away and perish, the way my beautiful orchid died on me and left me with much regret…

You can try this on your own…

Sometimes though it seems like an impossible task to effectively communicate your needs and wants with your romantic partner and to listen to theirs.

Effective communication is the golden key to scaffolding a strong, dependable platform for the future of your relationship based on your understandings and agreements.

I have heard numerous times from my clients that having a “real conversation” with their partner felt like walking into a “lion’s lair!”

They claimed that they did communicate with their partner but their spouse wouldn’t listen…

Later on, they found out that even though they intended to communicate with their spouses, they were actually criticizing their partner, putting them down, or reminding them as to how they had miserably failed to make them happy…

The fruits of this kind of communication were nothing but resentment, bitterness, and coldness…

Experts recommend that using skilled professionals can facilitate couples’ communication about the “difficult” subjects in their relationships.

Couples report feeling happier after being able to communicate with each other, without getting into an argument.

They also admit that utilizing effective communication skills, they have been able to get their partner to agree with them more often!  

For many years, I have facilitated successful communications between couples to help them understand each other’s values and needs.

This understanding has enabled them to build the rest of their lives on kind and loving interactions rather than angry encounters or coldness.

Try this on your own…

If at any point, you decide that you can benefit from having an ally who wants both of you to succeed and feel happy, I am here to help…

7 Red Flags in Your Relationship

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If you’re asking yourself whether this new relationship is going where you want it to go, reading through these 7 red flags could help you decide whether to continue to hope on or cut your losses and move on …

The truth is that the signs are often there, but we are not always willing to see them!

We tend to ignore those signs because either we don’t want to give up the hope that this relationship is going to turn into a happy one, or we feel we’re just too tired to start all over again with somebody new, or that we have the false belief there will be no one any better for us anyway …

Well, let’s look at the signs with eyes wide open and make a decision to create a happy future for ourselves! After all, isn’t it our responsibility to make ourselves happy?

For this purpose, consider the following questions about the person you are dating:

  1. Are they genuinely interested in knowing you, your history, cultural, familial and individual values and dreams as much as you want to know them? If they are not, they probably never will be … Either they are not that into you or even if they are, it’s not going to be a collaborative union with mutual respect and understanding!
  2. Are they trying to control you and/or the relationship by playing the dating game, keeping you waiting and guessing before they answer a text or phone call, being inconsistent in the ways they behave toward you like slot machines that respond in unpredictable ways to keep you wanting and hoping for more? If this is the case, then you are in the wrong relationship!
  3. Do they communicate with you with ease, honesty and affinity, or do they evaluate, criticize and invalidate you or expect you to read their mind and do as they desire without communicating their expectations to you? Do they lose their temper or give you the cold shoulder or silent treatment if you do not give them what they want? If they are not communicative now, they probably never will be… So do not waste any more of your time and energy on this relationship!
  4. Are they keeping secrets from you? Are they unwilling to open up to you and share with you some parts of their history, their friendships, hobbies or occupation? Can they be transparent with you about their intentions for their life and for the current relationship with you, or do they make vague comments about their intentions and dreams? Different people need varying amounts of time to feel comfortable opening up.   However, if they are not willing to share such information after a few weeks, then either they are not interested in a long term relationship with you or this is the way they are going to be — which rarely leads to a happy relationship!
  5. Are they willing to introduce you to their friends and loved ones, or are they being secretive about their friends and other important people in their lives? If so, you are probably not going to be in that person’s life for very long!
  6. Can you be completely yourself while you are with them, or do you feel you need to hide parts of you or change yourself to become desirable in their eyes. In a good relationship, each partner helps the other develop their personal voice with care and support. If this is not happening in your relationship, you will definitely be better off getting yourself out of this big trap!
  7. Are you attracted to and admire the person they already are, or do you hope they will someday actualize their potential and become the man/woman you want them to be? If you can see them for the person they are and accept that they are living the life they want to live, then you are in a relationship that is very likely to flourish and bring happiness to both of you. If not, then it’s time for you to move on and create space for new opportunities to knock on your door …