slipping into the previous relationship

Hello, reader.  How are you doing?  I have a problem with slipping into the previous relationship, after deciding on a change.  Do you have that problem?

My good friend told me they had changed things with their ex.

“Then you have done the thing,” I said.  “You are like a god now.”

I looked at them with awe.  Yes, maybe they did it– amazing.  I was sitting in the passenger seat.  They were driving my car / Ming’s car, my brilliant friend.  If anyone could do it, it’s them.

slipping into the previous relationship

It’s happened to me many times.  Someone is hurting me: I’m getting stressed out and compromising myself too much in a relationship.  Sometimes I’m stressed to the point of health issues, like that stomach ulcer bleed that almost killed me.

This is no joke–this is not just some mild, fluffy feelings.  It’s whole life, whole being disruption.  I’m sorry to be dramatic, but bad relationships can be a matter of life and death.

With a lot of thought, I decide to do things differently in order to improve the relationship and lessen the pain.  I declare some changes, like pulling away and giving less energy to the person, and I think, “Everything will be good now.”

For a little while, the changes might work.  I feel better and relax a bit.

“Things are easier now.  I’m so glad!  Maybe I was wrong about what I noticed before,” I think.

Of course I want to relax–who wants to be rigid in a relationship?

But then I find myself slipping into the previous relationship.  Oops!  I look up and I’m back where I was, in a suffering place, sometimes dangerously so.

help

Talking to the other person about what happened and what I need, then asking for help is a great idea.  But unfortunately, the other person probably doesn’t care very much.  Even if they do care, they probably don’t have much skill.

I’d estimate this has happened 20 times over the years, maybe 30.  It started when I was in the fifth grade, in love with my schoolfriend who was a creative white boy with strawberry blond hair.

Usually the other person has been a dude and has been semi-clueless.

safe and fair

For me, a relationship is a place to live.  I need it safe and fair.  I need to feel loved–reciprocity is important.  I’m cherishing this person, adoring them, caring for them, sometimes contributing to their survival.

They are enjoying the attention, but partly out to lunch.  A relationship is not a safe home for them–a relationship is a person to hang out with, or an offer of support with nothing required from them.  Relationships aren’t intentional and central–they’re a part of life that seems to “just happen.”

You know many boys are spoonfed pleasure and treated like a prince.  Food appears for them– the dishes are magically washed.  Toys materialize, and their soul is soothed.  If I have tits, and I do have mighty tits, that means I exist to serve.  According to them, there’s nothing remarkable about that– that’s as life should be.

Even people who do acknowledge relationship as central can have warped views of how much they’tr taking vs how much they’re giving.  Or they don’t see the need for equality.  If they’re taking too much, they frame it as me giving too much, and the responsibility to pull back is all on me.

Slipping into the previous relationship is easy when I’m the one who’s somehow become in charge of the relationship, as the one with bigger tits, more emotional skills, or more investment.

reasons not to walk away

So I go through my pain process without their assistance, hating myself for being not good enough, or for falling into the trap of unbalanced again.

Or I hate myself any which way, rather than getting disgusted with the other person for their lack of skills and shitty choices.  My self-hate distracts me from walking away as I should.

As I’m thinking it out, here are some common reasons I come up with, not to walk away.

• I get things from them that I don’t get from other people.
• No one else is knocking on my door.
• They’ve been in my dreams, and I think Spirit has a plan for us.
• I’m the fucked up one who needs too much, so the relationship pain is really my problem, nothing about them.
• I’ve already invested so much– it would be stupid to walk away now, when we’ve been though so much and made so much progress.
• No one else is there for them like I am.  It would be dangerous to leave them alone in their vulnerable, under-supported state.

content warning: mention of suicide

The last one is most destructive to my well-being, especially when the other person wants to harm themself.  If I’m afraid the person will kill themselves, I get very motivated to stay.

Often I’m close to people who are crazy in one way or another.  And I watched my mom act like this in my family of origin, staying in terrible situations because she thought she needed men, and she didn’t want to feel responsible for anyone’s suicide.

I’m familiar with the lowest of lows, including self-harm impulses, and I have a big heart for people who want to kill themselves.  However, I have a big sensitivity and intense fears also.  In some ways I’m well-suited since I understand.  But in some ways, I’m the worst person to handle it because I’m feeling it at a 9 out of 10.  Death and especially suicide have been forces in my life.  The urgency of crisis isn’t lost on me.  That urgency of trying to keep someone from jumping off the bridge, in one way or another, is soul exhausting.

Without a commensurate resolution and healing afterward, my resources get depleted fast, and I can’t refill my own cup on my own.  Especially if someone is often suicidal, there’s no way for me to refill that particular cup of nurturing.  I get used up, and the used-up-ness reverberates to other parts of my life.

I can become less able to focus on my own needs and health and projects, which can lead to dysfunction and resentment.  In a way, it’s my own problem with boundaries.  But in a way, can you really blame me for ignoring dishes, laundry, taking out the trash, the health of my teeth, etc when someone I love is knocking on heaven’s door all the time?

commensurate

A key word here is “commensurate.”   A suffering person can thank me, after the suicidal crisis is over.  But if I was working toward their survival at an 8 out of 10, and their “thank you” is a 2 out of 10, my cup is going to stay depleted.

Most people do not have the emotional skills to thank someone at more than a 2.  A Hallmark card is the height most people are able to attain–maybe flowers, but that’s an extraordinary 4.

If we acknowledge this is an important relationship and it deserves care, we can make a list together, of how we each feel appreciated, and choose from the list.  We could do a ritual of thanks, make a zine about it, or celebrate our shared survival in some beautiful way like a picnic at a river.

But this person is probably not capable of that degree of creativity and brightness in relationships.  Few people are.  Like I mentioned before, many people are low skills, have had a lot fed to them, and think of relationships as things that just happen– not the goal of life, to put a ton of resources into.

And if they are going to be that suicidal again two weeks from now, there’s no way to catch up.  Our relationship would need to consist of healing from the suicidal crises.

depleting

The people who are most depleting are not the same people who are good at refilling their own cup or others’ cups.  Refilling cups is not a common skill, that’s for damn sure.

So if I’m sharing significant resources with someone who’s not able to share significant resources with me, how can I survive that?  In the past I have felt like the minerals were leaving my bones, and my bones were becoming fragile and breakable.  Also I have felt like I was being mined–I felt like a cartoon diamond mine, and people were coming at me with pick axes to take and take and take.

How can my cup get refilled, if the person depleting it can’t or won’t refill it?  If I have money, I can pay for massage and energy work.  Personally I lean a lot on Ming, which may or may not be fair.  He has his own things to do.  Self-care and community care can only get me so far.  I talk to Mother God and ask for help–I ask for help from Parent Earth and the sky.  Nature time is good.

doomed

But all this is not enough when I’m being used.  I tell my closest friends about what’s going on and notice they’re astounded by what I’m putting up with.

The relationship is probably doomed, and I see that.  This suffering person has gone through this situation many times with many people, burning out friends, relatives, and partners until they create the situation they most fear of being alone in the world.

But few people have the self-awareness to see how their own behavior causes this and do something about it.  They will blame anyone and anything, not to admit it’s their own behavior that hurts and depletes people until we can’t do it anymore.

True that culture is warped, and not enough support exists.  Food stamps and health insurance are hard enough, let alone finding people who can really see us and love us for who we are.  I’m working on making a more functional, supportive culture.  But capitalism counters that at every step of the way, legitimizing care through monetary exchange, and tearing down our grounded sense of self-worth intentionally so we will buy things.

I wish I had endless resources and could be there for more suffering people.  In a way, we are all suffering– just a matter of how much.

questions for discussion

I’m not talking about all the good parts.  The suffering people I love tend to be geniuses.  Their creativity is amazing, and their soul might vibrate with light.  I wish the good parts could make up for the harm.

I wish slipping into the previous relationship wasn’t so easy.  Ming and I both want to enjoy the good in people and let go of the pain.  He is better at that– he can enjoy movies and food and stay lighthearted.  I go deep into the caverns of death with people, and there is no acknowledgement and support for that.

I can imagine a culture where we have roles like Death Cavern Companion, and people in that role are honored.  Sort of like a death dula, but I haven’t paid hundreds of dollars to take someone else’s training and get a certificate for my wall.  I haven’t hyped myself into a wellness guru or marketed myself like that–  I’m just a regular person, making art and zines and writing this essay to you.

A teacher, firefighter, nurse can be considered an honorable person.  These days, no one is considering me an honorable person.  That might be a good way to fill people’s cups– more cultural acknowledgement.   Yes, I conclude with that.

• What is your biggest pitfall in relationships?
• What emotional / relationship skills would you like to improve?
• How do you refill the cups of the people you love?
• How do you like your own cup refilled?
• Does balance in relationships come easy to you?
• What is your reaction when the people you love want to kill themselves?
• Who do you trust when you’re in your most dangerous pain places?
• How can we shift society to include more nurturing and informal, everyday care?

content warning: medical harm

“Seek professional help” is a cliche.  I know from my own experience that professional help is often destructive and extraordinarily harmful to the point of killing psychiatric patients.  Experts are often not good at what they do.

Power dynamics are fucked, on psych wards and in mental hospitals.  Patients are prisoners, and respect is not the norm.  Forced medication and its side effects can kill people, and forced electroshock therapy is a torture that still exists.

We can do so much for each other, but we need ways to stay happy while significantly supporting one another.  It can feel like doing the impossible.

Capitalism means some people get paid money for the care work they do.  One on one relationships with people who need a lot require other kinds of payment.  I’m going to think about that, but also, community is so much work already.  We can do better, but I feel burned out on trying.