We often find ourselves craving relationships because loneliness is scary.
While speaking to a lot of people, I've always wondered if only love is enough. Loneliness does a great job playing the devil's advocate. It makes us think about whether we’re good enough, why we’ve been alone, why no one would love us, and how sometimes, we find ourselves in relationships only to feel happy or less lonely.
Occasionally, when we’ve found someone who makes us feel loved, or gives us that little confidence boost we’ve been looking for, we begin liking ourselves more, we appreciate our time more, and we see more meaning in life. We owe it all to this one person who helped uplift our view of ourselves.
In that bargain, we may learn to ignore or normalise some of their behaviours which may hurt us or harm us. We feel this immense need to protect the relationship at all costs because we want to be happy (or just not lonely). We learn to let our boundaries down, we normalise behaviours that may be unhealthy or that may hurt us, and we may compromise on red flags in relationships because if we let this one person go, we find ourselves asking the most important question of them all:
….will we be loved again?
A lot of times, people find themselves in therapy trying to figure out communication, intimacy, and building healthy relationships with their partners. We often discuss the themes around the pressure one may face in their relationship because of the expectations their partner may have from them to build a healthy successful relationship.
When we have an argument or disagreement we begin to think…
‘What am I doing wrong?’,
‘I need to make this up to my partner’,
‘I’m not doing enough and I need to be responsible to fix this.’
Have you ever stopped to ask ourselves, am I doing too much? How many more red flags in relationships will I have to ignore because I don't want to lose this person?
We sometimes find ourselves going through an extreme lens to protect this relationship and ignore the pain that may be caused to us. We may ignore how much our mental health has deteriorated, how our self esteem is now completely dependent on our partner, and even if we receive bare minimum, it's more than anyone could ever give us. And so we feel this need to settle, this need to feel loved even if that love causes us pain.
Have you ever stopped thinking about your relationship?
Think about the kind of love you deserve?
