I’ve had more toxic relationships in my life than healthy ones. Whether it be in dating, with friends, or with my family- I haven’t had many relationships that made me feel loved, supported, cared for, validated, and not completely fucking crazy.
You can cultivate relationships that comfort and nourish you, but it’s hard when you’ve gotten used to the manipulation and lies.
Carrying on toxic behaviours you’ve learned into future relationships (not just romantic. Platonic and family relationships too) can prevent you from welcoming the kind of love and warmth you’re searching for. It’s also the reason we’re stuck in such a negative mindset about love as a society. We bleed onto people who haven’t hurt us and then wonder why it’s so hard to cultivate healthy relationships.
You cannot unlearn behaviors that have been instilled into you within a day. It takes time to break a bad habit. It requires letting our guard down and being vulnerable, which is not easy in a world that defines the purest parts of us as a weakness. As scary as it feels to break down those walls, unless you actively work to break that toxic cycle, you risk missing out on something truly beautiful: LOVE. And it’s something you deserve to experience. So be patient with yourself on this journey. Spoiler alert, it won’t be a walk in the park. But the view in the end will be amazing.
In the meantime, here are some tips to building a healthy foundation.
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The main and first component in healthy relationships is communication.
Not just communicating but comprehension.
Not just comprehension but understanding.
Understanding that by communicating your feelings, especially the bad ones, it doesn’t have to lead to arguments. It doesn’t have to result in anger.
When two people effectively communicate their issues, they listen. They understand each other and work together to be better- to ensure this isn’t a topic that needs to be discussed again.
It’s a joint effort.
Get familiar with the saying, “It’s me and you against the problem, not me against you.”
You can’t control how people receive information and what they do with it. Some people do take these things personally and they work against you. Not everybody has a listening ear.
Understand who you can’t communicate with. It’s possible to have perfect hearing and still be tone-deaf.
Know when you’re not being heard and need to take a step back.
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Learning to respond rather than react.
We’re human, some situations rub us the wrong way and we have initial reactions that effect the way we move towards the situation.
Taking the time to calm down, step away, or say, “I need a minute” so you can process, is important.
The last thing you want to do is say something you’ll regret, or even make the situation worse.
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Forgiveness. (to an extent)
People make mistakes. Mistakes are meant to be learned from.
Everyone is honestly just trying their best. Life is hard, and no one’s perfect.
Allow people to learn from their mistakes rather than holding it against them forever.
This was a hard pill for me to swallow, but I realized that just because you forgive someone doesn’t make what they did okay.
I’ve made mistakes in a lot of my relationships, as I’m sure a lot of you have too. But my mistakes shaped me and continue to shape me every day. I learn from them and when I look back at the person I was, I can see I’ve grown.
That same thing applies for other people.
If someone is genuinely sorry and understands what they did and want to grow from that, I say we give them that chance.
Forgiveness is a lot bigger than this small snippet, there’s a lot of components and factors at play. But for the sake of not making this post 7 pages long, I’ll leave it at that.
Forgiveness is on your own terms, always.
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Set boundaries.
Boundaries are set in place to ensure your comfort. It’s important to establish what goes and what doesn’t.
You have to be honest with yourself about what you’ll tolerate, what counts as disrespect, and where you draw the line in relationships.
Know your limits and stand on them.
Communicate your needs.
Boundaries allow you to be in control.
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Lastly, stay in present not the past.
Stop generalizations.
Don’t carry your past relationships into your new ones.
By doing that, you’re already setting a relationship up for failure with preconceived notions and doubts.
It’s hard to believe, but not everyone is going to turn into the worst person you’ve ever met.
Give people a chance. Unless you’re given a reason to distrust them, don’t place that upon them because it’s not fair.
A lot of us have trouble coming to terms with that fact that we can trust people. We can be comfortable.
Anyone can hurt you. The people you least expect to can.
But you have to welcome the idea that you can create healthy relationships with the right people.
Not everything has to crash and burn in the worst way possible.
