e-mail
Both my adopted stepson and myself suffered trauma as children leaving the two of us with a large amount of fear and insecurity when it comes to relationships and ‘letting people in.’ These fears have contributed greatly to the push pull dance that the two of us do when it comes to bonding and getting close with each other. Once things are going well between the two of us, one of us becomes unconsciously freaked inside, and pulls away from the other in an attempt to remain safe from being rejected by the other.
When I first noticed the pattern, I of course assumed that it was my adopted stepson who had the issues and I focused on getting him to open up and trust others on a deeper level, never once considering the notion that I too had issues that needed to be worked upon. If we weren’t meshing well together, I assumed it was pretty much on him, and went about fixing him, always puzzled when the fix didn’t last. It wasn’t until I realized that I too, was pulling away to protect my own heart, that we were truly able to make great strides in our relationship with one another.
Discovering that you have flaws you didn’t really realize you had is not a particularly fun thing to go through. As parents we like to believe that everything we are doing is right, and we are old enough and wise enough to not make major mistakes, especially when it comes to raising our children. Boy, wouldn’t that be a nice world to live in, eh? The truth is that we are all going to make mistakes throughout our lives; you don’t really know how to do anything the right way, unless you know what the wrong way is. Sometimes we are warned in life as to what the wrong way to go about something is, yet we do it anyway, taking personal experience over advice. Like when we tell our children not to touch a pan because it is hot, and they instantly touch the pan and get burned. They were warned what would happen, yet chose to learn through personal experience that pans which come out of the oven tend to be a tad bit toasty to the touch.
If a relationship isn’t working well, then both sides need to be looked at, it takes two to tango, and there is always room for improvement on either side. Instead of spending time thinking about what the other person should be doing to make things better, one should focus on themselves, and what can be changed within oneself in order to make the relationship better. We cannot control the actions, thoughts, and behaviors of others, we can only control how we act, and react towards them. Looking at different ways that we can act and react in our personal relationships to improve them will get us much farther than looking for the faults in others, and then waiting on them to take our advice. Don’t wait for others to change, it has to start somewhere, start with you and let them follow suit.
