We’ve all been in a position where we felt powerless. Where we felt someone was taking advantage of us. And at some point it can start to influence the way we see ourselves. But we all deserve better.
While you can’t control how another person behaves, you do have choices about what you accept and how you respond.
At our core, we all desire to be loved. It is one of the common threads that unites humanity. Relationships are fundamental to our human existence. It is the most significant form of engagement we will ever experience. Which makes it no surprise that we invest so much time, energy, and commitment into our relationships. Strong, supportive relationships serve to feed our confidence and enhance our lives. But what if one or more of your relationships are toxic? But what happens when an important relationship becomes consistently disrespectful, controlling, or unhealthy?
At Thrive Counseling, we believe that you have the power to change the nature of your unhealthy relationships. You have the power to teach others how to treat you by what you tolerate and how you treat yourself.
When discussing relationships with clients, I like to highlight the basic fundamentals (please note that the use of the word relationship in this article does not solely denote one of romantic involvement, but of any connection and interaction between two people). You do not have the ability to control or change the other person in the relationship, you only have the power to control and change yourself. That power is not limited in scope, however, as by changing yourself you have the power to influence and alter the dynamics of the relationship itself.
In a marriage, these patterns can become especially difficult when the same boundary violations, communication problems, or power struggles happen repeatedly. Recognizing the pattern is often an important first step toward changing the way you and your spouse interact.
Let’s look at this another way.
If you don’t stand up for yourself, and instead bend and break to please everyone, then you are teaching people that it is acceptable to walk all over you. If you talk poorly about yourself and don’t care for yourself well, then you are teaching people that you don’t deserve to be respected and cared for. So people will disrespect you and they’ll treat you poorly, because that is exactly what you have taught them to do. In these situations, you have negatively influenced the dynamics of the relationship.
In other words, by changing your boundaries you can effectively influence other people to respect you and treat you well.
By setting relational boundaries and accepting only respectful engagements, you have the power to influence the dynamics of the relationship and encourage the other person to treat you the way you wish to be treated. Changing your boundaries doesn’t guarantee that another person will respect them. It does clarify what you’re willing to accept and gives you an opportunity to decide how you will respond when they don’t.
The other way to influence relational dynamics is by treating yourself the way you expect to be treated by others. The Golden Rule is powerful, even when used on yourself. When you respect yourself, you are demonstrating to others the appropriate way to treat you. We all learn a lot through observation; people will pay attention to how you treat yourself, and they will mimic what you model to them.
But you have to believe in yourself. Only you have the power to affect how people see you and how they interact with you. So take the first step. Say yes to yourself.
Connect with purpose. Live with confidence.
You Can’t Control Them. You Can Decide What You Do Next.
Setting a boundary doesn’t guarantee that another person will respect it. Communicating clearly doesn’t guarantee that they’ll respond the way you hope. What you can control is how you communicate, what you’re willing to participate in, and the choices you make when a pattern continues.
At Thrive Counseling, individual counseling can help you recognize unhealthy relationship patterns, strengthen boundaries, communicate more assertively, and become more confident in your choices. When these patterns are happening within a marriage, couples counseling, marriage counseling, and marriage therapy can help spouses better understand their interactions, address recurring conflict, and develop more effective ways of communicating with each other.
Thrive Counseling provides virtual individual, couples, and marriage counseling throughout Florida (Orlando, Lake Nona, Winter Park, Winter Garden) and Georgia (Alpharetta, Milton, Johns Creek, Brookhaven), with online counseling also available in New Jersey (Princeton, Summit) and South Carolina (Mount Pleasant, Daniel Island).
If you’re beginning to recognize a pattern in one of your relationships and aren’t sure what to do with it, schedule a consultation with Thrive Counseling. We can help you understand what’s happening, identify what’s within your control, and decide what you want to do next.
