You know what makes life feel easy? Not having to deal with other people. If you’re an introvert, you understand: it’s easier to avoid conflict when you’re alone. As an introvert myself, I could easily get pulled into being on my own. Not having to negotiate or compromise makes life feel easy. As tempting as that can sound, I think it’s a slippery slope toward lack of connection and an inability to see the world outside of your own needs and desires. It’s easy to make decisions and choices on your own, but when you wake up in the morning with someone else there and exist in a space with someone who has different needs than you, you’ll learn a lot about yourself.
The most complicated relationships are partnerships of any kind: we’re invested in the other person and the world that we’re creating with them, whether that’s in work, extended family, a volunteer organization, or an intimate relationship. Complicated doesn’t equal negative or bad; it means effort, compromise, and the ability to look outside ourselves to see varied perspectives. It allows us to let go of control and invokes trust and faith, even when we don’t know where we’re heading.
Compromise does not mean you meet halfway. It means that you have to allow for other people’s perspectives and not get your way all the time. We often confuse compromise with the idea that we have to meet in the middle. However, one person’s halfway isn’t another’s. When we carve a line in the sand and demand that we’re met, that’s about us, not about compromise. The other person might look at the line and think, “That’s not what I think is balanced and fair. That’s not where I want to meet you.” We confuse giving up some of the things we’re looking for as meeting in the middle, when in fact the other person might not see things our way at all.
Compromise can mean giving up our ideas and goals in order to allow the other person to feel supported and heard. Other times, it can mean the other person gives up their ideas so we can feel supported and witnessed. Anyone in a long-term relationship knows that it’s not 50/50. There are times, maybe even years, where one person is getting more of what they need in order to accomplish a goal. For example, one person might be in school while working and the other person has to take over the lion’s share of managing the house and kids. Or someone is building a business and requires support from the other in order to make life manageable and be able to focus on the business.
In the complex world of compromise there’s a threshold where we can get stuck with our expectations of someone else. We focus on what we think is fair and don’t realize that the other person might not have the same viewpoint. It’s easy to get stuck in our thoughts and not realize that what our minds tell us is not gospel, it’s a singular and self-involved perspective.
We have to watch our own behaviours. Some of us get used to having others show up whenever we need them. Some of us get used to doing most of the work and when the situation changes, we continue to support everyone else instead of recalibrating.
Self-abandonment is a tricky ledge, sitting precariously close to helping others while bordering the ability to take care of ourselves. As Terri Cole says, “self-abandonment is when we reject, suppress or ignore parts of ourselves.” I would add that we do this in order to fit in, feel loved, be included, be seen, and to soothe our own anxieties. However, self-abandonment opens up the door for pain, anger, frustration, and feeling out of control.
I’ve done this for most of my life in hopes that someone else would see all the things that I was doing and feel grateful for me. I thought I didn’t want anything from them, but I was doing it because I craved love and acceptance. I did this in a working relationship and for many years, I self-abandoned and the result of that was devastating.
I allowed myself to do the majority of the work. I was always available. My partner did not like conflict, so whenever there was something that needed to be dealt with, I would be asked to handle it. I did it for years. I worked night and day and was exhausted and burnt out. I’m a natural doer, but I never once pointed out the behaviour. Because of that I co-built a dynamic where she felt that my role was to take care of everything.
My goal was to be of service, which meant I was the one having the hard conversations with others. I was playing the role of the disciplinarian parent and she was the fun one. After many years, I expressed my frustrations of having to deal with the ‘difficult stuff’ and how it was taking a toll on me. I was told that it must be because of my personality that people got frustrated with me. Ouch.
All relationships are a two-way street. She didn’t realize that she put all the hard stuff on me. When I made a conscious choice to support myself and not be the ‘bad parent,’ there was conflict between us because I stopped doing the difficult things in her life. I was no longer willing to solve her conflicts — and she didn’t like that.
My life-long practice of self-abandoning in order to please others came from my caregivers as a child. Knowing I was doing it is what allowed me to change it. I realized how easy it was for me to ignore how I was feeling and bulldoze over my self-care in order to take care of others.
Know the difference: compromise looks for a solution, self-abandonment means you stop taking care of yourself in order to serve some part of yourself that feels unworthy. It was a hard transition for me. I’m still gripped with the desire to serve others at my cost. I’ve learned to sit in my discomfort and bring awareness to what I’m feeling in order to navigate my pattern.
xo, Noelle