Stop caring so much - it leads to resentment & burnout

Transcript

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Welcome to the relationship success lab, the place for relationship empowerment and actionable tools. So you can let go of old wounds and create. A secure, trusting, loving relationship. I'm dot Sarah global award-winning expert relationships, psychologist, and consultants helping high-achievers on business leaders. To have happy and healthy relationships. Grab my relationship health quiz full free. In the link below to get started now. On with your journey to relationship success. Hello and welcome to today's episode. It's going to be short to the point, and hopefully a really important lesson that you need to learn. I. Um, you need to stop over functioning in your relationship because it actually becomes a disservice to you. Many people that I come across particularly who are high achievers, who have worked extremely hard in either their career, in their relationships, in their health and their fitness, in their wealth, whatever it might be, but. If you are a hard worker, if you are somebody who has worked also really hard to avoid conflict, to please other people. If you have had trauma-based relationships previously, if you have gotten anxious attachment style or a dismissive avoidant attachment style, or you've been in a relationship with somebody who has an insecure attachment style and you've been impacted, this is definitely for you because often. The way that you have responded to trauma, the way that you have responded to life's challenges is by overcompensating, is by working harder and harder to mitigate problems, to solve problems, to make sure that you are safe and that everything will be okay. And usually in a relationship what might happen is that your partner might be. Injured, they might be struggling with something. And so you come in and you save the day. You are the supportive, loving helper, and you are wanting to give, and by the way, that is part and parcel of a relationship, but it's not everything in a relationship. And if you are perpetually saving and helping your partner as opposed to finding a balance of what is care versus caregiving and. What is care and signposting your partner and really walking that path with them versus you being a superhero and you rescuing your partner from anything that they might be experiencing. That actually you end up creating a codependency. You know that, that that's where the danger zone lies. But if you're a hard worker, if you have survived trauma, if you have survived, life's most difficult challenges. Please stop overworking in your relationship because you are likely to also come into the rescue. So this is what it looks like. You've learned through life's tough lessons that you have had to rely on yourself and you only have yourself to rely on, and that other people are relying on you. You've also learn that you have to act in a particular way. In order to be safe and acting in that way might be to either shut yourself down to suppress your needs, to not share something when you are needing to share it, to overcompensate, to please other people, to present a very specific side of you and to hide another part of you that you might be ashamed of or you are worried about it being judged. And if that's your background, chances are these themes will come out in your relationship when times get stressful. And guess what? It is to your detriment because every single time that this happens, every single time you act in that way, what you are doing is you are actually setting out a new level of standard of how the relationship should be, of what your partner should expect from you, of what you expect from yourself, and also how it is that you interact with one another. You are essentially influencing the status quo of the relationship, and that just leads to burnout and imbalance. So if you are someone who has been the over doer, the rescuer, the helper in the relationship. Please just be aware of that and the difference between caring and caregiving. Subtle, but it's important. So caring is normal and it is important in the relationship. So if your partner needs assistance, if they need help, you can be there for them. You can walk side by side with them, hold their hand and see the world through their lens. That is important, but if you are going beyond that and actually you are having to sacrifice parts of yourself in order to forever cater to them and every single need that they have totally relies on you, then that is challenging because you are then demanded to meet every single one of their needs. That is not a relationship. That's actually what a parent does for a child. And even then, some parents can't meet their child's every single need. So please be a partner and not a parent to your partner. That is a huge difference and you need to learn this lesson. Now, I've just spoken a little bit about over-functioning and overdoing in a relationship. Let's say in circumstances where your partner does need assistance, there's something important, and that's delicate balance. I'm not saying don't care. Of course you care. That's important. If you don't care, the relationship is over. But it's also important to recognize the difference between caring as a partner versus caring as a parent to your partner. There's a distinct difference. Please know the two. Second issue is please stop over functioning in your relationship when you are constantly trying to regulate your partner's emotions. Now let me paint you a picture. We all get into conflict with our partners. Conflict is normal. Arguments are normal. If you told me that you never got into an argument with your partner. I would actually see that as a red flag, and I'd be a bit concerned because then I would think, actually one of you is suppressing something. Even if you're guessing on really, really well, chances are there will be points of disagreement. That's okay. That is normal. But here's the thing, the number of couples that I have met. Whereby one person works really hard to make sure that their partner is okay during moments when there is tension or there is a potential conflict is really staggering, and it can also be really damaging to the relationship. So let's say there's a couple. One person in a couple tends to be more emotionally intelligent than the other person. Now, that's just a broad and general rule. I'm not saying that this is for everybody, but that is pretty common. So. Let's say we've got a couple and one person is more emotionally intelligent and they're able to regulate their emotions better. They're able to recognize the meaning of their emotions, and they're able to utilize coping tools and strategies to manage difficult emotions so that they're able to regulate themselves and they're able to calm down pretty quick. But the other person struggles with that. Let's say the other person is a bit more restrictive and actually they're a bit more rigid in how they view the world. So they don't have the level of flexibility. They might not be able to empathize as easily, and when they do, or when they experience some difficult emotion, they don't know what to do with it. And actually they rely on their partner to manage their emotions for them. Now, this is a process called emotional outsourcing, and the way that I like to describe it is if you imagine you are the person who struggles with regulating your emotions, and you have this emotion, this sensation, this feeling inside of you, and it is bubbling up and you don't know what to do with it, it is tense, it is painful, and it's messy. And because it's messy, you end up launching it to your partner, seeing them more regulated than you hoping that they can just process it for you and return it back in a nice little package. So they've dealt with it for you and you don't have to do anything you have learn that's you can just rely on them to help you out with that emotion. Now. As much as that might appear to be Okay. The problem that it leads to is that the person who can't regulate their emotion never learns the skill of regulating their emotion. What they do learn is more dependency and more reliance on their partner and their partner who is constantly regulating. Actually starts to reach the levels of resentment and burnout and imbalance after a period of time because they're constantly trying to cater to their partner's needs and they're constantly trying to regulate their partner and make sure that they don't offend them. You are walking around on eggshells. You are tiptoeing around subjects. You are not approaching certain conversations because you know it's just going to lead to an argument. And so you are constantly being shut down, and there is a lot of research by Dr. Julie and John Gottman of the Gottman Institute, where they show that actually, if you don't express. Just simply by the very virtue of not expressing challenges in your relationship, you have an increased risk of death at an earlier age than if you did express. But actually all of these people who are in these relationships of imbalance because they're not expressing themselves and because they're wanting to make sure that their partner is okay and that their partner feels cared for, and their partner feels emotionally regulated. And therefore they're walking on eggshells. What, what happens in that moment is that they don't express, and actually that leads to significant detrimental impacts on their physical and mental and emotional health. So these are raw signs of over-functioning in a relationship. And believe me, it's just going to lead to burnout, imbalance, and it is going to lead to resentment and. Unfortunately, the quality of your relationship will go downhill. I often hear people saying, well, if I just do this, if I just do that, if I just help them out a bit more, if I just do this little thing and they can see how much I love them, they will be able to see how much I care for them and therefore they'll care for me. Or they might have this, this. Narrative, almost like a romantic story in their mind of, well, if I just sacrifice myself a little bit more, that's okay, because it's for the better. Good. And we are moving towards a castle in the sky. Actually, it's my fault, and I have to be more and more considerate. Okay. Well, the thing is, is that it's important for you to be considerate over your partner. Sure. And it's important for you to consider the context, but equally it's important for them to do that as well. It's important for both of you to be pouring into the relationship. Throughout the relationship and your pouring might change depending on your capacity and your ability to do so. So sometimes I might be able to function at a hundred percent. Sometimes I can only function at 20%. But if I'm giving it my all, even when I'm at 20%, that is still a hundred percent. So that's okay. So. But these are really important things that we need to be holding in mind. And actually it's important for both of you to be pouring into the relationship so that you can both gain and feel nurtured as a consequence of the relationship as opposed to one person over functioning and they end up experiencing a heck of a lot of resentment while the other person is. Inadvertently or maybe very actively taking advantage of this. And I urge you now to start considering, are you the person who over functions and over delivers in your relationship, or are you the person who could potentially. Be more active in your relationship and you could pour in more. Because in any relationship there will be one person who is over functioning, who's over giving, over delivering, and there will be one person who is delivering under. So consider where are you and actually. What is it that you need to do to start taking the right steps to creating a fulfilling and loving healthy relationship? Until next time, take care.