LOVE, LOVE & MORE LOVE: Why Your Relationships Feel Completely Draining (And What to Do About It) + FREE Respect Me Worksheet
You’ve probably heard time and time again that all relationships—whether they’re between romantic partners, family members, friends, or colleagues—are about compromise.
But what you might not know is that compromising isn’t always a good thing.
Yes, compromise is definitely important. After all, who wants to be in any kind of relationship with someone who thinks that the world revolves around them and their needs?
But when compromise happens too much or in the wrong way, it can actually cause relationships to break down.
Why?
Because when you compromise too much or when you really don’t want to, you actually end up sacrificing what’s important to you for the sake of pleasing the other person or avoiding conflict in the relationship.
And it’s only a matter of time before you start to feel resentful, unfulfilled, drained, unappreciated, lonely, and even disconnected from the person you’re supposed to be in a relationship with.
Did you read my last blog post on who you need to respect if you want to achieve your dreams? If you did, you might remember my story about how I turned down an incredible job offer to move back home with my parents and sister after college.
I gave up the job because it was what my family wanted: My dad wanted me to move home so I could help him with his business. And my mom and sister wanted me to live close by again. They also all believed that they knew what was best for me and that it would be safer to live in my hometown.
Even though I knew that staying in Belgrade and accepting the job offer was the right thing for me, I didn’t want to jeopardize the relationship I had with my family. And I didn’t want to hurt them by moving away and making it seem like I didn’t need them or care about them anymore.
But instead of being happy that I was with my family and making them happy, moving back home only made me feel depressed, lost, and like all the joy had been sucked out of my life. Physically, I was fine. But emotionally, I felt completely drained.
At the time, it was easy to blame how I felt on my family and the pressure they put on me to move back home.
But when I was eventually able to look inward and ask myself why I made the decision I did, I realized that my family and their opinions weren’t the problem at all.
Instead, the REAL problem was that I had been lacking self-respect.
In other words, the problem wasn’t really about the relationship I had with my family. It was about the relationship I had with MYSELF.
In my last blog post, I shared why cultivating self-respect is so important for being able to achieve your goals and enjoy the life you want for yourself.
However, self-respect is also enormously important when it comes to relationships.
If you’ve read some of my other blog posts, you’ve probably seen me say that relationships and love start from within. That’s why it’s impossible to build healthy relationships and be respected by other people if you don’t deeply respect and value yourself first.
And it’s why you might find yourself feeling bitter and completely worn out in one, several, or even all of the key relationships in your life.
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Here are 4 key ways in which low self-respect can make your relationships feel completely draining (and what to do about it):
1. It Makes You Devalue Your Needs
If you find a relationship draining, it may be because you tend to disregard or deprioritize your needs in the relationship.
For example, let’s say that you have a friend who recently started a new job and has been constantly calling and texting you in the evening to complain about issues that arise at work.
At first, you were sympathetic to your friend and felt bad that she was struggling to settle into her new job smoothly. But now that she’s been calling and texting you daily for several weeks, you feel annoyed and exhausted.
You’re frustrated that your evenings keep getting hijacked by the calls and texts. And although you were initially very willing to listen to your friend complain about her job, you’re now sick of having to participate in conversations that seem to completely revolve around her. She never even bothers to ask how you are or if there’s anything you want to talk about.
Why does it feel so draining to field your friend’s texts and calls every evening?
Because at this point, whenever you answer her text or take her call, you end up prioritizing her needs above your own. You might think that you’re supposed to do this because she’s struggling in an area of her life and wants someone to talk to about it. And you might even think, “Isn’t this what a good friend would do?”
But the reality is that when you always respond to your friend’s texts or calls instead of spending time with your family, taking a relaxing bath, or even just binge watching your favorite show, you’re not giving yourself the respect you deserve because you’re disregarding your needs.
You see, it might seem like your friend’s needs are more important because she’s really struggling and needs someone to talk to.
So if you disregard or devalue your needs because you think your friend’s needs are more important, you’ll feel drained, resentful, and unfulfilled sooner or later.
What to Do About It
There may be times when you do need to put someone else’s needs ahead of your own. For example, if your kid falls and hits his head at the playground, you might need to wake up throughout the night to check on him and make sure that he doesn’t have a concussion (even though you’d much rather stay asleep in your warm, cozy bed).
But for the most part, it’s important to treat your needs as though they’re just as important (and in some cases, more important) than those of other people. When you value your needs, you respect yourself by recognizing that your needs matter because YOU matter. And you ensure that you have the time and energy to fulfill your needs so that you can fill your tank with joy, love, and purpose before helping others fill theirs.
When I moved to the U.S. to work as an au pair and learn more about the American education system, I did it because I was able to realize that my needs to achieve my dreams were just as valid as my dad’s business needs or my mom’s desire to have me close. And I knew that I would be a better daughter and sister if I was far away from my family but fulfilled than if I was close but miserable.
And finally, when you value your needs, you also reduce the likelihood that people will unintentionally or intentionally take advantage of you by asking you to do more for them than they do for you. This helps to keep a relationship balanced and ensure that you feel valued in it.
2. It Makes You Apologize All The Time
Relationships can also feel draining if you find yourself always apologizing or taking on the blame any time that conflict arises.
For example, are you the type of person who is always the first or even the only person to apologize when you get into an argument with your partner? Or are you someone who apologizes every time you ask a friend for something?
If you do this, don’t feel embarrassed. No really, don’t!
Many of us have a tendency to overapologize or take the blame in relationships to keep the peace, minimize conflict, and avoid rejection.
But when you’re always apologizing or taking the blame for things that happen, including when you’re not at fault, it tells other people that you’re the one who’s always wrong in the relationship. This gives people a chance to use you as a scapegoat or punching bag and believe that they can shift the blame for their mistakes or misdeeds onto you (instead of taking responsibility for their actions and their contributions to conflict).
What to Do About It
Of course, if you really have done something wrong in a relationship, you should apologize wholeheartedly. For example, if you promise to drive your friend to a doctor’s appointment but you forget and your friend misses the appointment as a result, there’s a very good reason for you to apologize.
But otherwise, apologize only when the situation calls for it. Don’t apologize just because you think that it will prevent a fight or preserve the relationship. Respect yourself by taking responsibility for your actions but not for anyone else’s.
3. It Makes You Sacrifice Your Boundaries
When you don’t deeply respect yourself, you’re more likely to allow people to violate your boundaries in relationships.
Let’s say, for example, that spending time with your family is very important to you. Over the past year, however, you’ve been dating a successful corporate executive who’s expected to attend lots of industry events on evenings and weekends. And your partner strongly believes that it’s important for you to attend these events with him. Because these events eat up most of your evenings and weekends, you hardly get any time to spend with your family. And you keep missing family dinners, birthdays, and other celebrations.
You miss your family and hate to miss out on important occasions and even casual get-togethers with them. But week after week, you sacrifice time with them because you want your romantic relationship to last and you believe that it’s your job to support your partner’s career.
To someone looking in from the outside, you seem like the reliable partner who’s always there to support her man. But on the inside, you feel sad and lonely because you’re not getting a chance to spend time with people in your life who are important to you.
In this situation, it’s tempting to think that your partner and his expectations are responsible for making you miss out on time with your family and, therefore, feel sad and lonely. But the real culprit here is your self-respect.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that if you feel sad and lonely and barely get to see your family, it’s entirely your fault and your partner plays no role in the problem.
What I am saying is that yes, your partner might have unreasonable expectations and fail to take your needs into account. But you’ve also allowed these expectations to violate your boundaries about having time to spend with your family.
What to Do About It
To protect what’s important to you while you’re in a relationship, be unapologetic about setting reasonable boundaries and enforcing them.
If your partner sees that you repeatedly give up other plans and commitments to accompany him to work events, he’ll expect you to continue doing it (and potentially even do more of it). But if you communicate that your family is important to you and that you need to be able to see them on certain occasions or at a certain frequency, he’ll understand that if he wants to remain in a relationship with you, he’ll need to respect your needs just like you do.
Of course, when you put boundaries in place in a relationship, there’s always the risk that the other person won’t like it and will deprioritize or even end the relationship as a result. It’s always painful when relationships end. But the reality is that if someone isn’t willing to respect you and what’s right for you, it’s probably not a relationship that’s worth your time and energy anyway.
4. It Makes You Lose Your Voice
And last but not least, relationships feel draining when a lack of true self-respect makes you keep your mouth shut about something that doesn’t feel right to you.
For example, let’s say that you and your partner have parents who live in other states and don’t get to see your kids very often. To give them a chance to stay connected to their grandkids, you send them photos of your kids on a regular basis. These photos are intended only for your parents and your in-laws. But you’ve recently found out that some of these grandparents have been posting photos of your kids on social media.
You aren’t comfortable with other people posting photos of your kids on social media because of privacy and safety reasons. However, you’re been hesitant to express these concerns to your parents and in-laws because you don’t want to rock the boat.
The problem is that by keeping your mouth shut, your parents and in-laws get to continue doing what they want to do—post photos of your kids on social media. But you keep sacrificing what’s important to you: the privacy and safety of your kids. You also end up losing your voice in the relationship. This can leave you feeling resentful, disrespected, and even violated.
When my parents and sister were trying to talk me out of accepting the job at the modeling agency, I privately checked the legitimacy of the company and ensured that it wasn’t a scam. But I didn’t firmly express to my family that taking the job was the right thing for me and what I truly wanted. I didn’t express that even though I cared about them and understood their desire to have me close, taking the job was, in my opinion, the best way for me to be happy and start building the future I wanted for myself. And that’s how I lost my voice in the relationship.
What to Do About It
Build up your self-respect by speaking up when something doesn’t feel right to you. In this case, it would mean having a compassionate but firm conversation with your parents and in-laws about the fact that you’re not comfortable with them posting photos of your kids online.
Your parents and in-laws might disagree or even try to convince you that what they’re doing isn’t a big deal. If this happens, respect yourself by sticking to what you know is right for you. Remember that you are allowed to have the thoughts, feelings, and opinions that you do. Just because other people have different opinions or feelings doesn’t mean that yours aren’t valid.
Of course, when you first reclaim your voice in a relationship, it can be a bit of a shock to the other person or people. They might not be used to you standing up for yourself, and they may react negatively as a result. In any case, don’t allow THEIR reaction to convince YOU that you’ve done something wrong or that you are wrong about something. Unless you intended to hurt the other person or you expressed your needs in an insensitive way, it’s not your fault if someone feels upset when you use your voice.
If someone truly values you and their relationship with you, they’ll eventually come around to you expressing your thoughts and feelings. And they’ll respect you more for standing up for what’s important to you.
Healthy Relationships Start With Self-Respect
We’re usually taught that if we want to build successful relationships with other people, we need to respect and value them.
What we’re not taught is that before we can truly respect and value other people (and expect other people to respect and value us), we need to respect and value ourselves.
Because when you truly respect yourself, you’re able to keep your needs in view, maintain healthy boundaries, and embrace your voice—all while cultivating and deepening relationships with other people. In other words, you’re able to keep being you.
When you’re able to stay true to who you are even within your relationships, your partner, family, and friends respect you more, appreciate you more, and love you more.
They also take you and what matters to you more seriously.
So as you can see, cultivating self-respect is incredibly important if you want to build or maintain a healthy relationship with anyone in your life.
Now, it’s one thing to decide that you want to work on respecting yourself more as a stepping stone to enjoying more fulfilling relationships. But it’s another thing to actually build up this self-respect.
You might even be thinking, “So Vera, how do I start to respect myself more?”
Well, I had a feeling you would ask!
That’s why I created a special resource for you called the Respect ME worksheet.
The Respect ME worksheet helps you identify what matters to you, understand why your needs and desires are worthy of respect, and practice self-respect by ensuring that your needs and desires get met.
And if you haven’t done so already, follow me on my Facebook page Vera Velini – The Assertive Happiness Coach. That way, you’ll be among the first to hear about new blog posts, resources, and courses.
Until next time!
Vera
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