8 Compromises No Self-Respecting Woman Would Make In Order To Save A Relationship
Loving yourself means vetting your relationships better.
Marlon Alves | Unsplash If you are like I tended to be, I wonder how many compromises you make to sustain or save what feels like a significant relationship. They can be small behaviors that accrue or larger ones that conflict with your common sense and intuition, or even values related to your dignity.
I hope the 7 examples below will help you save the irretrievable time in your own situation that I regret losing in relationships that needed better vetting. They could also be signals that a relationship may not be a good match for you, no matter the immediate chemistry.
Unfortunately, I had the illusion as well as the belief that hanging in would work out. Affability, accommodation, and understanding didn’t cut it either. Maybe a little humility about my influence would have avoided those significant detours with some inappropriate men.
Which of the following situations rings alarm bells for you?
Eight compromises no self-respecting woman should make to save a relationship:
1. Giving continuing priority to the other person’s professional and/or personal needs
While caring about another person naturally leads to wanting to help and please them, beware when it becomes mostly a one-way street. Then, the balance and longer-range expectations become distorted. Inattention or indifference to your needs and wants, as well as appreciation of your strengths, can be another clue to this pattern.
2. Compromising on different financial habits and priorities
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Differing financial habits and capacities pressure you to accommodate the other person’s lifestyle; you may use your resources in uncomfortable or inauthentic ways.
One person may not only have greater resources, but also tendencies to use them in profligate ways that put future stability in jeopardy. Extreme examples may be uncontrolled luxury shopping and experiences, and gambling and drug issues.
3. Inattention to your intimate needs and preferences
These situations can suffer from hesitation to discuss them and a lack of receptivity. Awkward performance issues are complicated by limited appropriate vocabulary and experience. Negative emotions and fear of loss of the connection are also challenges for both parties.
4. Habitual tiptoeing around and avoiding important conversations or topics
These situations are often the most typical areas for avoiding or tiptoeing around issues and problems. The longer a conversation is postponed, the more challenging it is to bring it up. This also keeps from possibly solving or ameliorating physical problems that would benefit from appropriate professional attention. When addressed frankly, there are opportunities for win-win outcomes that would improve aspects of the relationship. This avoidance can also relate to general health issues.
5. The other person’s exaggerations and denials, even lying
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Once this reality is clear and consistent, the potential for the most crucial aspect of a healthy relationship is lost. The gold of trust that supports dealing with other problems and issues, as well as promoting pleasures, is difficult to mine thereafter.
6. Questionable ethics and habits in behavior toward others
This ranges from the unkind treatment of service workers to the timely payments of bills. It also indicates another area that puts trust in jeopardy.
7. Mean or insensitive edges in communication, whether sarcasm, criticism, or lack of empathy
The "I was just kidding” response does not excuse cruelty or, at the least, insensitivity to your feelings. When this is not addressed through frank discussion and specific examples, the tendency is unlikely to be checked, especially if it is stubbornly intrinsic already. When no modification in communication within a reasonable time is made, that’s another clue about the person’s unwillingness to care about your feelings and comfort.
8. Significant differences in what is considered humorous or funny
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Not related to reactions to actual jokes, this tendency may uncloak underlying differences in perceptions, even views of realities. An example is laughing at someone’s misfortune or exposure.
Related to #6, use examples for concrete discussion, perhaps asking how the person would feel in the other’s shoes. For minor aspects, though, maybe let it go, recognizing that differing backgrounds, experience, cultures, and gender can lead to different senses of humor. Similar reactions to everything may not be possible.
Ways to proceed in your hands.
- Say what you think and feel as close as possible to a particular situation. Let the person know your concern without berating or attacking. For example, “When you do or say…, I feel….” I wonder if …. What is your opinion of this situation?”
- Do research related to the issue you observe or feel troubled by. Avoid playing shrink, but use the information to improve your understanding, expectations, and compassion.
- Give yourself a reasonable timeline for working through the issues and problems. If not possible, identify ways to disentangle yourself as kindly and safely as possible.
- Avoid berating yourself. Try not to look back with shame over questionable, time-consuming, draining choices as well as sunk costs, as they say in economics. Paraphrasing AI, sunk costs, such as energy, time, and resources, are past costs that cannot be recovered and should not influence future decisions. They are costs that have already been incurred and should not be considered for continuing a project or investment, or connection!
- Be honest. Your honesty with yourself and the other person is a good test of sustainability and resilience related to the value and meaning of your connection. If you are trapped in the fear of loss of the relationship, or of possibly hurting the person, release that emotion gently. That can free you to be true to yourself through appropriate choices and actions.
Ruth Schimel Ph.D. is a career and life management consultant and author of the Choose Courage series at www.ruthschimel.com She guides clients in accessing their strengths and making viable visions for current and future work and life situations.
