In many relationships three of the most important but oftentimes forgotten about values are being patient, accepting, and understanding of your partner, however, they are not all required at the same time. You have to be accepting of many things you won’t understand and probably never will. A great sense of understanding comes into play when you understand the intentions of your partner. And if you’re patient you increase your likelihood of understanding which can lead to greater acceptance. They are put in this order because it is the order of importance.
Patience is an absolute must, patience alone can go a long way in any relationship, it’s also known as tolerance. The more you can tolerate without losing your cool, the better things will be for both of you. Acceptance is second because as I said above, there are things you will just have to accept whether you understand or not, but if you can put these three values to use in a relationship, it will flourish.
If you believe and trust that your partner has good intentions, not just for you as a couple, but also for themselves, and above all else values your relationship and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it without first talking to you about it, then you are in good hands. If you have that type of trust and faith in your partner, then it isn’t necessary to understand anything they do. The only benefit in understanding anything they do or don’t do, would only be for your benefit to have a better understanding of how your partner works.
If you don’t have that type of belief and trust in your partner or you had it and it was broken, then you’re fighting a losing battle. You might want to give up and find someone you can believe and trust in off the bat. Of course, through acceptance and understanding you can build trust in your relationship, but oftentimes people spend most of a relationship completely miserable in the acceptance and understanding areas trying to build trust that probably can’t be built. There is a lot of emotional pain associated with a relationship if you don’t trust your that your partner won’t hurt you and that they have your best interests at heart as well.
Being patient, accepting, and understanding is so vitally important because it is the primary way you will escape and completely avoid any type of conflict. Most of these conflicts that happen in relationships start off on a very small sarcastic note and go to the extremes of blown up arguments that continue on for hours and the effects are felt for days to come, and sometimes permanently, all because both people let it get out of hand in the first place.
By the end of the day or the week, you’re so caught up on your anger and hatred toward the other person but surprisingly not because of the original event…no not because of what happened, in fact, you probably already forgot what happened, but rather, the continued emotional abuse you took afterwards. Things you can’t believe your partner thought or said as you sat in the house that day yelling at each other and cutting each other down, as if, somehow, by some miracle, that would solve the problem.
When have you ever been in an argument and called someone say, a piece of shit, and all of a sudden they said you’re right I am a piece of shit, let’s work together to solve the problem we we’re having? Not very often right? More often than not, those arguments end in both of you calling each other a piece of shit and then no longer speaking to each other for some period of time and maybe forever.
Think back at some of the arguments you’ve had in relationships and ask yourself, did the original reason even matter in the first place? Is that what you’re upset about? Or are you upset at the things they said after the fact. Even serious offenses like cheating can have less of an impact on your significant other than what you said to them after confronted. Maybe you lied, maybe you cut them down as justification to why you were doing it, maybe you said some really hurtful things, and maybe the reason you hate each other now and broke up is actually because of how you responded to the confrontation.
Even though cheating is normally a deal breaker for any serious relationship, think of the difference in apologizing and admitting to it, as compared to, lying about it and blaming the other person for it. Even if the break up is imminent, one of those paths allows you to possibly be friends either now or at a later time, and the other one puts you on a shit list forever and gives you a bad reputation.
Emotional abuse has longer lasting effects than Physical abuse, unless there was a severe emotional component attached to the physical abuse. Serious injuries that leave cosmetic imperfections on the body is an example of something that can be emotionally traumatizing, especially if the result is dismemberment or disfigurement.
Studies have proven this to be the case when they asked a wide group of people what they remembered from their child hood. No one remembered a regular spanking but almost all of them remembered being put down or called some name. Parents can be brutal and think that children are resilient but when you punish them verbally they keep a lot of that emotional abuse with them forever. Parents often get angry and belittle their children calling them stupid or making them feel useless, this is bad parenting, and can have permanent lasting affects on children. Acceptance and understanding has to exist in any worthwhile relationship, not just intimate ones.
This type of abuse in relationships can be just as traumatic oftentimes leaving the other person taking the blunt of this abuse causing them to feel worthless, depressed, useless, and many other things. Once that emotional damage exists in a relationship, it is often hard to repair or fix it. Most fights automatically bring up the entire history of hurt and verbal abuse immediately and it builds and builds.
If you were to have the same arguments with a random stranger there would be significantly less impact and meaning to the argument. Each consecutive or progressive argument from that point on only adds to the pile. The next thing you know, you forgot to put the toilet seat down and all of a sudden you’re getting a ten year list of things that you never did or always do that the other person didn’t like, leaving you feel worthless and angry, all because of what? Because you didn’t put a toilet seat down? Obviously that’s not the reason why. Your significant other has been keeping tabs on you and when you make a mistake they connect it with every mistake you’ve made in the past, as if somehow, they can justify now that you’re a real loser with this newly added evidence of not putting the toilet seat down combined with your history of neglect.
Generalization is common in these arguments and there is no solution to any of the problems at this point. Once that damage exists, one cannot simply say, fine I’ll try harder to put the toilet seat down, I’m sorry, and then move on. The only thing that can heal that type of pain is self-reflection of each person over time while separated from the other individual. You could split up for a week, a month, a year, or ten years and it may or may not heal or heal completely. You could literally be married to someone for ten years, be in an emotionally abusive relationship, divorce them, remarry them ten years later, and your first argument might bring to light the entire 10 years you were married. And since there are a new ten years, you’re going to get to hear ten years of new history that you weren’t aware of and how they were treated so much better in certain ways during the last ten years without you. You’ll be compared to everyone and everything else that they can think of.
You can already see that I am suggesting instead of trying to heal things, it’s much easier to not cause the harm in the first place. Be patient, be understanding, and be accepting. If it’s not going to work then it’s not going to work, be honest to your partner and yourself, but don’t sit there and put this person down thinking they are going to change from it. It doesn’t work that way. You’ll get bad results and spend a lot of time miserable.
There’s never really reason for any argument whatsoever, once you make your point, move on and let it go, nothing can be gained. Let them know they didn’t put the toilet seat down and that you don’t appreciate it and why. But don’t sit there and yell at them for 30 minutes thinking they are going to put the toilet seat down. Accept that they might never do it for you on a consistent basis, and while they understand your reasoning behind it, it just might not happen.
If a toilet seat is something you can’t live with and accept yourself or understand, then move on, don’t keep badgering the person like you can force them to put it down each time through negativity. And I use toilet seats as just an example, it can literally be anything in a relationship you don’t like about another person, you can’t stop anyone from doing anything, only they can and the way they achieve this themselves is through self-reflection and changes in their beliefs. You cannot modify behavior until beliefs about things change. Consider this example before you leave.
If not putting a toilet seat down would result in the toilet exploding and killing that person, you can almost bet that the toilet seat would be put down every time. The reason is because their beliefs about the severity of not putting the seat down has increased. It now has different consequences then just having someone yell at you for it. And you’ll find in life that peoples behaviors are solely based off their beliefs and values. Find a way to change those through reason and knowledge presented in a convincing way and you might get a behavior modification.
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