We make relationships hard. They don’t have to be. Part 1
March 16, 2022
Reveling in the sweet spots of our relationships makes things wonderful and delicious, while spending time in the ick spots makes us both lesser people, and brings us even more fear, loathing, resentment, anger and more.
I get it.
I really do.
I, too, used to be baffled by relationships and how to live the life I imagined in my head—happily and without conflict.
I read books. I bought journals and workbooks. I shared them with my partner. I even got those HAVE GREAT SEX ideas books with tear-out surprise ideas to bring back intimacy.
I made it hard for myself.
And, honestly, I made it hard for my partner.
MUCH harder than it needed to be.
And he had plenty of his own hard inside his head.
I like to share this venn diagram that I created about the sweet spot in relationships.
I feel there is also one for ick in relationships.
Where our fears bump up against and overlap the fears of our partners, and we create nastiness.
And just like reveling in the sweet spots of our relationships makes things wonderful and delicious, spending time in the ick spots makes us both lesser people, and brings us even more fear, loathing, resentment, anger and more.
The not-good stuff.
And we do this in major and minor ways.
This is the beginning of a series all about how we make relationships hard on ourselves, beyond the difficulty of just LIVING LIFE.
How we allow the things we can choose and control to get away from us, or even to sabotage us on top of how what is always out of control does.
And speaking of control, that’s the topic for today:
We make relationships hard by trying to control them (and other people).
It’s clear when you pause to think about it, and yet, this behavior is modeled so pervasively in our culture, it’s seems not only as the norm, but as desirable.
- The manipulative partner who is just trying to get their significant other to do something “for their own good.”
- The nagging partner who just wants the trash taken out.
- The person who obsesses of actions taken or not taken and compares them against a list of “how relationships look.”
- The constant stream of teasing or “negging” from one partner to another, cutting them down in front of friends and family, and pointing out their failings.
The kind of control that exists outside of kink and BDSM and consensual relationship negotiations.
Ewww. No, thank you.
And yet, it’s expected of us. Almost forced onto us.
Find the full transcript for this episode here. https://datingkinky.com/blog/general-love-romance/we-make-relationships-hard-they-dont-have-to-be-part-1/
I really do.
I, too, used to be baffled by relationships and how to live the life I imagined in my head—happily and without conflict.
I read books. I bought journals and workbooks. I shared them with my partner. I even got those HAVE GREAT SEX ideas books with tear-out surprise ideas to bring back intimacy.
I made it hard for myself.
And, honestly, I made it hard for my partner.
MUCH harder than it needed to be.
And he had plenty of his own hard inside his head.
I like to share this venn diagram that I created about the sweet spot in relationships.
I feel there is also one for ick in relationships.
Where our fears bump up against and overlap the fears of our partners, and we create nastiness.
And just like reveling in the sweet spots of our relationships makes things wonderful and delicious, spending time in the ick spots makes us both lesser people, and brings us even more fear, loathing, resentment, anger and more.
The not-good stuff.
And we do this in major and minor ways.
This is the beginning of a series all about how we make relationships hard on ourselves, beyond the difficulty of just LIVING LIFE.
How we allow the things we can choose and control to get away from us, or even to sabotage us on top of how what is always out of control does.
And speaking of control, that’s the topic for today:
We make relationships hard by trying to control them (and other people).
It’s clear when you pause to think about it, and yet, this behavior is modeled so pervasively in our culture, it’s seems not only as the norm, but as desirable.
- The manipulative partner who is just trying to get their significant other to do something “for their own good.”
- The nagging partner who just wants the trash taken out.
- The person who obsesses of actions taken or not taken and compares them against a list of “how relationships look.”
- The constant stream of teasing or “negging” from one partner to another, cutting them down in front of friends and family, and pointing out their failings.
The kind of control that exists outside of kink and BDSM and consensual relationship negotiations.
Ewww. No, thank you.
And yet, it’s expected of us. Almost forced onto us.
Find the full transcript for this episode here. https://datingkinky.com/blog/general-love-romance/we-make-relationships-hard-they-dont-have-to-be-part-1/