Donna JamesRelationships are never perfect. They have their ups and downs. Their good times… and not-so-good times.
Whether it’s a romantic, personal, or professional business relationship, if it’s not serving us in a healthy, fulfilling way, and in fact costing us our emotional, mental, and physical well-being, we need to consider ending it.
When there are mostly “downs” — possibly very dark, depressing “downs”, and the ups are few and far between, we need to ask, why keep torturing ourselves?
As a coach who specializes in unhealthy relationships, I ask my clients those same questions. The response is often the same.
That they feel they’ve invested so much time, even years, and so much of themselves into their relationship; they’re hesitant to leave at that point.
If it’s a personal relationship, by no means am I encouraging divorce, but there comes a point where we need to evaluate how your relationship is affecting our emotional and mental health. If we’ve been putting in the effort but are getting nothing in return, except for feelings of sadness, emptiness, depression, anxiety or any other negative emotions, that relationship is not benefitting our life. In fact, it’s most likely harming it.
It it’s a professional relationship, often, the mindset is that we need to value and even make sacrifices to keep ALL clients. No matter how much time, energy, and resources they take up. But again, at what cost to not just ourselves, but our other clients… and our business.
Here’s the thing… LIFE’S TOO SHORT!
Sure, just the thought of ending a relationship can be a scary or depressing realization for people — oddly, even as scary and depressing as the actual relationship itself.
But that shouldn’t be the reason we stay in a relationship. Because ultimately, staying in – and being stuck in a toxic relationship should be an even more depressing and scarier thought.
That being said, I decided to provide a different perspective. An analogy that many of us can relate to in a more objective manner. That’s the similarity between our relationships and cars.
Some cars increase in value over the years — some cars’ values will plummet faster than — well, a car driving off a cliff.
Maybe we’ve had a car for so many years that we’ve developed an emotional attachment to it. It may have been the super-cool-car we drove around in high school, back in the 80’s. Blaring tunes from our Frankie Goes to Hollywood cassette out the window. Dressed in neon tees with huge shoulder pads, massive back-combed hair and leg warmers. Life was great! Until it wasn’t.
Or is it our dream car? So flashy and gorgeous on the outside. Its sleek curves, low profile, deep hypnotic purring sound. Stunning high gloss paint that turns heads. All those beautiful features blinded us to any potential underlying issues or the sky high maintenance costs down the road.
Then there’s the classic car. As soon as we saw it, it made us happy. Sure, it may have been a bit rough and rusty around the edges, but we knew there was great potential. It’s dependable and reliable. Yes, there were hiccups along the way. But we were persistent, determined to invest our time, and energy, and put a lot of love into it. And it paid off! Over the years, we’ve both enjoyed the journey and reaped the benefits as it continues to increase in value.
Just like cars, there are a lot of different reasons why we got into — and continue to stay in our relationships. Over the years, it comes down to being realistic about the value that person or client continues to bring to our life. Are they still reliable and trustworthy? Do they still make us happy? Do they continue to move forward — or are they stuck in neutral, or worse, only going in reverse?
Do we feel safe and confident that they’ll be there with us as we go along on the road trips – or business trips – of life? Even though there will be plenty of bumps, high hills, low valleys, and rough roads ahead?
Or do we find that as much as we keep investing our time, emotions, love, and money into the relationship, it is no longer reliable? That it no longer makes us happy — in fact it seems to only cause grief and stress. The “drive” is gone. We no longer feel safe or assured that it will be dependable or be there with us, taking us along on our journey through life or business, no matter how rough the roads ahead may be.
If it’s the latter “car”, what should we do going forward? Does it make sense to continue to invest all that we’ve got, depleting all our time, energy, commitment, and love into it until we’ve got nothing left? All because we feel we “owe it” to the car to hang onto it?
So instead of realizing that neither one of us, nor the “car” are going to get any further ahead, we continue to hang onto the car.
Gradually, we stop caring. Its condition deteriorates even more and every time we look at it, our sense of resentment only grows. We begin to realize just how disappointed we are. That as much as we loved and invested our time and energy into keeping it running over the years — it no longer lives up to what we had hoped for — a lifetime of happiness and journeys together.
