From time to time, we all have them — difficult relationships. Sometimes, they seem forced upon us. Other times, what started off as a good or great relationship goes south and becomes difficult. Sometimes, well, it can seem like we’ve become a magnet for them for some time period of our lives. And sometimes they appear as a recurring theme or challenge over the arc of our lives.
After writing last week’s article — Even an Imperfect Intervention — I heard from a subscriber who had some questions. Clearly, from the questions they asked, they are as sharp as a tack. While they asked several questions, this one captures the gist of it:
“As I was reading, you point out that the idea is to cooperate, to make the person you are having a conversation with feel safe. I am wondering how this works when you are talking with a person who does not care about your safety, does not care about hurting you, yet it is someone with whom you have to find a way to cooperate or at minimum communicate with.”
It’s an excellent question! I will share with you an expanded version of my response. Difficult relationships? Here goes.
Difficult Relationship or Relationship Difficulty
You may or may not have what you would consider “difficult” relationships in your life. That’s where I am at this point in my life. I have some challenging relationships that need a little less occasional dysfunction and a little more health. But I don’t have any difficult relationships. So does this article pertain to you if you, like me, don’t have any downright difficult relationships in your life? Ones like our fellow traveler above asks about? I think it may pertain to you. Here’s why.
Even good relationships become difficult at times. Even in “healthy” relationships — and especially in them — the people involved are growing and evolving. That means changing. Changing is disruptive. It affects the balance and flow in the relationship. Even if it is only temporary, things become difficult in all relationships. And it can sure help to have some skills to actively work through these times.
With no further adieu, here’s my response to this reader’s excellent question...
My [Expanded] Response
Dear _____,
There’s more here to unpack than is possible via email, and I may lack enough understanding of your situation in order to even point you in the right direction. So, of the following, take what is useful and toss the rest.
Relational vs. Transactional vs. Toxic vs. Dangerous
We can classify relationships in four general buckets.
- Dangerous –– Relationships where your actual physical well-being is in danger… and perhaps your mental/emotional well-being. I have no real experience or expertise in dangerous relationships. So let’s take dangerous relationships off the table for our conversation here. Get out of them, and if you can’t, get the help you need to do so. Get out. Get to safety.
- Toxic — Relationships where you are not in danger, but it isn’t healthy for you. Very often, people in toxic relationships will complain about them, even hate them, but will for some reason persist in them (see Life Patterns, below). The old adage, “We can’t get enough of what we don’t want” seems to especially apply here. I have minor experience in these and no real expertise in them. My area of expertise is more in the latter two buckets, which are…
- Transactional — Relationships where the other person doesn’t care one way or the other about your well-being, yet for some reason, you are needing something from one another. These situations aren’t a well-being threat. The other person cares most about their best interests. They may take advantage of you financially, energetically, etc., but physical, emotional, or mental well-being isn’t being truly threatened. We may perceive it this way, but that isn’t the reality of this category of relationship.
- Relational — Here, the other person cares about us, and vice-versa. This doesn’t mean we don’t get upset with one another and forget we care. This doesn’t mean these are actually healthy, either. When things do flare up, one or the other of us remember we care before things get too far out of hand. And when we cool off, we know in our heart-of-hearts that whilst there may be dysfunction, there is no ill-will and there is no real threat to our safety.
The concepts I wrote about in Even an Imperfect Intervention last week, and to which you are referring to in your question above, apply to all situations where actual danger is NOT involved. The types of relationships I think you are writing about above are not actually relational. They sound transactional and some you described may lean towards toxic.
Relatively speaking, it is a good idea to neither provoke nor be provoked by interactions in a transactional type of situation. Applying some of the strategies I wrote about in the prior article can work quite well in transactional relationships and may apply to toxic ones. (The challenge with the toxic ones is the emotional load tends to be so high that we can’t actually strategize to use and actually act on the concepts I wrote about.)
Occasionally, these strategies of which I wrote might turn a transactional or toxic relationship into a relational one. It is more possible than probable, however.
As we get good at creating the possibility for the other to feel safe — or at least don’t provoke their defense mechanisms further than they themselves have invoked them — it can be surprising to see how the other might respond. I’ve seen people sort of soften and say, “You know, (sigh), I just realized I’ve been a bit of a jerk. What would you think of this…”
What is key here is to realize that we cannot actually make others feel safe or comfortable. We can only create the best possible circumstances for them to do so. Hold their best interests at heart, have compassion for them, be open-minded towards what they bring. These create optimal circumstances. But there is no guarantee that their ego will not react negatively to what you are bringing even if you are holding their best interests at heart.
Life Patterns
I usually encourage my clients to look at difficult relationship situations from two perspectives. This can add an opportunity for seeing the situation with “new eyes.”
The first perspective is stepping back from and looking at the situation they are presenting. We get so tangled up in the other person and the situation we tend to lose sobriety. We stop seeing straightforwardly. I ask them questions like…
- How can they use this situation to grow?
- How might they approach it skillfully?
- What can they learn about themselves?
- What might be their contribution to the problem?
- What do they think the other person should be doing that they aren’t, or shouldn’t be doing that they are?
- How might the other person be seeing them in this situation? (Run through the above questions from their perspective, looking at you).
The second perspective I recommend is looking at things in a more “meta” way. This is typically more challenging. Here, I’m asking my client to see if there is something bigger afoot.
A life pattern. I ask my clients questions like,
- Are situations like this a pattern in their life? If so, how can they solve for the riddle underneath the pattern? What would they need to learn to break the pattern from the inside, out?
- Are there other options to not be in these transactional or toxic relationships? If they can change jobs, type of work, estrange from this family member, end the “friendship”, etc., why don’t they choose that? What might that be saying about them that they don’t? What justifications do they tell themselves that justifies staying in these situations?
- Does staying in these situations make them feel more _______? More alive? More vital? More relevant? More righteous? Etc.? Is there one part of them that hates this, but another part of them that might possibly be kind of addicted to it?
- If they walked away from this situation, or if this situation were all of a sudden to come to an end, who would they be? Would they have an identity? A way of orienting to the world? And what would the likelihood be that they would — consciously or unconsciously — reassemble a new reality that looks like the old one they say they dislike, bemoan, or hate?
Life patterns are pointing us towards an internal transformation we need to make. And, barring that inner transformation, integration, or healing… we will be a magnet for more of these difficult relationships. In short, the message isn’t getting through to us. And a change in employer, vocation, geography, relationship, etc. isn’t going fix it permanently.
The Mirror Principle
I subscribe to the principle that — like it or not — we have in our lives what we most need to see about ourselves. It isn’t usually the face-value. It’s deeper, usually. It lies down at the level of a quality. Our behavior and the other person’s behavior may appear to be polar opposite, yet the underlying quality we are mirroring for one another is the very same quality.
For example, one person may be aggressive and harsh, and the other be submissive and passive-aggressive. The first sees the other as weak. The second sees the first as a bully. Apparent opposites. Yet the underlying quality, however, might be a lack of belief in self.
Our mirrors are essential for our growth. The eye cannot see the eye without a mirror. Such we are with our faults and shortcomings. We can best see them in the mirror of another. Unfortunately, we hate what we see in the mirror and get confused… believing that we are hating the other. So we are quite skilled at dismissing our mirrors. And when we throw away one perfectly good mirror due to our disdain for it, along comes another. Like clockwork.
However, when we use the mirror and transform that part of ourselves, the mirror will change. That doesn’t mean the other person will change, though that is possible. It is shocking how often we bring out the worst in others whilst being totally unaware that we are doing so. The other person may change. Or they may leave. Or get transferred. Or we do. Or the mirror simply loses its “charge” and therefore isn’t a problem.
So what is around us, now, is reflecting back both the positive and the negative of what we need to see in ourselves to evolve. This is singularly one of the most important concepts we can and should get. Also, by the way, it takes our blame and victim and hard-done-by schticks (our great incapacitators) out at the knees.
In a toxic or transactional situation — particularly if we are in it due to our own volition — these things almost always apply. In toxic or transactional relationships where we are literally captive to them and have little volition, they may apply. And in volitional, relational relationships, they almost always do.
Working It from Both Ends (or the Other End)
Another idea I’d give you — and it applies only some of the time — is to work on shifting relational relationships from less healthy towards more healthy, even if they are pretty good. In other words, don’t work directly on the most problematic relationships — relational or toxic ones — first.
Make the good or decent relationships you already have, great. As you shift those, you may see things in yourself or in your life patterns or in your internal operating system that help you see and understand and work with the transactional or toxic relationships more clearly, more skillfully.
Never Lose Focus of the Primary Battle
And here’s my last potential point…
What is most important is to realize that the primary battle is within, not without. And it is imperative to move beyond an intellectual grasp of this principle, and move it into action and application. The intellectual grasp of this principle is meaningless if it is not embodied in the actual strategy and converted into action.
If we fail to act on this principle, we are locked in an endless struggle with forces and situations and people outside of us… all of which lies outside of our control. It is a fool’s game to make the things we cannot control our primary focus. Secondary, yes. Primary, no.
I hope something of the above might give you something worthwhile to think about.
Much warmth,
Otis
The original response was about one-half as long as the above. As I was inserting the original response here, I decided to make the response more complete than I’d ever have time to do for a single email. I did let this valued reader know that I’d be posting my response here and asked them if they’d be okay with it. Additionally, I received their permission to include the quotation above from their original email to me.
I hope you might find this useful in some way. Now, or in the future. And if you think this might help someone, please pass it along.