My friends would describe me as strong, capable, and dependable. I have my flaws, and work to recognize areas for improvement and grow. I’ve earned promotions in two industries, wrote a book, and started a non-profit to help others. Overall, I usually make good, sound decisions.
And yet, while dating someone who turned out to be harmful to me, I was full of self-doubt and struggled to think clearly about the relationship and decide why it felt “off.”
When we started dating, we seemed to have many values in common and I found him interesting. He was thoughtful and kind. He sent me sweet text messages saying Good Morning as I started my workday or later in the day just to let me know he was thinking about me. I enjoyed our dates and talking with him.
We quickly became a couple, and I appreciated many of his traits. But within a few weeks he was pushing to become sexually active and I wanted to wait for marriage. I liked so many other things about him and hoped he’d be willing to wait. Towards the end of each date, he’d push, I’d say no, and the date would end. Later, I’d think about what bothered me, and try to explain it to him. But we were always busy and I usually had to have the conversation as we were driving from one place to another. It wasn’t a very good way to have a meaningful conversation. And he often dismissed what I was saying.
I didn’t realize the subtle, ongoing stress I felt. Instead, I kept trying to make the relationship work. Then I started feeling like he didn’t listen to me in other ways. I tried to express how I felt, and he’d respond with, “You’re important to me. I’m listening to you”. Or, “I wouldn’t do that”. Again, I was being dismissed.
I started to wonder if this was the relationship for me. I started to wonder if it was harmful. I read over the lists of healthy, unhealthy, and abusive traits. I saw some characteristics on each list and was confused. For weeks, I struggled. I didn’t want to let go of what had seemed to be such a great relationship. So, I kept trying to express how I felt and hoping he’d understand.
Why does it become difficult to see clearly while in an unhealthy, harmful, or abusive relationship?
The short answer is stress.
Being put down, ridiculed, talked to in a derogatory way, having our boundaries pushed, or having our feelings dismissed all cause stress. Recently, I described being in a harmful relationship as being in a tunnel. I had blinders on and my perception of healthy traits and self-esteem were skewed.
I didn’t realize it, but I was feeling what started as subtle stressors, and with time they grew, but I was too busy trying to fix the relationship to see it clearly. As the relationship and unhealthy traits continued, I was consistently in stressful situations. As a result, stress responses are activated more often.
Being in stressful situations or relationships doesn’t occur just in dating. It can happen in other relationships or even work environments. In Manage Your Emotional Culture, an article by the Harvard Business Review, L. David Marquet, a retired Navy captain describes how the previous rigid, top-down leadership style resulted in low morale.
The article goes on to share:
Marquet argues that the constant fear of being yelled at—for making mistakes, not knowing things, challenging authority, and so on—made it harder for sailors to think well and act quickly. This view is backed by research that the Berkeley professor emeritus Barry Staw and his colleagues have done on “threat rigidity” (the tendency to narrow one’s focus under threat) and by findings on the impact of excessive stress on the prefrontal cortex: It impairs executive functions such as judgment, memory, and impulse control.
In Marquet’s book, Turn the Ship Around!, he shares his findings that when commands are yelled and the crewmen are consistently harped on and degraded, they were stressed that they couldn’t think clearly and often made mistakes.
The same is true in harmful relationships. When we’re experiencing ongoing stress, it drains our physical and mental energy, places our bodies in a constant cycle of stress, negatively impacts our decision-making skills, and we may resort to zoning out or numbing ourselves with things such as video games, binge-watching shows, or having a drink. With time, the ongoing stress can lead to anxiety.
How to turn the tide
In a harmful relationship, we need the time and space to see things more clearly. In my previous relationship, I had very little time to myself. I was either working, sleeping, or spending time with Russ. After a date, we even talked on the phone as one person drove home. It the beginning I thought it was a cute trait of our relationship. But I didn’t have any time just to let my thoughts wander. I started pulling back and spending more time by myself. It helped me decompress and helped me begin to see things more clearly.
Thankfully, as I started to take some time to be by myself and journal, I realized I didn’t feel like myself. As I reflected, I realized:
I’d become distracted - I was always thinking about the relationship, what I could say, and how to bring it back to how it felt in the beginning.
I had a hard time concentrating, which led to making mistakes and being less productive.
I was forgetful.
I had trouble sleeping and even when I slept well, I still felt tired.
I didn’t like these changes in myself and knew something needed to change. I finally concluded that even if I thought the person I was dating had healthy traits, if I felt this way in the relationship, it wasn’t the right one for me. Eventually, I left the relationship.
For more on how I was feeling (internal cues), please see this post.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog where we’ll discuss other ways to recover from stress.
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