Ohhhh…Lawd!!! It’s about to get real!
Show of hands if you’ve ever been hurt in a relationship? Are you still hurting; or have you gotten over it?
Getting hurt in a relationship is not just a female experience. I’m pretty confident every man had that one female that hurt him so bad…other women ended up paying for her transgressions. If not, then I apologize. Let me not project my past onto yours. Maybe I was the only one who…for 10 years…left a tide of women with shipwrecked emotions in the wake of getting my heart broken. I built a protective exoskeleton around my feelings to avoid ever getting hurt again.
But for those men who’ve been hurt by some scandalous woman…or a woman who’s been hurt by some trifflin’ dude, what do you do with that hurt? How do you deal with the guy who hurt you…and you’re still with him? Or…you’re no longer with the woman that hurt you, but she got you looking at these other chicks a little-different.
The ‘Feeling’ of Hurt
The common cord that syncopates all feelings of hurt within relationships is: you put your trust in someone…and they screwed you over.
Trust is tricky. Because it’s your confidence in someone else’s authenticity, absent of absolute certainty. It’s your best guess judgment.
So when someone hurts you, you get mad at them…for sure. But you’re also mad at yourself. Because you put a lot of confidence in your judgment to determine who you can trust with your happiness and wellbeing. So when you find out that your judgment was wrong…you’re pissed! You might even question your judgment…and privately blame yourself for missing the signs —or not doing a better job of following your intuition. This can shatter a woman’s self esteem, or a man’s confidence — or even a car window (IJS…it happens).
Enter protective exoskeleton for emotional damage-control…or whatever self-medicating coping mechanism towards which you gravitate.
Happy Long-Term Relationships
But that protective exoskeleton doesn’t help you grow. It’s actually stunting your emotional growth by restricting the range of feeling and emotions you’re supposed to experience and learn to properly manage.
It’s your ability to successfully manage your emotions and the blending of emotions within your relationship. That will influence whether you will be happy in future relationships.
And know…you will never have a happy long-term relationship if you don’t know how to manage your emotions.
Growing Past the Hurt
So let me teach you how to deal with the people that hurt you and the hurt itself…and become the emotionally available person you need to be for a happy long-term relationship.
(Exempt from this discussion are those who hurt you by sexual abuse. The sensitive nature of working through this kind of hurt is better handled by a licensed counselor.)
I will be addressing two types of people that hurt you: the person that hurt you and you’re still in a relationship with them; and the person that hurt you that’s no longer around.
Read more on the next page.
They Hurt You and You’re Still With Em’
1. Forgive But DO NOT Trust. Unforgiveness is the deep emotional urge to punish or hold a grudge against someone for what he/she did. In addition to the Judeo-Christian command to forgive, there are also documented medical ailments that stem from prolonged unforgiveness. So, it is in your best interest to release him or her from the punishment you feel they deserve. But you don’t have to trust them. Require more proof and certainty of their authenticity before putting your confidence in them again.
2. Setup A System to Prove They’ve Change. If you want to work it out, and they swear up and down that they’ve changed, then set up a system for them to prove it. It goes like this: A) Set milestones. Say something like, “For the next 6 months, Imma need to verify whatever I want…whenever I want. And after 6 months, I’ll reevaluate where I am in this relationship.” B) Ask (or give your blessing for) them to do something, and C) Verify it was done according to agreed upon terms. This system shifts the control over whether you will stay or go, into your own hands. Plus, it gives you six months to plan your exit strategy in case you realize you want out after only 2 months.
They Hurt You and You’re Not With Em’
3. Don’t Project Your Past on Your Current/Future Relationships. If your past relationship got you feeling a little-different about your current/next mate, out of an abundance of caution and self-preservation, there’s a potential that you’re treating your current/next mate like a suspect. It would come out in your attitude, your tone, your body language, your sucking of the teeth, your sighs, your pinched lips, your raised eyebrows with the combo side-eye. Stop that! Acknowledge to your mate that you’ve been hurt in the past. Ask for patience in allowing you to trust him/her. Before you pronounce condemnation and be like…“See! I knew he’d be just like my ex.”, ask a trusted friend to tell you if you’re crazy or if there’s reason for concern.
4. Pinpoint Your Feelings. Your feelings are like your taste buds. I can’t logically convince you that brussel sprouts taste good if you feel they taste nasty. Likewise, your best friend can’t logically convince you to stop feeling hurt about your past relationship…even if they think you shouldn’t feel ‘that way’ anymore. But a healthy response is to pinpoint exactly what you’re feeling. Are you just hurt…or are you also angry, feeling betrayed, feeling insecure, etc. This takes some soul-searching. Ask a trusted friend to help you root out all your feelings. Then, take those feelings and…
5. Pinpoint Your Emotions. During a break up, have you ever said to yourself, “I’m not gonna let him/her see me cry.” What happened was, you felt hurt and your natural emotion to express that feeling was to cry. But, I bet you tried your best to suck up those tears in front of him or her…didn’t you? Your attempt to stop yourself from crying was an effort to control your emotions. See, you cannot control your feelings, but you can control your emotions.
For, emotions are the outward expression of your feelings (i.e., crying was the outward expression of feeling hurt). So, once you identify all your feelings, pinpoint the outward expression of emotions associated with them. For instance, if you felt bitter after the breakup, the outward expression of emotion might have been that you stopped caring about other people’s feeling and started manipulating relationships so that they only benefited you (or was that just what I did for 10 years).
Getting past the feelings of hurt and managing the associate emotions is by no means an easy task to begin or finish. But it is necessary if you ultimately want to have a happy long-term relationship.