The Reality of Relationships
One of the biggest problems in this day and age is that we get so much information about relationships coming into our brains from the internet, TV and radio and trying to make sense of it can be overwhelming. I don't know whether it's an instinct or purely social conditioning but most people that I talk to seem to want to be in a success monogamous relationship. (And full disclosure, I am in my 40s and I don't know enough about young adults coming through who may be changing that perspective). Biologically of course it makes sense when you consider that a majority of relationships are male-female bondings coming together for the purpose of child rearing. Unlike a lot of other animals, human children are incredibly helpless and require years of support in order for them to become independent. The brain is astonishing and that architecture requires many years of being built.
And so evolution being what it is, has selected for parents over the years that are attentive to this requirement and men and women in principle have a desire to stay together to see the process of child development through. So, whilst in practice that is not necessarily the reality of modern day life and of course the full panoply of human sexual expression are giving rise to new ways of doing things, I think there is a desire, in theory to want to have that stable, long-term relationship. This gives rise to a lot of fear and a lot of ruminating about such matters. Is this the right person for me? Have I settled? Can I do better? Is this 'the one'. It seems to be not as good as it was, will it get better? An endless amount of questioning can ensue. Returning to the point I was trying to make, we get a lot of information coming in about relationships from a myriad of different sources. These are relationships of the rich, of the famous of the modern day kings and queens. And what are they saying? Well more and more they are saying, 'well that didn't work out so I will be going back to the drawing boards and trying again'.
How many people truly work at relationships to find out why they aren't working, is it something to do with themselves, is it something to do with maybe the way that they are relating to each other. How many times do people leave relationships only to find that after an initial honey moon stage they are back to square one, the same old problems rising up. I have a lot of empathy though, it's not easy to see yourself, we all have a natural blind-spot to ourselves because our ego is busy bending reality for us so that we don't have to be exposed to the unpleasant truth that we aren't as great as we kind of think we are.
So in essence what I am saying, is that all relationships require never ending work and commitment for anyone but if you have ROCD you are now stepping into a land full of landmines. Knowing what is ROCD and what is the normal push and pull of everyday relationships can be incredibly complex to uncover. It's all too easy to say 'I have ROCD, therefore all the problems are probably mine and it's me creating all the problems in the relationship or conversely, all the problems are you, I have ROCD and I don't like the way you are because you are not perfect and I don't like that fact very much, I want perfect. Both are extremes and both are equally unhelpful. Relationships exists in the grey, they are messy and complicated.
The only way that I could be sure about what was going on was with a therapist I used to spend ages on my own working through all of the different issues that were going on and would almost never come to the right conclusion. So here are a few of my tips if you can’t afford a therapist about what you can try to do to try and work out if its ROCD or just normal relationship problems.
1) Time. Give it time. Don’t rush into anything. You need time to work out whether you are being rash or not, whether it is ROCD or not. This used to cause me a lot of pain as I felt so guilty and responsible for my partner’s feeling but I read a lot of articles on and I was always grateful to have not made any fast decisions as my ROCD often flared up at more stressful events.
2) Space. Get more space into your life. If you’re the kind of person that rushes headlong into a relationship, then stop and try really hard to give you both more space. This isn’t space so that you can scour the internet for a million articles on the subject but space to do things for yourself and space to get a better spective on whether it is a relationship issue or an ROCD issue. I remember I had a terrible habit of finishing relationships and immediately feeling better. In fact, it felt so liberating that my ROCD diminished greatly and I didn’t feel it very much any more and so I would apologise and then say I was sorry and that I. didn’t mean it. Well that’s obviously a mean way to carry on and doesn’t do much for trust in a relationship so I suggest you don’t do that if its getting a bit too intense, just try and get some space and decompress. Hopefully that will be enough to stop you finishing a relationship, only to feel better and then start it up again.
3) Help. Get opinion off people that you trust. This means asking someone who you know will give you a straight answer and not someone that will just go along with what you think. Good friends will tell you the truth even if they know that it might hurt you as they know that ultimately that would be better for you. Obviously you have to disclose that you have ROCD or think that you might have with someone who might not know but any good friend will understand or at least try to understand and will not judge you.
If I think of any more I’ll post them here. It’s not easy but take 5 slow deep breaths and get yourself some time, some space and someone to confide in with what’s going on before making any decisions in your relationships and this is unfortunately the reality of trying to sort out ROCD in relationships.
How many people truly work at relationships to find out why they aren't working, is it something to do with themselves, is it something to do with maybe the way that they are relating to each other. How many times do people leave relationships only to find that after an initial honey moon stage they are back to square one, the same old problems rising up. I have a lot of empathy though, it's not easy to see yourself, we all have a natural blind-spot to ourselves because our ego is busy bending reality for us so that we don't have to be exposed to the unpleasant truth that we aren't as great as we kind of think we are.
So in essence what I am saying, is that all relationships require never ending work and commitment for anyone but if you have ROCD you are now stepping into a land full of landmines. Knowing what is ROCD and what is the normal push and pull of everyday relationships can be incredibly complex to uncover. It's all too easy to say 'I have ROCD, therefore all the problems are probably mine and it's me creating all the problems in the relationship or conversely, all the problems are you, I have ROCD and I don't like the way you are because you are not perfect and I don't like that fact very much, I want perfect. Both are extremes and both are equally unhelpful. Relationships exists in the grey, they are messy and complicated.
The only way that I could be sure about what was going on was with a therapist I used to spend ages on my own working through all of the different issues that were going on and would almost never come to the right conclusion. So here are a few of my tips if you can’t afford a therapist about what you can try to do to try and work out if its ROCD or just normal relationship problems.
1) Time. Give it time. Don’t rush into anything. You need time to work out whether you are being rash or not, whether it is ROCD or not. This used to cause me a lot of pain as I felt so guilty and responsible for my partner’s feeling but I read a lot of articles on and I was always grateful to have not made any fast decisions as my ROCD often flared up at more stressful events.
2) Space. Get more space into your life. If you’re the kind of person that rushes headlong into a relationship, then stop and try really hard to give you both more space. This isn’t space so that you can scour the internet for a million articles on the subject but space to do things for yourself and space to get a better spective on whether it is a relationship issue or an ROCD issue. I remember I had a terrible habit of finishing relationships and immediately feeling better. In fact, it felt so liberating that my ROCD diminished greatly and I didn’t feel it very much any more and so I would apologise and then say I was sorry and that I. didn’t mean it. Well that’s obviously a mean way to carry on and doesn’t do much for trust in a relationship so I suggest you don’t do that if its getting a bit too intense, just try and get some space and decompress. Hopefully that will be enough to stop you finishing a relationship, only to feel better and then start it up again.
3) Help. Get opinion off people that you trust. This means asking someone who you know will give you a straight answer and not someone that will just go along with what you think. Good friends will tell you the truth even if they know that it might hurt you as they know that ultimately that would be better for you. Obviously you have to disclose that you have ROCD or think that you might have with someone who might not know but any good friend will understand or at least try to understand and will not judge you.
If I think of any more I’ll post them here. It’s not easy but take 5 slow deep breaths and get yourself some time, some space and someone to confide in with what’s going on before making any decisions in your relationships and this is unfortunately the reality of trying to sort out ROCD in relationships.
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