How Taking Things Personally Hurts Relationships - and How to Stop

I used to be quick to take things personally.

Without realizing it, I would assume the way other people treated me was somehow about me.

This mostly showed up in romantic relationships, of course. But it would also rear its head in friendships, at work, etc. depending on the situation.

Either way, it was likely happening somewhere in my life, at all times.

Naturally, I was also really cynical. I get the feeling cynicism and taking things personally go together pretty often.

Anyway, to see what I mean, take a look at the kinds of things I would assume about YOU when I’d take the things you did personally:

• If you didn't want to spend more time with me it was because you didn't like me that much.
• If you didn't invite me to this or that thing it was because you were mad at me or I did something wrong.
• If you didn't text me back fast enough it was because you were being secretive, losing interest in me, didn’t care about how that made me feel, or whatever
• If you didn't check on me or check in with me it was because you didn't care about me.
• If you did something you knew would upset me it was because you don't care about how I feel.
• If you lied to me it was because you were trying to manipulate me get what you want, "play me for stupid", or betray me.
• If you "took someone else's side" in an argument (tried to encourage me to have empathy for the person on the other side) it was because you were against me and didn't have empathy for me. You’re choosing them over me. You must be saying I’m the asshole or something.
• The list goes on.

Notice how many of those perceptions have the word "me" in them.

In considering other peoples' feelings, experiences, and intentions, I was constantly finding my way back to centering myself.

"What about me!?"

Especially in conflict, which I had a knack for finding somehow (this wasn't a coincidence).

So you can see how what I mean is that I was making how other people treated me about "me". And honestly, this made sense.

If you looked at the reverse, I was also thinking about my behaviors as reflections of how I felt about them. I was constantly worried they would take me personally, as well.

I practiced what I preached, and this was back when I had an "I prioritize you, you prioritize me" version of love that bled seamlessly into an "I sacrifice for you, you sacrifice for me" kind of love.

To me, it was really important to show people you love them. And that means sacrificing to show them that you care. Not a bunch of big sacrifices, of course. I’m talking about the “little” stuff that’s not that big a deal.

Like, yes, I’m happy to get out of bed and come meet you at the bar for a drink because you need to talk. Even though I’m exhausted. I’ll perk up. Your feelings matter to me. You’re my friend. I’ll live. It’s just one night (I say for the 3rd time this month).

Yes, I’m happy to stop what I’m doing at work and text you back quickly. Every time you text me. Which is several times during my shift…

Of course I’m going to invite you to this thing that, if I’m being honest, I don’t want to invite you to. I actually think your social anxiety is going to be through the roof and you won't really enjoy yourself. You're coming for the FOMO instead of considering what you truly want. I can sense that. And that means I’ll feel obligated to take care of you. And, if I’m being honest, I really needed this for myself because I’ve been stressed so I wanted to relax and have a good time but… I don’t want you to be upset or feel left out! I don't see an option for you to not take my "no" personally. So I’m going to invite you and just try my best to have a good time while being stressed about your stress. No big deal. It’s just one night. (4th time this month, and counting).

Yes, I’m happy to automatically - without question - do all of these “little, inconsequential” things, because I care about you! These are small sacrifices to make to show you that I care. I don’t mind at all.

I’m a very empathetic, caring friend/girlfriend. And this is what makes me such a catch! Duh!

But if you don’t do these things for me, you don’t care about me then, right? Now it's personal.

In fact, I’m monitoring a lot of shit you do as a measure of care and consideration for me, just like I assume you're monitoring my behavior as a measure of care and consideration for you.

I wasn’t just taking other peoples’ behavior personally. I also took my behavior personally on their behalf - whether they reinforced it or not.

Let's just say that during this season of my life I was stressed and spread thin, easily offended, easily hurt, deeply cynical, and - usually - angry or upset about something.

I was miserable. I was easy to "betray" and disappoint. My depression was at an all time high. And I was oblivious to the fact that my habit of taking things personally had anything to do with it.

And when I would take things personally, no matter how many times I heard "Tori, everything isn't about you", I couldn't seem to really get it. Because that’s a rude af way to say that, to be fair. But it was also because I wasn't the only person in my circle showing up this way. This isn't a character thing. It's cultural.

Anyway, naturally at some point I burned out on people pleasing. Not because I saw how much it exhausted me to care. But because other people not caring the way I expected them to felt really painful.

I had very big feelings about this, and - with my inner child at the wheel of course - I decided I had no choice but to surrender to the idea that nobody really cares about me.

I'm done trying to get them to care about me. And of course, I’m done bending over backwards to show them that I care about them because I’m not being met and this is painful af.

Fuck all ya'll.

I was a sad, bitter, stressed out, cynical panda evolving into a lone wolf whose sole mission in life was to be detached and at peace.

For the attachment theory folks reading this, this is when I swung from anxiously attached behavior to avoidant behavior (for a while).

"I'm just going to focus on myself."

Honestly? This is the wisest thing I could've done for myself at the time. It was a great decision, but I won't pretend it felt great.

I felt heartbroken and anguished and betrayed and all the “bad” things.

Mostly, though, I felt grief.

But I wasn't grieving my relationships or my ex or abandonment or any of that.

I was grieving my entire concept of love.

From where I was sitting, Love itself had failed me. (The cynicism had to peak for me I guess. Go hard or go home).

The story I was telling myself was that I was wrong for believing in love, and I should've been "selfish" like everyone else from the beginning. And this made me think of myself as naive. Stupid. And weak.

I can’t overstate how painful it was become distrustful of something I deeply, deeply valued: Love Itself.

I believed, and still believe, in the importance of relationship. And at the time, that looked like showing up for people you care about and truly, deeply, boldly, having their backs in a way that gave no one any room to question your care for them.

If someone was questioning if I cared about them based on my actions, it automatically meant I wasn't doing enough. And the same rules applied to them. If I was upset about something you did, that was on you to fix my feelings to show me that you care. I would do that for you. So that was fair to me.

That’s the kind of love I believed in. And it did NOT work, for me or anyone else.

No wonder it took me so long to get to this place, there was so much shame and disillusionment under that.

I had to grieve what I thought of love, though. And this grief was heavy for me.

Moving through that, I let go of love itself for a while. I went totally celibate, ducked down and created some distance between me & my friends. I put my head down and got to work on just focusing on myself and building myself back up.

I was in a cocoon season and, for the first time, I wasn't expecting or looking for anyone else to love me.

This chapter was about me loving myself.

Enter My Villain Era.

The era where we truly believe, with our whole body, that we are the most selfish people in the world for setting basic boundaries and putting our own priorities first.

The era where we stop making all those “little” sacrifices for other people. Even if it seems petty to them, personal, or like "we're not doing enough", we’re starting to understand that shit adds up like dollar bills.

These “little” sacrifices feel heavier now. And I'm not measuring how much I care about you by how many I'm willing to make.

Make no mistake, I still loved my people. Apparently I can't not love people, which I’m grateful for or this could’ve gotten ugly.

So I was compassionate about how I stood in my boundaries, making sure to communicate that I still love them, I’m just taking care of myself. But I stuck with my commitment and went through with it.

I showed up very differently because now I was making a very pointed commitment to care about myself, first, scary as that was.

"If it's bad for my mental health I'm not doing it" became a big motto for me at this point. This was how I was building trust in myself and pulling myself out of misery.

So I was proactively filling all of my time with things I classified as good for my mental health, which means I was saying no to a lot of things I was formerly saying yes to because I was starting to see, now, that those things are bad for my mental health.

Then, the funniest thing happened.

I found myself on the other side of the conversations that were so upsetting for me before.

Some people were making these strangely familiar assumptions about me. Actually, they were the same kinds of assumptions I just listed up there^

Some people started taking my choices personally, thinking I cared less about them or was against them somehow.

And hear me out, because I was actually terrified about this walking into this season. I knew it could and probably happen. Like I said, the level of self sacrifice was cultural to an extent. I wasn't the only one walking around with that philosophy. And I was afraid of making people feel how I’d felt before because I knew how painful that was.

I felt guilty from just anticipating these moments. I felt guilty in them.

But when these convos started actually happening, I was surprised by what came up for me.

A realization clicked very cleanly into place for me, and it helped me move through the guilt.

None of the shit I thought was about me was ever actually about me.

In fact, very few things that other people do have anything to do with me at all.

I saw this clearly. Because while these people were suddenly worried my choices were personal and about them, I knew for a fact that these decisions I was making were actually... about me, maybe for the very first time.

Wow.

Like I said, I was prioritizing my mental health. I was prioritizing taking care of myself.

And sure, I’d told myself I was “giving up on love” but no, that didn’t really happen.

I still loved these people as much as I always had. The difference was that I was finally making space to love myself, too.

And that meant I was no longer measuring love by how many “little” sacrifices we could make for each other. I'd given up on taking shit like that personally in either direction.

So if my decisions aren’t about them, then other peoples' decision never really had anything to do with me either, huh?

They were just trying to balance caring about themselves and other priorities in their lives, with caring about me.

There is a distinct difference in this that’s actually really important. But I get that theory doesn’t cut it.

So…

Let's get specific, and see what I’m assuming about you when I’m NOT taking the things you do personally:

• If you didn't want to spend more time with me I'm assuming it's because you are busy taking care of yourself and your other priorities - not because you don't like me.
• If you didn't invite me to this or that thing I'm assuming it was probably because you were under the impression it’s not my kind of thing so my vibe would be off or I wouldn’t enjoy myself, maybe I don’t like the people, maybe you thought I was busy. Hell, maybe you didn't think of me at all for this one, which DEFINITELY means your decision wasn't about me either way. But even if it was “about” me, I’m assuming you're considering me and how I'd truly feel about the event, space, or people. How empathetic of you. I now have the self-compassion to match. No, I don't want to make the little sacrifice of making time for events that I don't need to go to and that I won't be happy to attend. You and I are on the same page. Keep that up please thank you. I’ll let you know if I want to be invited next time.
• If you didn't text me back quickly I'm assuming you're busy or got distracted and will hit me back when you have time. If it takes longer than normal I may worry you died at which point I will follow up to ask if you're alive. When you confirm you are alive I will say "ok thanks for letting me know, carry on" in support of you peacefully continuing with your distraction lol.
• If you didn't check on me it was probably because you didn't think you needed to for whatever reason. And I know you have other urgent stuff going on. Plus, when you do think you need to check on me, you do. I'm alive to write this partially because you have made correct assessments so far. V smart of you. And thank you for not checking on me incessantly or every time I'm in a mood or experience a hiccup in my life. That would actually get annoying now that I’m more focused on handling my own priorities and responsibilities. I prefer it this way.
• If you did something you knew would upset me, I noticed you would often feel terrible about it, apologize, and sometimes start over-explaining. Clearly you care about how tf I felt and took my feelings seriously. I'm so sorry for not seeing these signs before. Anyway, how did you come to this decision then, I wonder with open curiosity? Well, turns out it was usually because you were faced with a difficult decision. One option pulled you out of your values and authenticity, while the option that happened to upset me was most aligned with your values and authenticity. You made an honest fucking choice. I get that. I respect that. And I understand that it wasn't about me. You had to do this to take care of you. Your self concept. Your self trust. Your needs. Your whatever. Let's talk about how we can avoid repeating this pain the future and not let this happen too often, to protect our relationship. Let's find a path that holds space for your needs and mine in that convo. But outside of that please trust that I see that you care and I really appreciate you showing up for this repair convo about it.
• If you intentionally lied to me it was usually because you were protecting your privacy or someone else's. Maybe I wouldn't have lied, but your behavior still had nothing to do with trying to manipulate or betray anyone. It was none of my business to begin with or it wasn't yours to tell and this was your way of standing on that. And if you lie to me about something that you really did "owe" me honesty or transparency about, you were likely afraid to tell the truth. Again, not about me, even if I would've done it differently. This is between you and your relationship with transparency. That can hurt me, and my trust in you to be honest with me when it’s hard can definitely be a casualty in that. This will impact our relationship. But it’s only "personal" if I failed to give you a safe space to show your truth and vulnerability to me. If I’ve been reactive or defensive and not hearing you and that scared you or defeated you. If I haven’t been safe to be honest with, that's feedback I can take. The rest is your bag to carry, not mine. And I wont.
• And I know that if you're encouraging me to have empathy for the other side of an argument with someone else, it's usually because you think it might actually give me some peace to see the bigger picture. You were offering me some helpful clarity that you thought I might be missing. Meaning you were doing it for me, not the other person. And to be honest I might not be in the space to receive that right now, but I'm not taking it personally. I'm just kindly rejecting the gift. Save it for later boo rn I need to hate that shit they did can you let me vent or nah?
• The list goes on.

Wow. What a turnaround.

Notice how these new narratives are less cynical. Less offended. Not at all miserable.

Overall, notice how they're more secure.

As in, this is how securely attached people tend to think, if you needed some examples.

I went from "people don't care about me" to "people care about me AND themselves" on this journey of learning to prioritize myself. Because I was finally experiencing a life of balancing caring about myself AND other people at the same time, as well.

I went from taking things personally to taking almost nothing personally on the journey as well.

It's not that people don't care about me. It's that I can't expect people to step outside of themselves to prove it.

A big surprise for me was when a friend snapped at me "out of nowhere", and instead of being offended (taking it personally) and escalating in return, I was just like "yo, you good?"

At which point they apologized & explained that - you guessed it - that anger wasn't for me. They had some deeper shit going on and I'd incidentally hit a trigger. I apologized as well for hitting the trigger, noted for myself how to not hit the trigger again moving forward, and we moved right along.

Growth.

All from assuming things other people did are rarely - if ever - about me.

And for whatever it’s worth, I’ve found that these new narratives are usually more accurate. People rarely prove them wrong.

Most people’s intentions toward you are usually either good or neutral. 

Rarely do we find people in real life, offline, walking around intentionally and knowingly causing us harm.

I didn’t see any of this coming when I decided to "give up on love".

I want you to notice something else about this too though, and this one might hurt:

When I was taking things personally, notice how my narratives lacked empathy compared to the new narratives.

In making other peoples' behavior about me, I wasn't holding space for the idea that their behavior was actually about the sensitivities and needs of a whole other human being - themselves.

And this is noticeable when you see how the new narratives accurately consider and show care for the other person’s POV and how they need to show up for themselves, of course.

Weird, right?

I was willing to sacrifice so much for love before, but it turns out I lacked empathy?

How does that work?

Here’s the math.

I had an "I prioritize you & you prioritize me" version of love, that rested on a foundation of all the little, and sometimes large, sacrifices we made for each other.

Without realizing it, I was measuring love by sacrifice. This is how I was raised. Codependency at its finest.

It was innocent. I thought this was what empathy, community, and care looked like. But what I didn't see was that, small or not, sacrifice is painful.

As in, for something to be considered a sacrifice, it must be painful. The person making the sacrifice must give up something important to them, and perhaps good for them, to make the other person feel loved.

We want to show people we care about them every day. So we're making these little sacrifices every day. Causing ourselves pain every day. And expecting others to do the same.

Then, ironically, we're wondering why everyone's in so much pain in these relationships when we clearly love each other so much.

A million small sacrifices is death by a thousand, tiny little cuts. It’s harmful. And there's no way around this math.

Which makes expecting sacrifice as a measure of love not only unhealthy, but potentially dangerous as hell. (See: heightened depression, cynicism, collapse, a string of broken relationships, and so on).

I had a few things going on subconsciously when it came to sacrifice and love.

First, I thought my willingness to endure so much pain (sacrifice) for other people proved how "empathetic" and caring I actually was. It was literally how I showed love.

I measured other people's care and empathy for me by that same metric, as did many other people around me.

I literally expected those who claimed to care about me and empathize with my pain, to choose to endure “little” pains for me, the way I was choosing pain for them.

And this flew under the radar because it often showed up in seemingly "small" ways.

Like sacrificing an hour or so of sleep to hash out this argument that I’m freaking out about because I can’t go to sleep upset. And if you sacrifice this little bit then we both get to go to bed happy and reconnected.

That’s fair right? I would do that for you in a heartbeat because I know how that feels and I have the power to fix your pain with my "little" sacrifice (my own pain).

That's how the logic of "love as a sacrifice" works. And it's insidious.

And if you said no, you won’t make this little sacrifice for me? I’m taking it personally, obviously.

“I feel like I’m the only one who cares about this” (meaning, I think you don’t care about this, or me)

I’m genuinely confused and hurt that you can’t do this for me. It feels like we don’t love each other the same.

And so on, and so on.

You know wtf I’m talking about.

I had to learn to define love differently. I needed to experience a healthy kind of love that doesn't require so much pain. But as someone who was really convinced that this was the highest, most empathetic, community-centered standard of love possible, I also needed to see the problem in how I was defining it to begin with.

So I want to say something plainly.

There's nothing empathetic about expecting the people you care about to match your martyrdom.

There's nothing empathetic about subconsciously measuring love by pain and sacrifice.

And there is nothing loving about going all "A Knights Tale" on people telling them to sacrifice what's good for them before you'll believe that they care about you as much as they say they do.

Since I was self-abandoning as a form of love, I expected others to self-abandon with me.

Expecting everyone to be in pain for one another isn't love.

I felt love, but my actions were not loving, no matter my intentions. That’s a very, very unhealthy and potentially dangerous kind of attachment.

Anxious attachers do this often and can't see the truth of this through their own smoke, just like I didn’t see it.

What we miss is that a primary part of loving someone is supporting them in loving and taking care of themselves.

And another primary part of loving someone is supporting them in living and honoring their truth, their path, and their own values.

NOT because we're afraid of being a bad person.

NOT because we're afraid of being a narcissist or having the word "boundaries" weaponized against us.

We support someone in taking care of themselves and honoring their truth, path, and values because we love them to begin with. And supporting them in that is, then, the loving thing to do.

That is love.

But for a lot of us - those who lean anxious especially…

Instead of being conditioned to seeing love this way, we tend to see someone loving themselves and honoring their truths as a threat to their love for us and connection with us.

As a threat to our worthiness of their love (because I must be doing something wrong if you're choosing to take care of yourself over tending to my feelings right now, right? What can I do to show you that you should choose me. Want me. Pick me and my needs (over your own).

And if self-love is a threat to us, then our reactivity to that threat will ENSURE that love and attachment can not exist safely in the same room.

Not only will I not be loving toward you. You will also, certainly, not feel loved.

Because genuine love becomes an enemy to the attachment itself. And no one ever taught us to see or feel the difference.

My intentions were innocent. And if you relate to this so are yours. Chances are you have a deep well empathy and love inside of you. But no one ever taught you that love isn't just about placating our attachments to people. We have to be able to love ourselves and others at the same time. And so do they.

It's complex.

Like you, I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone at all. I was fighting to love people and be loved in return the way I saw love. And I was convinced that my version of love is what would make everyone happy, not just me. But other people have their own versions of love. They have their own needs and philosophies outside of my own.

And I didn't see that this version of love... albeit with the best of intentions...

In action. In impact...

I was fighting for them to love themselves "just a little" less, for me.

If anyone could’ve held a mirror up a mirror and showed me that this wasn't the empathy I thought it was...

And that furthermore I wasn't all that "selfless" sacrificing myself all the time just to turn around and take other peoples' love for themselves as a personal affront to my worth and value...

It would’ve stopped me in my tracks.

But I didn’t see it that way until much later. I couldn’t.

Today? I experience a very different version of love.

Is it Love, or Something Else?

At some point, we have to ask ourselves: How are we defining love to the point where we get it so wrong so often?

Perspective by Tori ReidTori Reid

And you cannot convince me that the self-sacrifice to taking everything personally pipeline is love at all. Not in practice.

Nor can you convince me it's narcissism - to be perfectly clear.

This is an attachment wound.

It's not about love at all, it's about perceived safety and security. As in:

I need to feel safe trusting that you really love me. That you’re really here for me. That you won’t leave or betray me. That I’m not stupid. Naive. Weak. For loving you.

This song sang inside of me loudly.

I sought this kind of security in others because I wasn't raised to find it within myself.

As in, I wasn't yet safe enough in myself to say:

No, I'm not weak, naive, or stupid for loving you or anyone else. I am human, therefore, I love. It's what we do. So let me focus on loving well, and just finding people who can commit to loving me well in return. If that turns out to not be you, that's okay. It will hurt because I was hopeful, but this is also a natural part of the human experience. I don't need to take it personally or make it about something being wrong with me or you. It just means we're not a good fit. No more, no less.

It wasn't until I committed to the daily practice of loving myself…

Of prioritizing my own mental health as my #1 responsibility (where it belongs)...

That I finally stopped being, frankly, self-centered. I stopped making everything other people did about me.

I stopped feeling threatened and insecure about clumsy human beings doing clumsy human shit. I too, am clumsy as hell. I get a lot of shit wrong. Let's get shit wrong together & figure out how to love each other through it.

That's all this is.

And when I stopped focusing on what peoples' behaviors somehow said about me or their love for me, I became selfless enough to see what their behavior said about them and their experience.

And I took those as opportunities to love them.

So when you're in a grumpy ass mood because you've had a long week, instead of ignoring this opportunity to love you, making your feelings about your week about me somehow, and adding my feelings to your list of things to manage while doing absolutely nothing for you in return right now for the now added labor of managing my emotions...

I can just support you in decompressing. I can run you a bubble bath and handle dinner and make sure the house is clean. And you don't have to change your mood for that. Stay grumpy, girl. Vent about it, I'm seeking nothing from you. I just want you to to finally have a moment to relax, because you need to. And at some point you'll start to relax on your own time, at which point (like clockwork, might I add) you'll make mention of how grateful you are to be with someone so understanding. So loving.

I'll not only feel love for you. You will feel loved.

And that will honestly be the only validation I need. Because that was the point of me doing it. Not fear of not being enough. Not fear that you'll take it personally if I don't. And not for you to tell me how much you love me for what I do for you (love me for who I am, not what I do for you).

I'm loving you to love you. Period. So when you tell me you feel loved - that's enough. Mission accomplished. Thank you for the acknowledgment.

And that's the kind of love I want reciprocated now. Because trust, my bad week and grump will show up too. And I'll need my version of support. And I'll feel just as grateful to be lucky enough to have that support in my corner.

So through this process of focusing on myself, and prioritizing my own needs, I somehow became more empathetic. I freed others to prioritize their own needs. Because I became selfless enough to see that not everything is about me. And peoples’ actions aren’t a measure of how much they care about me.

In fact, very few things other people do are about me at all.

Peoples' behaviors and choices are about how they see themselves and how they need to take care of themselves.

Just like mine are about how I see myself and how I need to take care of myself.

Even in my old version of love, all those insecurities stemmed from my view of myself.

I would think mySELF selfish for saying no, having boundaries, prioritizing my needs and myself as a responsibility. I would think of mySELF as uncaring if I didn’t make those “little” sacrifices.

And I was projecting that onto everyone else. Turning it into them being uncaring about me. Selfish with me. Disloyal and unloving toward me.

And like I said, no book or article or social media post or therapy session made this click for me.

Focusing on myself did.

Prioritizing my own mental health first, did.

Through that, I got to learn that being self-focused is not the same thing as being self-centered or selfish.

It’s being responsible. Because as an adult, I’m my #1 responsibility. I’m my own primary caregiver.

So you know how a mom says “nope can’t go with you I’m taking care of the kid tonight” and literally no one takes that personally or thinks she’s selfish? They think she’s a responsible mom?

Babe, you’re your own primary caregiver now. Be a responsible parent to yourself. There’s no shame in that for you or for anyone else.

You do not owe it to functioning adults to act like their primary caregiver. Just like nobody owes that to you.

And understand that this truth is not personal to you or anyone else.

I see taking care of myself in that light. And in that light, if I’m going to make any sacrifices it’s going to be for my own wellbeing, including the sacrifice of feeling guilty about hurting your feelings when I say no to you.

And I expect you to do the same in my direction. This is a part of life.

And I trust that non of it is personal. This is two responsible adults taking care of ourselves, right now. We owe that to ourselves, of course. And the community aspect is that we owe it to each other is to be understanding and empathetic about what that takes, and the fact that it looks different for each of us. Because we have different needs.

All in all, I've learned that I'm much more self-centered when I'm outwardly focused, thinking anyone else's decisions are somehow about me, me, me. Whether a friend, potential partner, or otherwise.

If I find myself thinking their decisions are about how they feel about me. What they think of me. Somehow a reflection of me. And seeing myself in that same light, worrying that others will see my decisions as about them....

That's when I know I’m in a bad place in this relationship, and perhaps overall. And it's my responsibility to refocus by asking myself, “what’s good for my mental health right now?”

Because taking this shit personally is not it.

That shit is dangerous, honestly.

I'm much less self centered when I prioritize minding my business, taking good care of myself, and supporting others in their responsibility to do the same for themselves. That’s empathetic. To myself and others. That's the kind of support I want to give and receive at baseline.

My decisions are going to be about that every time, with very, very few exceptions.

And make no mistake, sacrifice is a part of life. What it's not is a daily expectation of healthy relationship, and it is not an accurate measure of love or care.

Actually what I've learned is that in healthy relationships, we're doing everything we can to protect one another's peace so those little sacrifices don't have to happen often.

And the big ones are where expectations can be fair game, to me.

Like, if you got rushed to the ER for something serious my plans end right now and I’m coming to you. Whatever I was doing can wait. I’m okay with that kind of sacrifice.

If you're doing through a mental health crisis and the severity is urgent - as in I'm worried about you hurting yourself or others right now - I will adjust my plans and make time for you.

If you're having a bad day and need to vent I'm going to have to ask you to hang in there until my next available time.

It's also important to me to surround myself with people who don't abuse the privilege of my sacrifices, large or small.

And vice versa. So yes, I'll ask for help and sometimes the help I need is a sacrifice for someone else.

But you're not the only person I'm calling every time. I'm spreading that out so my whole load of support doesn't fall on you.

I'm also considering what you've told me you have going on before I even ask. Because if I already know it's a low capacity day/week/month for you, or even out of character for you all around, a part of me loving you is to not put more on your plate - including the emotional labor of communicating a boundary and feeling guilty about something I could've easily seen coming.

To me, this is basic consideration.

I also expect this basic consideration in return.

I'm a human being so of course I'm going to need support, and now that I'm not forcing it, I'm happy to really be sure that the people in my life want to support me. But the level at which I expect it and ask for it is a responsibility that I need to handle wisely, for all of our benefit. Because this isn't just about me. It's about you too.

I vibe well with people who think this way so it's reciprocated. And I like to keep my village at a decent size for my support needs to be balanced and not overwhelming for any one person, including a romantic partner who can't always be my venting buddy or have capacity for my feelings right now (because they have their own, and other people in their lives to balance).

My expectations are mine to manage. I try to set them in a zone that sets people up to win, not fail. I do the same for the expectations I consent to when people place them on me. I'm quick to say "no don't expect xyz from me. That's not who I am..."

Still, there are a lot of "little" sacrifices I simply no longer make or expect anyone else to, ever.

Like no, I’m not going to make the "little" sacrifice of inviting you if the vibe is going to be off and I planned this because I need the break for myself. I have my own shit going on. You and I will do something else, and I will initiate those plans. This wasn’t against you. It was for me. You and I are okay.

I’m not going to stay up late arguing with you. I will initiate the conversation again tomorrow from a regulated space. This isn't me not caring about you. It's me caring about myself and hoping you take the time to care about yourself, too. Then we can both be regulated, rested, and find resolve, without having to sacrifice sleep. That is a totally possible and healthy part of managing conflict.

I’m not going to text you all day while I’m working, and I’m not going to stress myself out over remembering to communicate it explicitly every time I can’t respond. You can tell I can’t respond because I’m not responding while I'm working. I love you. Thank you for being understanding. I'll hit you back when I'm available.

And the big one, for anxious attachers (since they're making such a special appearance in this)?

I’m not going to sit here and neglect my mental health committing myself to a situationship with someone who has one foot planted firmly outside the door.

You can have my understanding for why you’re emotionally unavailable but you won’t get the benefit of my patience in waiting for you to show up.

I owe myself the patience of committing to myself until I meet someone who's available and ready to partner in a way that feels aligned to me. I owe myself an aligned partner. That's not your responsibility. It's mine. And that is what my romantic patience is being dedicated to while single. I do not owe that patience to you.

Anything different is a major self-sacrifice and breach in self trust for me. A big, unnecessary one that is nowhere on my agenda to make.

I wish you the best in finding someone else and I hope you’re able to love and be loved as deeply as I know you want to. And I mean that genuinely, because my “no” isn't about you or what I think of you. To me, it's not a rejection of you. It's an acceptance of myself, my boundaries, and my needs.

Whether you see it that way or not doesn’t change a thing for me.

There's a lot of peace in finding this balance. And at the root of it is prioritizing first things first. The #1 responsibility is taking care of yourself. Your mental health, to be more specific. The rest will work itself out.

If you've read this far, I'm very happy for you that you're on your journey to finding that out for yourself.

Your heart, mind, and body will all thank you. So will your people.

Rooting for You,

Tori

Related Reading:

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I love that more people are feeling comfortable going to therapy as a result of Pop Psychology content. I wonder how much of that session time is spent reversing the impact of the content itself.

Perspective by Tori ReidTori Reid