Just want to vent about my job for a minute – I'm a relationship coach.
I have a 40-something client (let's call her Karen) with a teenaged daughter. She just told me this: "I love my daughter unconditionally, but she needs to do something for me in return if I'm going to continue."
I was speechless for a moment. I do keep in mind that these people are my clients precisely because they have missing or poor relationship skills – but this one really takes the cake. There is so much wrong here I couldn't even break it down in this post.
I didn't have words, so I did what I often do when I hear something that makes no damned sense whatsoever – I repeated the phrase back to her in my own words to see if I understood her correctly. I said, "So you love your daughter freely, no matter what happens, no strings attached, yet if she doesn't meet your terms, you'll stop? Am I understanding you?"
My client answered yes.
I just sat for a moment listening for crickets. First I was speechless, second I wanted to see if it would occur to her what she just said if I gave her a moment to think about it, third I needed to take several deep calming breaths. In spite of some time, she did not hear what she had just said. I thought I might need to switch to communicating in grunts and clicks at this point for us to continue because she obviously isn't using words right.
My head is spinning, and my heart goes out to her daughter.
As a relationship coach, I listen to this sort of crap 6 days a week. It's one of the reasons this world sucks so bad – that people have absolutely no idea how to treat one another decently.
I hear this garbage daily, too:
If I make him/her jealous will that help our relationship?
If I break up with him/her, will that help our relationship?
If I ignore him/her, will that help our relationship?
Keeping in mind that "help our relationship" is a totally whacked statement that usually means one of the following:
I want text responses in less than one minute
I want to be on the phone with him/her at least 12 hours a day
I want him/her to give up hobbies and time with other family members to prove he/she loves me
I want him/her to come crawling back to me after they dumped me
They are basically asking, "If I hurt this person will it make me happy?" Its news to some people that both people would need to be happy for a relationship to work and that anxiety, heartbreak, and neglect will not improve things. My clients are so IQless that they will actually plan to ignore someone who refuses to speak to them. They will block someone who hasn't called in years, cuz that'll show 'em.
I can teach relationship skills, but I cannot teach common sense.
This is a really popular thing at the moment:: Blocking someone and then getting angry they haven't called. Some people put up every obstacle they can and then say, well if s/he really loved me they would find a way around all the obstacles I've created.
I want to shake these people and tell them: If you're using this method to play hard-to-get, you are making yourself hard-to-want!
I once heard this from a client:
"I had a dream last night that I was talking to Linda in a restaurant. I wonder how she felt when she woke up from that dream. . . ." I had to explain to him that people in his dreams are not really there.
This is a "normal functioning" adult who works for a living and owns a home. He welds under water in the ocean for a living. This is an incredibly dangerous and technical job with an ugly mortality rate and he has successfully done it for years - but doesn't know how dreams work. ??????????????????smh??????????????
Don't even get me started on the cheaters – "I want to stay married and cheat on my partner. How can I keep from getting caught?"
No!
NO NO NO!
I can't, cannot, CAN NOT help with this. Manipulating, lying, and hiding are not relationship skills, so I don't teach them, just like I don't teach botany or dentistry - they aren't relationship skills! I try to help people have more meaningful relationships - and by "more" I do not mean "additional."
"More meaningful relationships," in my case, translates to "authentic, loving, cooperative interactions." Some people misunderstand and think it means "Additional fuck buddies," or "Additional women I can trick into having sex with me and then dump."
These people do not understand that respect and healthy boundaries are what builds safe, secure, loving relationships - and cheating instantly violates both of these principles for everyone involved. You might get really great sex, but you won't get a really great relationship.
. . . but some people don't even know where they stop and other people start. Maybe they came from households where their parents made no damned sense and whose love was highly conditional – but these people are driving on the same streets as us, voting in our elections, running our businesses, being our doctors, handling our money at the bank, being our neighbors, etc. They are everywhere and they are dangerous because they are perfectly willing to hurt someone if it means they get their way – and at the same time they are too shortsighted to think it through for themselves to imagine what would happen with their plans.
If you break up, that means the relationship is OVER - so making it OVER doesn't improve it. It especially doesn't help to dump someone who hasn't spoken to you in six months and has taken out a restraining order against you. If you dump someone long after they left you, you weren't in a relationship, you were in denial.
Now to be perfectly fair, many of my clients who ask, If I break up with them, will it improve the relationships, actually mean to say, "If I pretend to not love this person anymore and pretend to break up, will this manipulate them into something that makes me happy at their expense?" and still F*ING NO! That's not a good plan, damn it!
The cherry on top is that these people claim that this person they want to hurt is their God Intended Soul Mate, twin flame, split apart, their other half, candle mates, peas in a pod, or what the hell ever. To me, the whole thing sounds like, "I love this person so much that I want to rip his / her soul out for my amusement."
This is not love, but if you come from a twisted enough family, you can believe it is.
…and I speak with these clients of mine and interact with them in a very respectful and professional manner, no matter how much I fear them. My job makes me think that the world will never change – I lose hope in humanity after 50 hours a week of this for over 20 years. If they don't get the most basic things about human decency or love, then what in the hell have humans been doing here all this time? WT actual F?
I'm sure I insulted someone in this post. That was not my intent, My intent was to air my frustrations - but if you are insulted because you can relate to my clients, you probably just came from a really jacked up family and you really can change your approach and learn what real love is about. Skills are learned things and become habitual. If we want, we can make new habits. Just like we might decide to stop biting our nails, or we might start bringing a lunch and skip the fast food. We can also form healthy habits to stop pushing people away from us and destroying our relationships. JUST DO IT!
Thank you, I feel better now.
I have a 40-something client (let's call her Karen) with a teenaged daughter. She just told me this: "I love my daughter unconditionally, but she needs to do something for me in return if I'm going to continue."
I was speechless for a moment. I do keep in mind that these people are my clients precisely because they have missing or poor relationship skills – but this one really takes the cake. There is so much wrong here I couldn't even break it down in this post.
I didn't have words, so I did what I often do when I hear something that makes no damned sense whatsoever – I repeated the phrase back to her in my own words to see if I understood her correctly. I said, "So you love your daughter freely, no matter what happens, no strings attached, yet if she doesn't meet your terms, you'll stop? Am I understanding you?"
My client answered yes.
I just sat for a moment listening for crickets. First I was speechless, second I wanted to see if it would occur to her what she just said if I gave her a moment to think about it, third I needed to take several deep calming breaths. In spite of some time, she did not hear what she had just said. I thought I might need to switch to communicating in grunts and clicks at this point for us to continue because she obviously isn't using words right.
My head is spinning, and my heart goes out to her daughter.
As a relationship coach, I listen to this sort of crap 6 days a week. It's one of the reasons this world sucks so bad – that people have absolutely no idea how to treat one another decently.
I hear this garbage daily, too:
If I make him/her jealous will that help our relationship?
If I break up with him/her, will that help our relationship?
If I ignore him/her, will that help our relationship?
Keeping in mind that "help our relationship" is a totally whacked statement that usually means one of the following:
I want text responses in less than one minute
I want to be on the phone with him/her at least 12 hours a day
I want him/her to give up hobbies and time with other family members to prove he/she loves me
I want him/her to come crawling back to me after they dumped me
They are basically asking, "If I hurt this person will it make me happy?" Its news to some people that both people would need to be happy for a relationship to work and that anxiety, heartbreak, and neglect will not improve things. My clients are so IQless that they will actually plan to ignore someone who refuses to speak to them. They will block someone who hasn't called in years, cuz that'll show 'em.
I can teach relationship skills, but I cannot teach common sense.
This is a really popular thing at the moment:: Blocking someone and then getting angry they haven't called. Some people put up every obstacle they can and then say, well if s/he really loved me they would find a way around all the obstacles I've created.
I want to shake these people and tell them: If you're using this method to play hard-to-get, you are making yourself hard-to-want!
I once heard this from a client:
"I had a dream last night that I was talking to Linda in a restaurant. I wonder how she felt when she woke up from that dream. . . ." I had to explain to him that people in his dreams are not really there.
This is a "normal functioning" adult who works for a living and owns a home. He welds under water in the ocean for a living. This is an incredibly dangerous and technical job with an ugly mortality rate and he has successfully done it for years - but doesn't know how dreams work. ??????????????????smh??????????????
Don't even get me started on the cheaters – "I want to stay married and cheat on my partner. How can I keep from getting caught?"
No!
NO NO NO!
I can't, cannot, CAN NOT help with this. Manipulating, lying, and hiding are not relationship skills, so I don't teach them, just like I don't teach botany or dentistry - they aren't relationship skills! I try to help people have more meaningful relationships - and by "more" I do not mean "additional."
"More meaningful relationships," in my case, translates to "authentic, loving, cooperative interactions." Some people misunderstand and think it means "Additional fuck buddies," or "Additional women I can trick into having sex with me and then dump."
These people do not understand that respect and healthy boundaries are what builds safe, secure, loving relationships - and cheating instantly violates both of these principles for everyone involved. You might get really great sex, but you won't get a really great relationship.
. . . but some people don't even know where they stop and other people start. Maybe they came from households where their parents made no damned sense and whose love was highly conditional – but these people are driving on the same streets as us, voting in our elections, running our businesses, being our doctors, handling our money at the bank, being our neighbors, etc. They are everywhere and they are dangerous because they are perfectly willing to hurt someone if it means they get their way – and at the same time they are too shortsighted to think it through for themselves to imagine what would happen with their plans.
If you break up, that means the relationship is OVER - so making it OVER doesn't improve it. It especially doesn't help to dump someone who hasn't spoken to you in six months and has taken out a restraining order against you. If you dump someone long after they left you, you weren't in a relationship, you were in denial.
Now to be perfectly fair, many of my clients who ask, If I break up with them, will it improve the relationships, actually mean to say, "If I pretend to not love this person anymore and pretend to break up, will this manipulate them into something that makes me happy at their expense?" and still F*ING NO! That's not a good plan, damn it!
The cherry on top is that these people claim that this person they want to hurt is their God Intended Soul Mate, twin flame, split apart, their other half, candle mates, peas in a pod, or what the hell ever. To me, the whole thing sounds like, "I love this person so much that I want to rip his / her soul out for my amusement."
This is not love, but if you come from a twisted enough family, you can believe it is.
…and I speak with these clients of mine and interact with them in a very respectful and professional manner, no matter how much I fear them. My job makes me think that the world will never change – I lose hope in humanity after 50 hours a week of this for over 20 years. If they don't get the most basic things about human decency or love, then what in the hell have humans been doing here all this time? WT actual F?
I'm sure I insulted someone in this post. That was not my intent, My intent was to air my frustrations - but if you are insulted because you can relate to my clients, you probably just came from a really jacked up family and you really can change your approach and learn what real love is about. Skills are learned things and become habitual. If we want, we can make new habits. Just like we might decide to stop biting our nails, or we might start bringing a lunch and skip the fast food. We can also form healthy habits to stop pushing people away from us and destroying our relationships. JUST DO IT!
Thank you, I feel better now.
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