Your past relationships do not introduce you to your future relationships. Your past relationships do not bring more compatible people into your life. You would have met the person who you are with right now, whether you had past relationships or not.
Instead of giving us all these skills to have better relationships, our past relationships often create confusion and bitterness which causes us to separate from ourselves and prevents us from being our authentic self in the next relationship.
There are many people in their forties and fifties who are dating the exact same way they did when they were in their twenties. The relationships in their twenties did not teach them how to find love in their future; instead, it caused them to create certain patterns and beliefs that are preventing them from having that deep meaningful connection that they are craving.
When our relationships end, we like to tell ourselves that we can just dust ourselves off and move on, that we “learned a lot” and we are “better off” and “there are more fish in the sea” and “no regrets”. We believe that the failed relationship will just prepare us for the real thing. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking prevents us from doing our work. It gives us permission to remain ignorant to our own patterns. We walk into our future relationships with the same beliefs about ourselves, about relationships, and about significant others that we had when we started our last relationship. Often these beliefs come with additional pains and bitterness that get carried forward rather than exposed and dealt with. Telling ourselves to “get over it and move on” prevents us from doing some much needed reflection and belief repatterning.
We like to think that we are creatures that learn. We learn from past mistakes, we learn from past relationships. But we aren’t. Logically we tell ourselves that we have received new information about what not to do next time, but the reality of it is, we are creatures of habit, not creatures of knowledge. We do what feels normal, even if we know our experience of normal is not effective (or not healthy). This is why so many people continue to create one identical relationship after the other. They are acting out of habit; doing it the same way they have always done it.
So how do you know when you are really ready to move on? How do you get to a point where you have really learned something?
When you can think about the person of the “failed” relationship and not feel pain. When you are aware of the beliefs and desires you had when you entered that relationship and you can retrospectively see the relationship differently than when you were in it. You will recognize that you have learned something when some of your beliefs about relationships have changed, and when you are consciously aware of how you will do and think differently in your next relationship.
I came across this blog as referred to me by a colleague. I must say, I completely disagree. The generalizations in this blog are phenomenal towards the human nature and human capacity. You may only be talking about a minority of people, but your constant use of "we" as seen in the fifth paragraph, adheres to the greater majority of all people. This is horrifically inaccurate. In my experience (PhD in Relationship Training) and seeing thousands of couples and over 40 years of experience. I have yet to come across a couple or relationship failure where an individual did NOT learn something from it. They may have learned something about who they are in a relationship, who their partner seems to be in a relationship, or about what they want from a relationship. Human beings and genetic makeup is far more complex and deserves far more credit than you are presenting. What time line after a relationship are you speaking of? Because yes, immediately after majority of people are "confused and bitter" as you said. But as humans we do reflect, and we may not be scheduling "Reflection Time" in, but it happens naturally. You wrote that humans do not learn from past mistakes. This is wrong. Majority of humans do. The ones that do not, are usually suffering from some sort of mental illness that inhibits the neuro-pathways from reminding the individual of what happened last time. Evolutionarily speaking if humans did not learn from their past mistakes, how would we ever have evolved into the complex beings we are now. It appears clear to me that there is a lack of understanding of what relationships entail. I find it rather disheartening when the human intelligence is defined by such generalizations. I wish you the best of luck, but remind you to be more discerning about how you blog. There are many people out there who read these types of blogs and either consider it truth, or that it is coming from a professional; or feel insulted.
ReplyDeleteDear Relationship Expert PHD
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your feedback. You’re right, my experience is limited. My observations come mostly from women I work with who are escaping domestic violence (and seem to go from one unhealthy relationship to another), or conversations I’ve had in undergrad when friends would complain about their current relationship and then walk into another almost identical relationship one month later. Your experience is much more extensive and I’m sure my observations would be different if I was speaking to couples who actively sought out therapy and are looking to change their patterns. Non-the-less, you are right about people reflecting and learning naturally, therefore I must clarify what I meant about my statements regarding people not learning. What I intended to point out here is that some people make excuses so that they can avoid the self reflection part. It’s painful to acknowledge that a person might have some problems to sort out and it is easier to shut off and look for another relationship before reflecting on what s/he just got out of (as a common saying goes, “the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else). My experience in working with abuse is that it is easier to blame others than look at our own role in how a relationship is created.
I’m happy to hear that in 40 years of experience you find the majority of people learn from past mistakes. And I will agree that there are many people who I have seen do a lot of self-reflection after the end of a relationship, therefore my generalization of “we” is inaccurate. On the other hand, I still see a fair amount of people who do not feel the need to self reflect, who do not seek out therapy, and who consider all the people in their past relationships to be the “bad guy”. They’ve attached themselves to the role of victim (some people, not all people)
The argument of “acting out of learning” versus “acting out of habit” could be debated. Yes, absolutely human beings learn. They do this naturally. And knowledge isn’t enough to drive our basic behavior. We mostly act out of our emotions (or habits). For example, how many people in Canada know about the Canadian Food Guide? How many people know logically that an apple is a healthier choice than a chocolate bar? And how many people live according to The Canadian Food Guide every day? How many people always choose the apple over the chocolate bar? We eat out of the habits that were created in us when we were children. The point of this food analogy is knowledge does not always control our behavior, and people are more likely to do what feels normal than do what they “know” would be better for them.
I really appreciate you taking the time to challenge my thoughts. You have far more experience than I do and I would be interested in hearing your feedback about some of my other posts.
I am not an expert on relationships except for the fact that I have been in a few. I take encouragement in the chance that I might learn from my past mistakes including those made in a relationship. However, my experience has been that there are a lot of subjective feelings and not much rational thought when it comes to love. When if comes to financial savvy, healthy living, and life skills it has been easy to apply rational thought when making important decisions. In matters of the heart not so much.
ReplyDeleteThis discussion brings up a question in my mind about ending relationships. I think of the romantic relationships that I have been in which have ended as a failed relationship, but I wonder if that is a fair term to use. What constitutes a 'failed relationship'? Just because a relationship changes do we naturally have to assume that it has 'gone bad'? I believe that if a person can keep a positive note in the how and why relationships change and the roll 'I' had in that then it serves to help the persons involved adapt to and accept the new circumstances that they find themselves in.