Some people always seem to have good relationships, while others seem to keep having a bad streak no matter how hard they try. That’s because building and maintaining relationships is a mindset that some people have naturally, while others have to work towards. Sometimes, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) can severely colour your relationship with yourself and the one you subsequently go on to have with your romantic partners and loved ones.
Just as important as finding the right partner for yourself is attempting to become one for your partner. For that, a key ingredient is a healthy degree of self-acceptance and self-love. One does not need to master self-acceptance or attain self-realization to enter a relationship because healing is a lifelong process. However, a healthy degree of self-acceptance and self-love will ensure you can exercise sufficient emotional independence. And you can meet your own needs and give yourself the love and happiness you seek.
True self-love also entails you realizing that just the way you are worthy of love, so is the other person. Self-love then becomes a conduit not just for maintaining healthy boundaries for oneself but also for respecting that of others.
Often, childhood experiences can make you seek out unavailable partners, stay in abusive relationships, and re-enact the relationship dynamics familiar to you. We could fear abandonment and perceive the boundary set by our partner as abandonment, triggering a strong reaction from us. Our reaction could then push away our partner, worsening our fear of abandonment. In this way, we could end up manifesting our worst fears.
Lack of self-acceptance, self-love, black-and-white thinking, insecure attachment styles, projection, defensiveness, codependency, issues related to control and dominance, self-centredness, hypervigilance, assumption of the worst outcome, self-sabotaging tendencies, poor boundaries, fear of abandonment, and fear of engulfment tend to sabotage relationships by affecting our behaviour, body language, and way of communicating with our loved ones.
Subtle shifts in the same can breathe life into our relationships. Several proponents of the Law of Attraction believe that love will chase you once you stop chasing it. There is some truth in it. Working on healing yourself and preparing for relationships is the best thing you can do to attract the right partner and experience harmony in relationships.
Harmonious relationships also require some degree of healthy interdependence. Excessive desire for independence or autonomy may be helpful in professional pursuits but could impede fulfilment in relationships.
Unlock Your Potential: Take Our Personality Tests:Codependency Test: Explore the dynamics of your relationships with the Codependency Test. Discover if you tend to be overly reliant on others or struggle with setting boundaries.
Childhood Attachment Test: Uncover insights into your early emotional connections with the Childhood Attachment Test. Your attachment style can significantly impact your adult relationships.
Adult Attachment Test: Gain clarity about your current attachment tendencies using the Adult Attachment Test. Understanding your attachment style can help you navigate your relationships more effectively.
