#askADELE | Does your trust in someone permit her to hurt you, or is enough enough?
Last week we discussed being equals in a relationship, and before that, how crossing boundaries is a no-no. Today we discover the link between trusting someone after you’ve forgiven them and when to realise that enough is enough.
This week’s question comes from Butity in Rivonia: “I am with a partner aged 48 for 12 years now. I met her after she went through two abusive divorces and a number of failed relationships.
“I have picked her up and treated her like my queen. For the last three years she has broken my heart a number of times and I kept forgiving her, but now I feel that it’s enough.
“What must you do when someone breaks the trust you had in them after 12 years? Must you just walk away?”
Dear Butity, it sounds like you need permission to walk away.
When you have to ask if this is enough, you already know the answer. How do you know you’ve reached that point of no return? And how do you make the decision to leave or stay?
Just for a few moments: take a step back. I am wondering how you made the link between trust in someone and allowing her to step over a clear boundary. My sense is that your partner has done this more than once in the past three years.
Trust is never what opens a door for another to hurt you repeatedly. Think back to the first time this happened: Did you talk about it and clearly state that your boundary had been crossed? When you chose to forgive, did you also say what the consequences would be if that happened again? Were you prepared to enforce this? I am guessing the answer is no.
By not holding someone accountable, forgiveness is lost on the one you love, because it leaves a door open to repeat the same behaviour even when it causes you pain.
What is forgiveness? What is trust? What are your boundaries?
Understand clearly what these mean to you. To do what needs to be done as a business man means that you move on from what is not working.
In relationships emotions hold us back. Especially the kind of relationships where we have a “saviour complex”.
This means you feel responsible for your partner.
Sustainable relationships are equal, and co-dependent relationships are unhealthy. These are the ones, which lead to resentment.
You did not say if you were married or if you have children together. Although it makes separation harder, when you really love someone, it also means you love yourself.
Do you love and respect yourself enough to stand up for you? If you stay, you will experience pain repeatedly. If you leave, it will still be painful. You cannot avoid the pain, but you can maintain your self-respect.
It is our pride that really makes the decisions: Will you see this as a failure? You are not obliged to save her. Women in transition learn to save themselves, but fail to do so while someone else does it for them instead.
Maybe this time you can save yourself from stretching your boundaries yet again. No action leads to more resentment. Co-dependent relationships eat away at your soul.
My advice: move on or create a new agreement in writing with clear boundaries and consequences. If this does not get her attention, then you lost her a long time ago. Reserve your trust for people who respect you. What is not mutual is part of an emotional game and you are set up to lose it.
I have been very direct with you, because in my experience if you have already stretched your boundaries, you are perhaps looking for a reason to stay. Whatever your religious orientation, forgiveness always includes accountability.
This was an anonymous quote on Facebook which I wish I wrote:
“Dear Human, you’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That’s where you came from and where you will return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love.
“Infused with clarity. Lived through the Grace of simplicity. Demonstrated through the beauty of messing up often.
“You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous.”
What is the answer to your question? Ask me here www.adele-green.com/askADELE/ or listen to previously answered questions.
* Adelé Green is the author of Can You See Me Naked? and supports transformation for women online.