Deadly Caring In Relationships

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Let's talk about care, which can stifle in its sympathetic and caring embrace. Each of us has his own vision of how to care for others and how to care for us. And in this regard, we have a lot of expectations from each other. The important thing is that caring is directly related to the boundaries of each of the partners in the relationship.

Ideas about caring, like about love, are formed in childhood. Parents are the first figures to introduce a person to what it is and how it is to care. And this acquaintance can become so fatal for him that at 35 and 50 he still will not know how to escape from the parental overprotection based on severe neurotic anxiety. And serving someone's anxiety is not an easy task, and it certainly is not rewarding. And in general, serving the feelings of someone who worries about you since childhood means never finding your identity and not feeling your capabilities and limitations. Such clients in therapy to the question “What are your boundaries? How do you feel them? What do you know about them? " answer “I don’t know what they are … I don’t know anything about them at all. Do they exist?"

Working with awareness of boundaries and further - with learning how to defend and defend them - is hard painstaking client-therapeutic work. You involuntarily remember that mother who extinguished her anxiety about the child, and passed it off as a well-intentioned concern for his safety … unconsciously, of course.

Awareness and a clear sense of one's boundaries makes it possible to distinguish care from care, and then a person has the opportunity to choose for himself - he takes the care that his partner offers him or not. Understanding my boundaries and trusting my feelings, I know for sure what is good for me and what is bad, what is enough for me, and what is already too much, how you can work with me, and how definitely not. And then the care can finally reach the partner, and in fact come true. Otherwise, when the partner's boundaries are not taken into account, and care is inflicted with inspiration, like other good, it is not clear who cares more about, about another or about oneself.

How the guardianship recognizes itselfif you're still unsure:

- when you are taken care of, you feel helpless, worthless, guilty, spineless;

- they are not interested in your needs and wishes, but they populate ready-made solutions and proposals, eventually depriving you of the opportunity to realize what you really want and what you are ready for and what you are not;

- along with the guardianship, a distinct feeling comes that they are trying to control you, as well as introduce into your life some kind of meaning that you supposedly lack.

Caring asks about you and your needs: “What can I do for you? If I do this, will it suit / help you? How exactly can I help? What do you want now? etc.

Guardian offers himself and his solutions: “I gave you a medicine, take a drink. I believe that you need … You yourself will never guess, everything needs to be prompted. I already did it for you, you don't have to thank”and so on.

In partnerships, true caring manifests itself by meeting the needs of both at will, upon request. Infancy, in which we did not realize our needs, and thus for us they were determined by the mother, who satisfied them or not, is long gone. As an adult you can say “take care of me”, if you need it, you need to speak! It is important to understand that your partner has limitations and may not be able to express concern for you the way you would like. Presenting to another his need for something, including care, makes it possible to enter into an open dialogue, but one way or another the partner is not obliged to satisfy this need. He can, if he wants and will be able to do it exactly as you need.

Honest, safe dialogue with each other saves us from silly "guess what I need" or manipulation of asking the other to cope with what you cannot handle on your own. “I’m angry with your mother, stop communicating with her” = “I am not coping with my reaction, make me manage”. When I ask you to cope for me, I call you to take care of. And then such a relationship can no longer be a partnership, because one of us chooses the role of a helpless child, forcing the other to take a parental role.

That is why, in order for your relationship to show concern, not custody, it is important to know, understand about your boundaries, be able to declare and defend them. And remember - borders do not move, do not change one-sidedly. If something changes with my boundaries, the boundaries of my partner also change. And if we both acknowledge our needs and express a sincere mutual desire to take care, then we will be gentle with each other's boundaries.

Actually, this ability to be with each other, without being damaged or injured, is already a concern …