Throughout the world conversation, we regularly hear sayings and phrases reminding us the value of our family and the people we love. We are reminded that home is where the heart is, tomorrow is not promised and not to take those we love for granted. These words make us feel warm and fuzzy, remind us how much we love our family and sometimes even cause us to reach out and tell someone we love them. Sometimes we may even reevaluate how we are treating someone and choose to repair a relationship. But, the question is, why do we need these reminders? Why do we need an inspirational quote to remind us that we love the people we love?
There has always been one question that is disturbing to a great many of us:
Why do we treat strangers better than those we love the most and hurt the ones we love, the most?
Psychologists have been pondering this for years. There are many theories, some that make more sense than others. It truly appears as if they all may contain some elements of truth.
There are studies showing that we are more likely to harm those we care about. We certainly see that in our own lives. This actually makes sense because usually the people we love are the ones most intimately involved with the inner workings of our lives. Our life contains the things of this world that we care about the most. Because the people closest to us have the most impact on our lives, it is much more likely that we may come to resent their choices, especially when they don’t make the choices we want them to make.
We are much more critical of our loved ones in every way because their actions have such an impact on us, our lives and our emotional state. We naturally wish to feel happy and naturally avoid pain and discomfort. Unchecked, these selfish desires can ruin all of our relationships. We place unreasonable demands on others. We begin to hold our loved ones responsible for the way we feel and our reaction to life. This burden is too heavy for anyone to carry, and inevitably we find that it crushes the connections we have with those we care about.
Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash
When we love someone, we not only tend to fear how things will impact us, but we have a tendency to fear something happening to them. We fear losing our loved ones or losing the relationship we have with them. We are afraid the people we love won’t live the lives we think they should live and we definitely do not like to see the people we love in pain.
Fear is what destroys our relationships. It is because of our fears that we attempt to control others and grow resentments when they do not let us. Even when we do not attempt to control others, we can still build silent resentments for the choices they made that hurt us. Sometimes we do this on such a subconscious level that it is hard to detect.
The thing about resentment is that it doesn’t go away. That is the whole point. It is re-sent. The negative emotion we feel towards another, because of pain we feel they have caused us, is re-sent time and time again. When we interact with or even think about this person the resentment is there, without our permission and many times without our knowledge.
Resentment is super sneaky and likes to disguise itself in the most menial details of life. It makes us judge our partners harshly for not taking the actual garbage out, when really there is underlying trash in our relationship that never got taken out. Resentment is so cunning that we actually think we are mad about the overflowing garbage can in the kitchen. When in reality, we would never be so hurt and angry over a lousy trash can. This is how resentment lays dormant and causes us to harm the ones we love, the most.
There is a solution. Making a conscious decision to become aware of these patterns within you will give you power over them. It is hard because none of us want to have fear and resentments. But, we all do; it’s just a part of being human. The only difference is between those of us who are aware of them and those of us who are not.
Ultimately, the most important thing for us to concede to our innermost self is that we are in charge of our feelings. We are in charge of our reaction to life, our emotional state and our happiness. And, the people we love are in charge of theirs too. We do not have the right to ask those we love to be the version of themselves that makes us the most comfortable. We either accept them or we don’t. But we do not have the right to change them or their path, nor should we want to.
When we make a no-nonsense decision to always allow the people we love to be who they are, become aware of our fears as they creep in and accept responsibility for our own happiness; we invariably find that we treat our loved ones better, more of the time.
By Kim Holderness
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Very interesting read and I have wondered that as well. I think that resentment is a very sneaky thing, like you have said. I also think that our "work persona" consumes much of our time and energy and though that is completely disproportionate to how it should be, I think it is the nature of the beast. Maybe this is a time to reflect and shift those priorities. Thanks for the post.
Wow, this very thought has been in my head a lot lately. It has always been so hurtful when you see a family bend over backwards for someone they barely know but won’t lift a finger when you need them. Thank you for the post. Gives me some things to ponder.
I agree completely that only we are the ones in charge of our reactions to life, emotional state and happiness! This is a lot to unpack but truly vital.
I agree we have to become aware of our actions and correct them!
Your writing is very important and I think it can inspire people to treat loved ones better,
Thank you so much for saying that, Douglas.
It is so true. I used to say this to my youngest son. He always seemed to revere strangers over his own family who always had his back. I did the same thing when I was young. A part of it is familiarity and the other issue was that I was trying to gain fulfillment from others outside of my family unit. But I found that we can not look to others to fulfill all of our needs.
Taking loved ones for granted is very common... We assume they will always be there for us! Something I am working on! Great post!
Such a great post, prompted by a great question. Thank you!
This is such an important thing to think about..we do usually treat those we love the worst--definitely worse than we usually treat strangers. Being conscious of what we're doing and how we're treating others is really important.
Mental health is so important and especially during these tougher times. Thanks for your info!
Lisa