Are Your Needs Being Met In Your Relationships?

What do we do when we are in a relationship (with a friend, a sibling, a lover, a child, etc) and we don't like they way that person is treating themselves, or treating us, or both?  

It's important to ask ourselves if our relationship needs are being met.  More importantly, what are our relationship needs?  What do we need to do for this to be a healthy relationship?  

All relationships have ground rules.  They may never be discussed but they are determined by how each person acts in the relationship.  For example, let's say your sister is always an hour late meeting you for lunch; leaving you at the lunch counter waiting for her.   If you never tell her it is inconvenient for you and how angry it makes you that she doesn't respect your time, you are telling her it is OK to act this way by avoiding the discussion.  We are establishing ground rules by how we let someone treat us.  In the world of psychology, it's called setting boundaries. It is said that 80% of communication is non verbal.   We are always setting boundaries whether we verbalize them or not.  

 If we don't set the boundary, they will continue to leave us waiting on them at the lunch counter.  If they can not respect our needs then, often times, we can not participate unless it is a healthy situation for both us.  It's important to know how damaging the actions are.  Maybe with your sister you just need to stop meeting her for lunch but still do the other things together.  What if she is constantly late because she is stoned on drugs?  Then you may have to enforce a stronger boundary requiring sobriety in the relationship because otherwise it is too heartbreaking and upsetting for you.  We always have the opportunity to enforce a boundary in a loving manner while respecting our needs until something changes, like they get sober.

If we don't meet our own needs for a healthy relationship- keep that boundary enforced- then that other person, especially the addict, will take us down with them, treating us just as poorly as they are treating themselves. When not enforcing our healthy, boundary we are actually supporting their addiction because our actions are saying "it is OK for you to treat yourself disrespectfully and it is OK for you to treat me disrespectfully."  

The only control we have in relationships is with ourselves. We have to decide what is healthy for us in all relationships, let that other person know what is not working, and what we need to make it work as a healthy relationship.

For further information you can reach Leta Bell at www.LetaBell.com