To Be (With), Or Not To Be (With)…That Is the Question
“Being in a good relationship is better than being alone. But being alone is infinitely better than being in a bad relationship.”
-Daniel Sloss
I ran into this quote above in a podcast interview with Scottish comedian Daniel Sloss recently, and love how it clarifies a complexity about how we show up in relationships.
Relationships are a common topic in therapy. This is no surprise. We are absolutely built for relationships. As human beings, our main survival strategies in this world are our thinking abilities and our social connections. We don’t have sharp teeth, claws, scales, shells, very good senses, or much speed or strength like many other animals do. What we do have is the ability to form bonds with each other, and this has allowed us to survive as a species.
So, when we feel isolated and like we have few social bonds, or we feel our existing social bonds threatened or destroyed, we feel a kind of survival-level anxiety.
This is why solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments we have in our society. Without connection to others, our health and well-being are severely impacted.
Let’s add on top of that all the societal messages about what type of relationships we are supposed to have, and what those relationships are supposed to look like. We are daily inundated with messages about how our relationships should feel, operate, look, what our partner is supposed to look like, how they are supposed to act toward us, what qualities they should have and what that means about us, and what it means about us if we can’t make this all happen.
Add all of these survival and social factors together, and it can be tempting to take any relationship, with hopes we can eventually get it to work, over no relationship at all.
Burning Out on Bad Relationships
This strategy, though, doesn’t tend to be sustainable.
If we are willing to be in any relationship just so we aren’t alone, we tend to make sacrifices in our values and boundaries just to try to hang onto relationship at all. We might contort ourselves to who we think the other person wants us to be. We might say things are ok with us when they aren’t. We might give up activities or people that are important to us to try to not upset the fragile state of the relationship.
This all just leads to burnout, resentment, overwhelm, frustration, and a general feeling of stuckness. We end up in relationships where we aren’t being ourselves.
If we’re willing to re-prioritize a bit, like Daniel Sloss is pointing out, then we instead demote these kinds of relationships that aren’t working. We become willing to be on our own while true to our values and boundaries rather than sacrifice those values or boundaries for the sake of relationships that don’t respect them or align with them.
This ends up being what makes good relationships possible. When we can be true to our values and honest about our boundaries, even if it means being alone in the short term, then we allow those who would respect these values and boundaries to find us.
Sticking to Boundaries
Imagine that you’re running a restaurant, and that what would really work best for you is to be open for business from 4 to 9pm. These are your boundaries, helping define what works for you.
Now, imagine that you took the any-customer-is-better-than-no-customer approach, ignoring your boundaries along the way, and opened your restaurant at 11pm, 1am or even 3am because people came knocking at your door asking if you’re open and saying they’re hungry and willing to pay.
If you contort yourself to accommodate everyone so that at least you have someone, you’ll be running your restaurant 24/7 until you’re totally burnt out.
If instead you’re willing to be without customers in order to stick by your 4 to 9pm boundaries, you’ll have the ability to say no when people come knocking outside of those boundaries.
What you’re then left with is those who respect and align with your boundaries, those who happen to be looking for the same thing you’re offering.
To learn more about Existential Psychotherapy, sign up to get email updates on new blog posts.
To learn more about what it means to use Existential Psychotherapy in your own life, sign up to get weekly Existential Psychotherapy reflections by email.