10
Emotional Hooks
in Relationships
6. Need to
be Needed
7. Belief
that Time will Make it Better
8. Belief that It Must be All of My Fault that there are
Problems in the Relationships
9. Fear of
Negative Outcomes for Relationship Partners
10. Idealism
or Fantasy Thinking
1. Lack of
Individual Identity
Maybe you are hooked by the
irrational belief that: "I am a nobody without a somebody in my life."
If you are, you maintain no boundaries with your relationship partners because
you are very dependent in getting your identity from being with your partners.
You are willing to do whatever it takes to make the relationships happen, even
if you have to give up your health, money, security, identity, intelligence,
spiritual beliefs, family, country, job,
community, friends, values, honor and self-respect. The rational message needed
to establish healthy boundaries from this hook is: "I am a somebody, just
by being who I am. I am OK just the way I am, even if I do not have my
relationship partners in my life. My value and worth as a person is not
dependent on having one or more significant others in my life. It is better for
me to be on my own and healthy than to be with my relationship partners and be
sick intellectually, emotionally and/or physically. I will work diligently with
my relationship partners to correct this faulty thinking which has made me too
dependent. By being more my own person, my relationships will flourish and grow
healthier."
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2. Scarcity Principle
Maybe you are hooked by the
scarcity principle of feeling happiness: "because the current status of our
relationship is better than anything we have ever had before." This
is a common problem for people recovering from low self-esteem who have faced
trials and challenges in relationships in the past. The problem is that the
current status of your relationships might be better than what you have
experienced in the past, but they might not really be as healthy and intimate as
the intimate relationship described
earlier. You may be so happy with your relationships' current functioning that
you are willing to give all of yourself intellectually, emotionally and
physically with no regard for what you need to retain for yourself so that you
do not lose your identity in these relationships. You may be in a recovery
program like AA, Alanon, NA, CODA, ACOA etc. You may be in a Bible Study Group
or some other form of spiritual renewal self-help group. You may have a support
system and a plan of recovery for personal and spiritual growth. You may find
that in your relationships you have no time to do the "recovery or growth
activities" of maintaining contact with your support system, going to 12
Step or other group meetings, or reading recovery literature or scripture. You
may find it hard to maintain your new behavioral and emotional commitment to
personal and spiritual growth in your relationships. If this is true, then your
relationships may not be supportive for your personal and spiritual growth. Your
relationshps may not be healthy for you no matter how good they look or how
happy you are in them. If in your relationships you have no time to spend with
your spouse, children, family or long term friends then it is not healthy no
matter how happy you are in it. If in your relationships you have no time,
energy or resources to put into your career, education or current job then they
are not healthy for you no matter how happy you are in them. If in your
relationships you are finding it difficult to maintain your own spirituality and
connection with God then they are not healthy no matter how happy you feel in
them. Relationships which require that you sacrifice all of you for the sake of
the happiness you feel, in them, are not healthy intimate relationships. Healthy
intimate relationships allow you to make time, space and allowance for you to
focus on yourself, your own needs, your spouse, your children, your family, your
friends, your recovery program, your support system, your career, your
education, your spiritual beliefs and your personal integrity, individuality and
identity. The rational message needed to establish healthy boundaries from this
hook is: "I will focus on my needs, my identity, my individuality and my
personal integrity in my relationships. I will set aside my time, resources and
energy to give to my spouse, my children, my family, my friends, my support
system, my recovery program, my spirituality, my career, my education and my
community involvement while maintaining healthy intimate relationships with my
relationship partners. I will insist that I have the time, resources and energy
to focus on all aspects of my life in my relationships. I will not become
complacent in my relationships just because there are no conflicts or crisis in
them at the time. I will work with my relationship partners to insure that the
health of our relationships is ever growing and increasing."
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3. Guilt
Maybe you are hooked by irrational guilt
that you must think, feel and act in ways to insure that your
relationships are preserved, secured and nurtured no matter what personal
expense it takes out of you. You feel guilty if the your relationship partners
are not succeeding or thriving without your personal resources, energy, money,
time and effort going in to making such success happen. You have a problem of
feeling over-responsible for the welfare of your relationship partners and
cannot allow your partners to accept personal responsibility, to make choices
and live with the consequences of these choices. This irrational guilt is a
driving motivation to keep you tearing down your boundaries so that you will
always be available to your relationship partners at any time, in any place, for
whatever reason your relationship partners "need" you. The rational
message needed to establish healthy boundaries from this hook is: "My
relationship partners and I are responsible for accepting personal
responsibility for our own lives and to accept the consequences for the choices
we make in taking care of our own lives. I am not responsible for the outcomes
which result from the choices and decisions which my relationship partners make.
My relationship partners and I are free to make our own decisions with no one
forcing us to make bad ones which will result in negative consequences to
ourselves if they should occur."
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4. Inability
to Differentiate Love from Sympathy
Maybe you are hooked by the
inability to differentiate the difference between love and sympathy or
compassion for your relationship partners. You find yourself feeling
sorry for your relationship partners and the warm feelings which this generates
makes you think that you are in love with them. The bigger the problems your
relationship partners have, the bigger the "love" seems to you.
Because the problems can get bigger and more complex, they succeed in hooking
you to lower your boundaries so that you begin to give more and more of yourself
to your "pitiable" relationship partners out of the "love"
you feel. The rational message needed to establish healthy boundaries from this
hook is: "It is OK to have sympathy and compassion for my relationship
partners, but that does not mean that I have to sacrifice my life to
"save" or "rescue" my partners. Sympathy and compassion are
emotions I know well and I will work hard to differentiate them from what love
is. When I feel sympathy and compassion for my relationship partners, I will
remind myself that it is not the same as loving them. The ability to feel
sympathy and compassion for another human being is a nice quality of mine and I
will be sure to use it in a healthy and non-emotionally hooked way in the future
in my relationships."
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5. Helplessness
and Neediness of Relationship Partners
Maybe you get hooked by the neediness
and helplessness of your relationship partners. You find yourself hooked
when your partners get into self-pity, "poor me" and "how tough
life has been." You find yourself weak when your relationship partners
demonstrates an inability to solve personal problems. You find yourself wanting
to teach and instruct, when your relationship partners demonstrate or admit
ignorance of how to solve problems. You find yourself hooked by verbal and
non-verbal cues which cry out to you to "help" your relationship
partners even though your partners have the competence to solve the problem on
their own. You find yourself feeling warmth, caring and nurturing feelings which
help you tear down any shred of boundaries you once had. These sad, weak,
distraught, lost, confused and befuddled waifs are so needy that you lose all
concept of space and time as you begin to give and give and give. It feels so
good. The rational message needed to establish healthy boundaries from this hook
is: "No one is helpless without first learning the advantages of being
helpless. Helplessness is a learned behavior which is used to manipulate me to
give of my resources, energy, time, effort and money to fix. I am a good person
if I do not try to fix and take care of my relationship partners when my
partners are acting helpless. I
cannot establish healthy intimate relationships with my relationship partners if
I am trying to fix or take care of them all of the time. I need to put more
energy into fixing and taking care of myself if I find myself being hooked by my
relationship partners' helplessness."
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6. Need to
be Needed
Maybe you get hooked by the sense
of being depended upon or needed by your relationship partners. There is
no reason to feel responsible for your relationship partners if they let you
know that they are dependent upon and need you for their life to be successful
and fulfilled. This is over‑dependency and is unhealthy. It is impossible
to have healthy intimacy with overdependent people because there is no give and
take. Your relationship partners could be parasites sucking you dry of
everything you have intellectually, emotionally and physically. You get nothing
in return except the "good feelings" of doing something for your
relationship partners. You get no real healthy nurturing, rather you feel the
weight of your relationship partners on your shoulders, neck and back. You give
and give of yourself to address the needs of your relationship partners and you
have nothing left to give to yourself. The rational message needed to establish
healthy boundaries from this hook is: "It is unhealthy for me to be so
overly depended upon by my relationship partners who are adults. There is a need
for me to be clear what I am willing and not willing to do for my relationship
partners. There is a need for my relationship partners to become more
independent from me so that I can maintain my own sense of identity, worth and
personhood. It would be better for me to let go of the need to be needed than to
allow my relationship partners to continue to have such dependency on me. I am
only responsible for taking care of myself. Human adults are responsible to
accept personal responsibility for their own lives. Supporting my relationship
partners intellectually, emotionally and physically where I have nothing left to
give to myself is unhealthy and not required in healthy relationships and I will
be ALERT to when I am doing this and try to stop it immediately."
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7. Belief
that Time will Make it Better
Maybe you get hooked by the belief
that: "If I give it enough time things will change to be the way I
want them to be." You have waited a long time to have healthy
intimate relationships, you rationalize: "Don't give up on them too
soon." Since you are not sure how to have them or how they feel, you
rationalize that maybe what the relationships need is more time to become more
healthy and intimate. You find yourself giving more and more of yourself and
waiting longer and longer for something good to happen and yet things never get
better. You find that your wait goes from being counted by days, weeks or months
to years. Time passes and things really never get better. What keeps hooking you
are those fleeting moments when the relationships approximate what you would
like them to be. These fleeting moments feel like centuries and they are
sufficient to keep you holding on. The rational message needed to establish
healthy boundaries from this hook is: "It is unhealthy for me to sacrifice
large portions of my life, invested in relationships which are not going
anywhere. It is unhealthy for me to hold on to the belief that things will
change if they have not in 1 or more years. It is OK to set time limits in my
relationships such as: if in 3 months or 6 months things do not get to be
intimately healthier then I am getting out of them or we will need to seek
professional help to work it out. It is OK to put time demands on my
relationships so that I do not waste away my life waiting for something which in
all probability will never happen. It is not OK for me to blow out of proportion
those fleeting moments in my relationships which make me believe that there is
anything more in them than there really is."
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8. Belief that It Must be All of My Fault that there are
Problems in the Relationships
Maybe you get hooked by the belief
that: "If I change myself more things will change to become more like
I want them to be in my relationships." You rationalize that maybe
the reason things are not getting healthier and more intimate is because you
need to change more to be the person your relationship partners wants you to be.
You feel blamed and pointed out by your relationship partners as the reason why
things are not healthier or more intimate in your relationships. You find
yourself having to defend yourself from attacks from your relationship partners
for "not being good enough" or "doing enough" to make the
relationships work. You find yourself with a mounting list of expectations,
duties or responsibilities, given you by your partners, which must be
accomplished if the relationships are ever to become what you want them to be.
You find yourself needing to change the ways you think, feel, act, dress, talk,
look, eat, work, cook, entertain, have fun, socialize, etc before you will be
"good enough" for your relationships to work. You find that you will
have to basically give up "who you are" for "who your partners
want you to be" if the relationships are ever to work. You find yourself
hooked by the challenge to change and you find yourself working harder and
harder to effect the change. What keeps you hooked is the affirmation and
reinforcement you get from your relationship partners when you effect a small
change. The only problem is that there is always something else identified which
needs to be changed after the last change has been accomplished. You are in a
never ending loop of needing to change and unfortunately there never seems to be
an end to it. The rational message needed to establish healthy boundaries for
this hook is: "I have to be real to myself and be the person I am rather
than to be the person my relationship partners want me to be. It is not healthy
for me to give up my personhood and identity to please my partners just to
maintain our relationships. I have a right to my own tastes, likes and dislikes,
personal style, beliefs, values, attitudes etc. I am in control of my own
thinking, feelings and actions. I will not allow my relationship partners to
take control of my basic rights."
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9. Fear of
Negative Outcomes for Relationship Partners
Maybe you get hooked by the fear
of the possible negative future outcome if you are not deeply involved
in taking care of and fixing your relationship partners. You may be aware of the
hooks which keep you boundary-less with your partners. Yet you are afraid to LET
GO of the control you have with your relationship partners for fear something
very negative might happen to them. Maybe you fear that your relationship
partners would become: homeless, hungry, jobless, poor, lonely, scared, go to
jail or worse yet die if you do not continue to fix and take care of their
needs. This fear of the possible negative future outcomes is so debilitating,
that it feels better being sucked dry intellectually, emotionally and physically
than to LET GO and watch your relationship partners suffer these feared awful
negative outcomes. You find yourself powerless to keep from doing the healthy
thing because of the intensity of this fear. You have become a prisoner in the
prison of these relationships. You have become a hostage of very powerful,
needy, helpless, manipulative "hostage takers." You are a possession
of your relationship partners. You find yourself doing all you are asked to
insure that these possible negative dreaded outcomes do not happen. You are
being emotionally blackmailed and may even have heard threats of suicide if you
say you want to change or get out of the relationships the way they are. The
rational message needed to establish healthy boundaries from this hook is:
"I am only responsible for my life. No one can make me responsible for my
relationship partners' lives. I can choose to feel responsible for my
relationship partners' lives, but I cannot control or determine the outcome of
their lives no matter how hard I try. I am powerless to control other people,
places, things and conditions. The only thing I can control is my own thinking,
feeling and actions. I need to hand my relationship partners'
problems and needs and the outcomes of their lives over to God. I cannot
carry my relationship partners' possible negative future outcomes on my body or
I will experience failed emotional and physical health. It is OK for me to
expect my relationship partners to accept personal responsibility for their own
lives. It is OK to require my relationship partners to accept the consequences
for their own actions, choices and decisions."
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10. Idealism
or Fantasy Thinking
Maybe you are hooked by the fantasy
or ideal about how it is supposed to be. You have an ideal, dream or
image in your mind of how relationships are supposed to be or how they should be
and you have a difficult time accepting them the way they really are. You work
hard at making your relationships approximate your idealized fantasy. You put a
great deal of time, energy and resources into making them become a reality.
Unfortunately the more you give and give, the fantasy never becomes the reality
you are wishing for. The pull to make the fantasy become real is very powerful.
You seem brainwashed into believing that it is possible even though all of your
efforts have not made it happen, after years and years of effort on your part.
You get hooked by the delusion of the fulfillment of the fantasy and live as if
the fantasy has become reality. You are sometimes so out of touch with reality
that you appear to be psychotic to others when you discuss your relationships.
They know they are not real and in some cases do not even closely approximate
what you are saying. You keep pouring your resources, energy and time into empty
pits which seem to never get filled. You become obsessed into acting and looking
like the fantasy is real. You get hooked into waiting for the "big pay
off" down the road if you just stick with your relationships. You remain
loyal to the belief that it will happen one day. "Wake up and get off the
fantasy train before it runs off the track!" you hear people saying but
ignore their warnings and keep blindly on, in search of your quest.
The rational message needed to establish healthy boundaries from this
hook is: "I must accept reality the way it is rather than how I want it to
be. I will give my support system, in my recovery or spiritual renewal program,
permission to call me on it if I am hooked into fantasy
relationships and lose myself in them. I will work hard to stay reality
based and keep myself from losing my objectivity and contact with the way things
really are. I will make every effort to accept my relationships the way they are
rather than how I want them to be. I am a human and subject to making mistakes
and failing and I will forgive myself if I make a mistake in my efforts to
establish healthy intimate relationships with my relationship partners. Once I
give up the delusion that things are the way they are supposed to be, I will
work with my partners to try to correct the problems in our
relationships."
Use the tools in the Tools for
Handling Control Issue to
get yourself further unhooked and detached from any unhealthy aspects of your
current relationships. Use the
tools in the Tools for Personal Growth to get yourself more rational in the face of the hooks you
experience in your relationships with others.
Click here to go on to Step 2 in Establishing Healthy
Boundaries in Relationships
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Tools
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