Love is Not Supposed to Hurt

Love is Not Supposed to Hurt

By Barbara Rose, Ph.D.

Questions and Answers:

I often feel sad in my relationship, what can I do about it?

I always feel like I’m walking on eggshells, is that normal?

I feel different from how I used to feel, like I’ve lost my sense of self. Why?

What can I do if my partner switches demeanors like Jekyll and Hyde?

How can I stop my boyfriend from humiliating me, degrading me, and putting me down?

Here are your answers:

I often feel sad in my relationship, what can I do about it?

If you feel sad in your relationship most, if not all of the time, then it is time that you really asked yourself if this relationship is bringing you joy MOST of the time. Get really honest with yourself, and tell yourself the truth. That’s the first place to start. Can you communicate with your partner? Is he responsive? Does he make an effort to really listen to you and honor your feelings or not?

If he’s not, then that would explain why you feel sad most of the time, because you have valid feelings, and they are not being honored. So first YOU have to honor your feelings, and then take a good, clear look at the way the relationship is RIGHT NOW, the way it is MOST of the time, not the few times you experience joy, but the majority of the time. If you are in pain “often” and most of the time, then you have to find the courage to either really work it out with your partner, and if you cannot, because your needs and feelings are not really honored, then it is time that YOU honored your feelings, and know one thing: that you do not have to remain miserable. You can get professional counseling together, and really open up. If he is not willing to do that with you, then he is not willing to make it work with you. So what are your two options? Stay miserable, or make a complete break so that you can heal, and then attract a new partner that will be extremely good to you. This is your choice, so please do what you know in your heart is true for you.

I always feel like I’m walking on eggshells, is that normal?

No, it is not normal, it is painful, and love is NOT supposed to hurt! Who told you that you have to put up with uncertainty, and living with a person that causes you to feel like a nervous wreck, always wondering if you are going to set him off? This is living with sickness. “Normal” people openly discuss whatever is bothering them, and come to mutually agreeable solutions.

In a normal relationship, one that is sane, you feel free to be yourself completely. You are never worried about “getting it wrong” or “messing up” because you know that you are loved and respected, cared about, adored, and that your feelings matter as much as his.

If you feel like you are walking on eggshells, then I wholeheartedly advise you to walk out of the relationship, and leave the broken shells of bad memories behind you, where they belong. No one can do this “for” you. This is your life, and only you can decide if this is the life you really want to live, and what you really prefer in a relationship, or if you would prefer something a lot more loving, where you feel safe, rather than constantly worried.

I do promise you that once you get really honest with yourself, and honor your real feelings, you are on the road to a much happier life, and you can do a lot of reading, inner healing, restoring, and coming into a place within where you become your own best friend. It is then that you will be ready to attract someone into your life who has the capacity to treat you the way any human being deserves to be treated. Where the only eggshells you see are when he brings you breakfast, because he loves you.

I feel different from how I used to feel, like I’ve lost my sense of self. Why?

Why? The answer is because you are being treated more like an object where if something goes wrong it is blamed on you, rather than being respected completely without blame and criticism.

If you feel like you have lost your sense of self, then you have probably been twisting yourself in every conceivable direction to be or feel good enough for the person that you are with. Are you told what to do? Are you watched? Yelled at? Insulted? Put down? Criticized?

When we have been put down, we do feel our real self somehow sliding away, especially in an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship. Sometimes we don’t even notice it happening. We just begin to feel less confident, less desirable, less than we used to feel. This is what abuse does, it chips away at our sense of self, and before long, we’ve forgotten what it feels like to feel whole and complete and good enough again.

So if you’re with someone that treats you in a degrading manner, someone that puts you down, someone that is kind and then mean, back and forth, then it’s time to get off the see saw and plant yourself on solid ground with a firm decision as to what you are going to allow in your life, and how you are going to allow yourself to be treated.

You must decide how you really want to be treated, and only settle for that. You are NOT here to be degraded. No human being deserves to be degraded. So in order to gain your sense of self back, you have to know what you want, what you prefer, how you would rather feel, and put yourself in the position to walk away completely from anyone that treats you less than how you know you want to be treated.

When a person has clear boundaries, they do not allow them to be crossed. Your boundaries are your preferences. Create your boundaries, and you will be able to begin to feel a sense of what you really deserve. Then, only settle for that and nothing less, ever.

What can I do if my partner switches demeanors like Jekyll and Hyde?

Sister, (or Brother) run for your life, and never look back! Just keep going forward in one clear direction, far, far away from this person, because if you don’t then YOU will feel like you are going insane.

You cannot fix or heal another person’s psychological issues to your own detriment. Jekyll and Hyde is living with insanity, which will only make YOU feel insane. And I really mean what I say here.

How can I stop my boyfriend from humiliating me, degrading me, and putting me down?

You can’t, dear one. He is the way he is. The question is when are you going to walk? How much more do you have to be humiliated, degraded and put down? Do you want to take it for a few more minutes, weeks, what about another ten years? Some people take it for the rest of their lives. Others leave at the first sign of abuse. Right after the first humiliating, degrading put down. They leave because they know this is the person’s nature, and we cannot change another person. If someone is an abuser, they give abuse. Do you give abuse? No, you do not. Do you give it in self defense? If you are continuing to allow abuse in your life, this is a very sad life to live.

To better answer your question, the only way you can stop your boyfriend from humiliating you, degrading you, and putting you down is when you end your relationship with this person. Until that time, expect more of the same. Has it permanently changed? Does he change for a few days, maybe a week or so, only to go back to the same old pattern? If your answer is yes, then you can expect the same pattern to continue, as surely as you can expect that an apple tree will continue to give you apples. It will not give you bananas, or peaches. Its nature will not change.