When it comes to relationships, we can try our best to be good to someone but not realize that our definition of ‘good’ can be tainted. We can express learned toxic behaviors that we came to believe were positive when in fact they were not.

You can hope to be wonderful to someone but not realize that at the same time you are exhibiting the bad things that come from past relationships.

You want to be loving but since you learned in a past relationship that to be loving you have to constantly ask where someone is or be in complete contact at every moment of the day you do that. Not realizing that the behavior wasn’t healthy or okay. But that’s the bad habit you learned thinking that it was positive when really it was negative.

So two people can come together who at the core aren’t bad or toxic people but because they both learned bad toxic behavior from past relationships they consider that to be normal. They then create a maelstrom of bad behavior while simultaneously trying to be good to each other.

It’s a recipe for disaster.

When you come out of a relationship you need to stop and consider what behaviors both your partner and yourself exhibited that were healthy versus what wasn’t. You don’t want to bring past learned negativity into the new relationship. The negativity that may not be your own but your previous partner’s.

You know how you can adopt a person’s speech pattern or certain mannerisms by hanging around them for a long time? It’s something like that.

For example, if your former partner made a big deal about knowing where you are all the time you may have adopted that mentality. They wanted to know where you were so you wanted to know where they were too.

It may not be something you cared about but they made it a priority so you made it one too. You then establish that as the baseline of the norm and since it became a habit and something you became accustomed to, you bring that into a new relationship. Not stopping to consider whether that is something healthy or not. And not realizing that it wasn’t even something you truly cared about but something you LEARNED to care about.

You discover more about yourself from relationships you have whether they be romantic or not. Some people can bring the worst out of you and others the best.

When the worst is brought out, study your triggers. Study what can be said to really get you going. saddened, hurt, annoyed or bring out your anger.

Decipher whether it is something truly important to you or something you learned to give importance to from others. If it is truly important to you, understand your ‘why’ that way you understand yourself better and can articulate your feelings.

Become better than your worst self.

©JustTalkingShep 2019