I Love You But ... I Dont Like You Anymore

It's a challenging place to be emotionally when you truly love someone deep in your heart, but can't stand being in their company anymore, not just sometimes, but all the time.

I have always thought of an individual's personality, including my own, as being a little like a pay per view television network (or cable if you are in the U.S) perhaps a bit let's say, like Foxtel for us Australians.  For it seems there are many channels to choose from within each individuals personality network.  Some channels we prefer more than others, depending on the day, our mood and how much energy and emotional and or physical effort we are prepared to expend.

Within my personalities network I have a vast range of channels.  For example to name just a few there is The Mother channel, The Romantic, The Devoted Wife, The Business channel, Decorating, What's to Eat Cooking channel, Book Lovers, Home Gardening, Music channel (often tuned into the program that features my two sons band), Keynote Speaking, Ex-wives Club, of course the Shopping channel, Fashionista, Home Renovating, Middle Age and Menopause Health channel, Travel & Restaurant guide channel, Writing, Spiritual Discovery, Drama, and Emotional Recovery channels and many more.  These are just my top 20 or so.

Depending on what time of the day, or month for that matter, if you tune into my life and it's on let's say the Drama channel, you might catch the D is for Denial show.   This particular episode may follow the story of a recovering addict (being me) binging on chocolate as she hides the wrappers of evidence at the bottom of her handbag.  This episode unfortunately is often being repeated far too regularly lately for my liking.  Ms Bossyfussbum's monthly movie on the Drama channel could also be playing when you tune in.  This epic saga is full of whining, impatience and fault finding and even though it doesn't get good ratings re-runs continue to air.   If it's late in the evening you will be able to tune into, if you are game, the diva we know and find challenging to love, Ms Crankypants as she bitches and whinges about things that really don't matter as she prepares for bed after overworking herself.

Alternatively you may choose to select the Romantic channel where a deeply happy, emotionally balanced, middle aged mother and career woman (me again) lights candles and waltzes around her lounge room to old Rod Stewart ballads in her pajamas and fluffy pink diamante slippers, with the love of her life, her husband,  Mr. Delicious. 

Then there's another great Music channel you might flick onto, where I am the unlikely D.J. bursting with pride as I select and repeat over and over again, the newly released songs my son's band that are now getting played on JJJ, as they prepare to play at their next gig on centre stage at Park Life!  I just love this channel, although I understand others in my orbit may be tiring of it and beginning to tune out.

My point is, that my channels and the programs that play on them within my personality alone are diverse, at times contradictory and multidimensional, as all of us are as human beings.  The older we get it seems to me, the more discerning we are with which programs and channels we choose to keep and those we delete our subscription to.  Sometimes the channels that we keep may serve us well, however others in our life may find them intolerable and even unbearably offensive.

When we fall in love with someone, in the beginning we usually show them our most popular and highest rating channels and programs.  Over time, we introduce them to more dimensions of ourselves and may well find, that some of the channels we secretly love, they may not like at all.   Relationships that work and endure over time make allowances for the channels in their loved ones life that they may not like and learn to work around them. 

Let's say the average person has 100 different channels to their personality's network?  Of those 100 in the early days, there may be 5 channels you really don't like.  But you can work with it, because there is probably about the same amount within your personal network that they too dislike, for they don't agree with their emotional palate, like certain foods mightn't agree with ones taste buds.  But the relationship remains workable whilst the majority of the relationship is based on the love of each other's company due to the range of shared enjoyment of the 95% of channels and their programs, left to choose from.

It becomes really challenging though when over the course of a lifetime when loved ones start to delete more and more of the channels we love within their personal network, leaving only channels we really dislike to choose from whilst in their company.  It is like going to someone's place to eat a meal and all they serve is food you really can't stomach.  It becomes an unpleasant chore to continue to share a meal as there is no real companionship.  Sure you can bring your own meal and have a parallel eating experience, but the joy of sharing a common taste, texture or cooking style has been removed.  The depth of the connection now becomes shallower.

I remember the first time I watched one of those SAW movies, I had to get up and leave the room.  It was too offensive for me, way too violent and upsetting.  I would have betrayed myself and even traumatized my heart to continue to stay in the room just because the other person at the time was sitting there absorbed in it.  It would be the same for me if disrespectful pornography was playing at someone's house I visited.  I would choose to leave them to it, as I really don't like it.  To each their own, I am not making myself right and those who like to watch violence, horror and pornography wrong, it is just not my cup of tea.  I really dislike it and I would remove myself.  Like I really dislike offal, turnips and cooked carrots, I remove them from my plate and don't eat them; they make me want to puke!

However I also dislike the fishing channel, sports channel and engineering channels my darling husband, Mr. Delicious loves.  I can tolerate them though, and stay in the room, I just do some mending or paint my toenails for it doesn't offend me, I just choose not to put my full attention on some bridge being built that I find as boring as batshit, but can still enjoy his company.

So there are varying degrees for us all that we can choose when it comes to compromise and flexibility with the ones we love.  However, when the ones we love consistently choose channels that we not only dislike but offend us on some level, what do we do?

I, like many of us have over the past 47.9 years (I am not 48 for another few days yet) of my life make some tough decisions about permanently leaving the company of those whom I have loved.  When we no longer like being in their company, or they no longer like being with us, what do we do?  If changing channels for another means negating your truth staying in the relationship is not healthy or enjoyable for either party.

I was running an Emotional Fitness Master Class in Brisbane on Tuesday evening when an attendee said:

"If I was Emotionally Fitter, maybe I could tolerate this behavior (channel) in this person, but I suppose I am just not there yet, I just find them so abusive it's hard to handle."

The person she was speaking of was being consistently disrespectful to her each time she attempted to be in their company.  They key here with the disrespect is in the consistency.  Unfortunately very few of us are saints, so from time to time we do disrespect those we love by switching onto channels that we know they don't like without considering them.  But when this becomes the norm and a loved one does not offer a balanced choice of other more pleasant and mutually enjoyable channels, decisions about honouring oneself need to be addressed.

"Sometimes the most loving thing we can do for another is to love them and leave them be to stay on the channels they have chosen in life." I responded at the conclusion of the Master Class.

"The challenge is in not becoming superior and needing to make one of you wrong for making different channel choices in life.  It is the live and let live approach that incorporates the courage to tolerate an accusation of betrayal by someone who we still love and who loves us, and not betray ourselves for choosing differently." I continued. 

Advice we give others is always the advice we need to take the most ourselves, I believe.  One usually teaches what they need to learn the most.  This is so true in my case.

When marriages or relationships come to an end, we don't always stop loving.  Actually I don't think the heart can stop loving truth be told.  WE can suppress love, try to numb it off and fight it, bury it, kill it or deny it, but once we love I believe it leaves an imprint on our hearts forever.   For we can love another and not be in relationship with them.  Look at the loved ones that we have lost through death, as corny as it sounded when Celine Dion sang it in Titanic, "the heart will go on".

When souls touch, they say love is born.  I believe this to be true. 

For me the challenge has been when I have no longer been able to stay in a relationship with ones I have loved.   Regardless of if they have been biological family members, lovers, ex-husbands or friends, to let judgment leave and ensure love remains is where I try and build my emotional fitness.  It is a heavy weight to lift some days, but the heart strength that results, is so worth the effort I have found.

I am now on a plane flying to a place in this great Land of Oz called Geraldton.  I have never been there before.  I am on the first five and a half hour leg to Perth, and that will be followed by another two hour flight in a much smaller plane to Geraldton.  Evidently the Step Up event for teens that I will be presenting at tomorrow morning has hit front page news in downtown Geraldton so I am told!  I am so looking forward to exploring a new part of this great country.

I will write again soon, and thank you for your past comments.  Please feel free to leave your thoughts after this blog if your heart has anything to share about the challenges in your life you have faced.   Perhaps you too still love someone but no longer like being in their company not just some of the time, but all of the time.  It's a big workout for the heart, but worth doing for as much love as we can gather having imprinted on our hearts over a lifetime is where our true wealth lies.

I will leave you with these Word Vitamins to consider, and look forward to when you visit me here again.  If you would like my weekly blog to automatically arrive in your inbox, please just click on the subscribe option on the home page and fill in your email details.  Until next time!

"There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn't the end of the world, it's the beginning of a new life." Author Unknown