I’ve written a lot about the importance of values and how if you want to understand why your relationship isn’t or wasn’t working or want to have improved relationships, how you need to better understand what your values are and more importantly, live them.
Values, quite simply, are about what you believe you fundamentally need in order to live your life authentically and to be happy.
Your values are your own and whatever you’re prioritising in your life and swearing up and down that you need and can’t survive without, will tell you a lot about your mentality and your direction. Little do you realise that you may actually be taking yourself off course and busting your own boundaries in the process.
We have a tendency to do a few things that cause us to wind up in a lot of problems:
1) We get sidetracked by secondary values which are stuff like common interests, appearance and anything that is ‘nice to have’ but doesn’t really tell you a great deal about the person and when all is said and done, it won’t make a difference if primary ‘core’ values are not shared.
2) We make assumptions about what the existence of some values, qualities and characteristics mean and assume that other values that we desire are also present. It’s why I get so many emails from people telling me that they met someone who looked as they would like or was super intelligent or they had various common interests with, or they go to church / are the same religion and yet they don’t understand why they clash, have entirely different characters, or don’t want similar things. It’s like 2 + 2 + 1 = 100.
3) We ignore the vital feedback communicated from people’s actions and words and in fact tend to be blinded by our own values. “Well I do ______ and _____ and ______ is important to me so why aren’t they doing and being the same?” Er because values are personal.
Your job isn’t to make someone have the same values as you; your job is to respect and live by your own values and find likeminded folk. We also persist in focusing on values that we think are important to us that are being met, yet completely ignore the fact that the problems we are experiencing are not only being caused by other values, but that they are also giving us feedback that communicates that we either don’t understand what’s important to us and are ignoring it to our detriment, or who we say we are and what we want is not true.
You have all sorts of values and together they are the sum of you.
You may never have truly given a great deal of thought to what these values are, but they are a mix of personal values (your character and personal code of ethics) along with stuff like economic, religious, sexual, religious, political, social, hobbies and interests, appearance etc. If you want to be happy in or out of a relationship, it’s time to heed your own values.
1. If you have some critical differences on the personal values front, it does not matter which other values you claim to share, your relationship isn’t going to work. A lot of people prioritise being in a relationship, companionship, getting laid etc, but I’m yet to come across one person who is genuinely happy doing these things with someone who is for instance, a liar, cheat, abusive, and who doesn’t treat them with love, care, trust, and respect.
Personal values represent character and boundaries hence if you’re with someone whose character isn’t similar or at the very least compliments yours, you will bust your own boundaries by deviating greatly from your values while at the same time they will bust yours.
You will find that there are many differences that can be overcome when you respect the individuality of others as opposed to trying to make people be a clone of you and/or blaming yourself for why they’re not, however, boundary busting personal values is not one of them. And remember: If you go along with another person’s dodgy values, it is time to have an honest conversation with yourself about your own personal values. I’ve had a number of emails from women who have been with men who eye up underage girls, or who lie with the ease of drawing breath and yet they were still there. Come.On.
2. Shared values engenders trust hence if you are experiencing trust issues, it’s an alarm alerting you to a difference in core values, likely on the personal values front, that’s behind the area of distrust. There’s either a very crucial difference in how you each conduct yourselves or there’s a very crucial difference in how you want to live or one, or both of you are trying to make the other take on the other person’s values.
Let me say it again – we trust people with whom we share core values. If you also want to understand why you keep getting into similar unhealthy relationships it’s because while you may profess certain values, you ‘trust’ in the feedback from that person possessing certain values that speak to your own pattern. Hence you may feel more trusting of someone who is shady and dodging a relationship, not because you’re truly ‘trusting’ them, but more because you trust that this relationship is ‘safe’, that you can seek validation, and that you can fulfil your self-fulfilling prophecy that speaks to your own beliefs about you, love, and relationships.
3. Look at what keeps coming back up and causing issues in a relationship – no matter what is being said, it tells you a hell of a lot about where there are incompatibilities with your values. This information will either tell you why your relationship isn’t going to work or is at the very least highlighting where you need to be focused. I’ve had so many people share stories about how they were with someone who was so attractive, sexy, shared common interests, kind to animals/children, mentioned back in 1983 that they might want to get married or that they’d like a relationship one day, they made them laugh and yada yada yada. This is all well and good but if this was what was the bread and butter of your relationship, you wouldn’t be experiencing major problems.
All this he said/she said and blowing smoke up people’s bums and pumping them up is a waste of your time because you’re looking at the wrong information. The net result of your relationship, the areas where you’re struggling – this is telling you where you don’t share values or where there’s certainly a miscommunication of them.
4. Be careful of the silent handshake in values. If you stick with someone who doesn’t share core values, they assume that you’re not serious about your own values and that you’re actually now sharing theirs. Of course you may be assuming the same thing. Do not ignore core differences that will take you away from being you and certainly don’t proceed on the assumption that they’re going to abandon their own. Love is not about having the power to change someone.
5. You are not looking for a clone of you. I know many couples who have different values but share core values where it counts. It means that it doesn’t matter what colour they are or religion or size or political party – when it comes down to how they each want to live their lives and how they want to treat one another, they are on the same page. Equally I know a lot of people who value certain things and so even if they had all of this in common, they wouldn’t be with someone who wasn’t the same religion, colour, political party etc. That’s their prerogative – these are their values to live by but never allow someone who is very rigid about these things to be with you (someone who doesn’t embody this value) and then use it as an excuse to mistreat you or not commit.
Someone may be great on illusionary paper, but it’s values that show who they are and whether your relationship can happen in reality.
Your thoughts?
About the Author:
Natalie Lue is the founder and writer of Baggage Reclaim and author of the books Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship and more. Learn more about her here and you can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter - @baggagereclaim .
Natalie (NML) – who has written 1084 posts on Baggage Reclaim by Natalie Lue.
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Confusedd
try this, it may help:
http://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/10-core-breakup-boundaries-that-every-person-should-live-by/comment-page-1/#comment-343225
Confusedd, after I read your story I had to get up and go for a drive, trying not to cry. Do you have any idea how many women have been through this? (Hand up over here.) Going through it right now as a matter of fact. Sad story short: friends 4 years, part-time lovers(Stevie Wonder-style) for 3 years. Waited on those calls, lived for those lies, ignored those other women, told myself I was grown enough to handle it. Why is it, ladies, that you could date 1,000 guys & there’s always that one that can get to you? And the strange part, Confusedd, is if you really think about it he never said he wanted a relationship with you, never called you his girl, that night was all it was. That’s all it ever is for these idiots. What I want you to do, Confusedd, is the same thing I am doing right now: forget you know him but remember the lesson. Forget you met him, forget those wasted nights thinking about him but don’t forget anything he did to you. When he pops back up(and he will one cold night) remember that confused, abandoned feeling that you’re feeling…and turn off your phone.
Natalie,
Thank you for this post. It reminded me that I still needed to read your “values pack” that I downloaded in a bundle of your ebooks. I have almost finished it now, and it was very helpful! I now see why the “relationship” with the exMM could never have worked – we do not share core values, and I was guilty of trying to be the exception to his usual ways of behaving. Similar to others, I barely knew what my own values were while I was immersed in fantasy-land. I just knew something felt very wrong (besides the obvious OW status).
I now have a list of ten core values, which I have put as a “memo” into my cell phone. I see clearly now that only 3 of the 10 were being met while I was with the exMM (caring, friendship and passion). The other, more important values were not even close to being met (trust, honesty, integrity, etc). At the time, I couldn’t understand how we were not growing together as a “couple” (laughable since he’s married). I had my secondary values of adventure, fun, excitement, self-expression as higher priority than my primary values – just in order to stay “with” him.
I think I was guilty of every one of the mistakes you mentioned in this post. I ignored the feedback, mistook fear/drama for passion/interest and knowingly participated and collaborated in shady behaviour.
I am so glad this is changing now that the MM is now an ex. This is the most self-aware I have ever been in my 45+ years. Thank you Natalie, and all of BR. My new source of passion and excitement is becoming a person with strong values, boundaries and beliefs. Well, that plus living a healthier lifestyle. Hugs to everyone else on this worthwhile journey xo
learner
I question passion and adventure. A young woman told me twenty years ago that you can’t have excitement AND adventure. I thought that was a sorry compromise. Now I am in agreement.
I know that the man will show up when he says he will. If we make plans a week or so in advance he will remember. There are no “will he won’t he butterflies”. He doesn’t make big romantic gestures (other than lunch, dinner and an icecream) or declarations. He won’t ever whisk me off to Paris (I don’t even like Paris). There’s not much mystery. I pretty much always know where he is at any time and when we will next see each other.
At first I was wondering “Is this it? Is anything actually happening?” Now I like how ordinary it is.
When your dad is in A&E, or the baby is throwing up half the night, or the dog needs putting down, you want that man who will be steady and reliable. It’s a big ask for him to be adventurous and exciting as well. Maybe accepting that is what’s meant by “settling” or “settling down”.
I am happy with the way my burgeoning relationship is developing. We do have fun and I find him attractive but I doubt we will ever hit the heights of wonder that I would in an affair. And that’s a good thing. I don’t feel any pressure to impress him or entertain him or even be sexy. I can just be myself.
I do remember how very boring it was sitting in on a Sat night wondering where the latest super-adventurer had buggered off to. A lot of the passion was in my own head. In reality, I had very little at all.
Learner
correction – you can’t have “excitement and SECURITY”
Hi Grace,
The man sounds wonderful, and the way your relationship is evolving sounds comfortable and free from EU drama/dysfunction. It’s great that you can just be yourself with him. I’m so glad you are happy with how things are progressing. It is good to have examples of healthy relationships among all the stories of EUMs and EUW’s!
I hear what you are saying re: the excitement and adventure possibly being inconsistent with security. You asked about reliable vs exciting, and I agree that reliable is much more important for daily life. That’s where I ran into problems with the exMM – I was placing higher priority on the “secondary” values (excitement, adventure, self-expression) than the primary ones. I was also putting a high priority on sexuality, and I think it was you who pointed out to me, while I was in the mess, that I was valuing a sexual connection more than anything else.
I can imagine someone being reliable AND liking to do something adventurous such as traveling somewhere exotic or being spontaneous on a small scale. So I don’t think they are completely mutually exclusive.
My list of primary values does include passion, but it does not have to come from a man. I feel emotions quite intensely, and feel I have a passion for life. It’s not just sexual/romantic passion I am getting at here (although that can be a wonderful thing too, but it’s best with people in a healthy, loving relationship). It is passion for living life, passion in my work and hobbies, that kind of thing. When I was working on Natalie’s values pack, I went to the website “values .com” for ideas, and their description of passion was what I was going for.
Thank you for your comment Grace, and for helping me to think through these values more clearly. Now for the step of continuing to live them – it’s only been 2 months since I really started *living* most of my primary ones. Better late than never!
Confusedd!
I’m going to quote you somthing one of my favorite poster’s (Natasha) mother said to her when she was going through something similar. I have this tapped to my wall and read it quite often.
“The fact that he was awful enough to go ahead and treat you like you were’nt good enough for him is somthing YOU should take as a BIG SIGN that he’s not good enough for YOU”.
We’ve all been there. You will get through this.
“We also persist in focusing on values that we think are important to us that are being met, yet completely ignore the fact that the problems we are experiencing are not only being caused by other values, but that they are also giving us feedback that communicates that we either don’t understand what’s important to us and are ignoring it to our detriment, or who we say we are and what we want is not true.”
This is the one part that I don’t understand. Otherwise, definitely understood.
Omg. I have to share the information I’ve just found about my idiot ‘acquaintance! What a frickin’ hypocrite!! After three months of feelings, guilt, loneliness, struggling with NC, etc I FINALLY get it that he just wanted to have sex with me and that’s it. I can’t WAIT for that court report to get to me, by the way. LOL Anyway, I stumbled upon his Facebook page and OMG what a hypocrite! He was out of town with his son and his family, and his girlfriend (the one he’s living with/been back and forth with for 10 years, and tried to cheat on me with) and part of his status was that he was with the ‘love of his life,’ meaning his girlfriend! Do you have any idea how incredibly disgusted I am?? Now, all sorts of scenarios have gone through my head. He probably knows I’m ‘snooping’ around for answers, but I don’t think he’s smart enough to figure Facebook out, so perhaps his girlfriend created an account for him and is posting stuff; he really did post that to appear like a family man to his friends and family; OR, he really has changed his ways and realizes what a little shite-hole he is, that he really loves his girlfriend. Whatever the reason, after reading confusedd’s posts and the responses, I think my experience is very similar and I’m trying to get it through my thick skull that he only wanted me for sex. It’s been three LONG months of emotions that I’m tired of feeling. You’d think that after all the information I’ve discovered about this clown that I’d finally be able to move on for good, but I guess it’s just a matter of time.
So what do you all think about that Facebook crap? I don’t know why I should care at all, though I think on some level I still have feelings for him. I don’t want anything, ANYTHING to do with him, yet I’m having difficulty moving past the reality. I’ve got friends, family, and activities that keep me busy but it’s like what you all talk about…when I get home ‘it’ all comes back. It doesn’t help that he lives only a mile away from me, and I know where his house is. lol Do you think he knows I’m snooping and he (or his girlfriend) deliberately put that post there to get me to take a hint and that he’s really changed? He’s 56 and judging by what I know about him, he’s been a jerk all his life, so I just don’t know if he’s capable of change. And why do I care if he has in fact changed? Jealously? Over what?? He ain’t exactly a prize. LOL
kayakerkathy, I say this with kindness and from personal experience, your version of NC seems to be like being a little bit pregnant. Waiting for court reports, charting his life and speculating about his motives on FB are Contact. As long as you engage in his life in any way, you derail your healing. There may be triggers like him living nearby that you can’t avoid but follow NML’s advice and cut off everything else you can and put the focus back on your own life and your own values – neither of which synch with his from everything you’ve said here.
Thanks, FX, you’re exactly right. The kick back to reality and ME is much appreciated. It’s what I needed to hear. Down deep I KNOW absolute NC is the rule but it is indeed hard.
Pressing onward!
It’s just facebook. You wouldn’t BELIEVE some of the peculiar and awful stuff that I’ve done in my time and there isn’t a hint of it on fb, mostly because I’m not very proud of it and don’t want everyone to know.
If I was in a relationship, I would NOT be writing things like “Hey. Tried cheating on my bloke but didn’t get anywhere so now I’m back with him because although I don’t think that I should have to put any effort or self-discipline or fidelity into my relationship, I sure as hell am not going to risk being alone”. Whether or not it was true.
‘Watching’ him on facebook is only like looking at a photograph of him all the time or carrying round one of his old socks in your pocket so you can smell it every so often. It’s not a relationship and it’s the most unsatisfying use of your time ever and while you’re doing it, it ain’t over. It might be (is) over in terms of the relationship and it’s over as far as he’s concerned, but it isn’t over in your head and that’s where you need to make it count.
He’s posting what he’s posting because it suits him to, for reasons that are none of your business. It probably has absolutely nothing to do with you and even if it did – who cares? He’s a scuzzbucket. You’ve rejected what he has to offer (and good for you) and now you need to move on and FLUSH. It’ll hurt for a while but when you get through that you’ll find there’s something much better.
Great article! One point that really stuck out for me “Be careful of the silent handshake in values.” I have found that when compromising your own values – whether it be consciously OR subconsciously – you later “wake up” to have found yourself not living a life true to yourself. Ultimately, it’s easy to then feel bitter and resentful towards your partner, which is unfair. You are only hurting yourself AND your partner.
In order for one to be truly a valuable and life-long partner, you have to stay honest and true. Easier said than done! We find ourselves questioning our own principles often – which isn’t terrible, as long as we are strong in our values.
Thanks for the terrific insight!
Melissa
GirlsAskGuys.com
Love it Yoghurt! I burned/threw away all from the ex, except the Ray Bans, hee hee!, it was all pretend anyhow. And the times I went to his FB it was like sniffing his dirty socks. Disgusting but brought on feelings of nostalgia just the same. Blocking was the only option. (Still hoping soon to be able to wear the sunglasses … they’re out of view in the meantime. )
Yeah, me too lo j. I’ve blocked EVERYONE on Facebook associated with him. Now, I have to consciously think about unblocking him, and that thought enables me to stop the urge, to say ‘nope. no facebook for you!’ It’s sooo tempting, though. I found his house (no, correction, his girlfriend’s house. lol) while on my bike taking a short cut to the library. So now, there’s THAT temptation to resist. lol I must say, however, that today, for the first time in 3 1/2 months, I can feel myself slowly – and I’m talking snail’s pace – getting to the point where I don’t care anymore. I totally get what so many women on here talk about with nostalgia – he was a lot of fun and just as cute as could be, and there were some great conversations. But, the what I need to keep in mind is after the great visits, all the lonely nights thinking about him being with his girlfriend and the unbelievable emotional pain associated with ‘loving’ someone who doesn’t return the feeling and hoping that they will. I’ve done lots of work on myself and it is definitely paying off. Thanks to Nat and BR, and all of you!! xxoo
Oh, and unfortunately those times I biked to the library past his house, he saw me so now he thinks I’m indeed psycho. LOL Oh, well. If it brings him and his girlfriend closer, perhaps something good came out of it. Despite the feelings I had for him, I certainly don’t want him in my life and she can most definitely have him.m
Plus, Kayakerkathy, you’ll have awesome legs with all that “psycho cycling”!!