super busy Archives - Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue

Podcast Ep. 6: Ask For Help, Stop Overfeeding Your Worry Fish, and You Can’t Have a Relationship If They Don’t Make Time

September 26, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Baggage Reclaim 10th birthday party I’m all recovered from celebrating ten years of Baggage Reclaim with some of my crew here in London. Em DJ’d for the evening, everyone ate a lot of food and packed in a lot of drinks, and what was so heartwarming wasn’t just seeing my friends and readers hanging out together (and getting love advice from Em haha) and by the end of the evening dancing, singing and rapping together, but seeing how many friendships have been formed between readers. Incidentally, I have readers who have made and stayed friends after previous events in New York and Dublin I’m looking forward to having more celebrations over the coming year and connecting more of you.

Right! On to this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions.

Here’s what I cover in episode 6:

The importance of asking for help: Much as we can try to pretend that we’re superwoman or superman, in reality, we’re not. I talk about some of the reasons why we don’t ask for help, how it can send the wrong messages, and why it’s beneficial for our interpersonal relationships as well as for us. And to illustrate my point, I mentioned asking for help when I was saying a few words on Thursday night and three readers who work in PR volunteered their services to help spread the BR message!

Overfeeding worry and anxiety: I talk about three key areas of the worry habit including being over-responsible and being stretched, how worry and anxiety can be a way of filling in time, avoiding taking action and also keeping us down plus I include suggestions for curbing the worry habit. Check out my original post about not overfeeding your worry fish.

Do we need to assume the worst when a friend isn’t in touch during their rough patch?: It’s not always easy to talk and sometimes a friend retreats into their own bubble when they’re struggling and we mistake this for them either having a problem with us or us now having a problem with them because they’re not returning calls and allowing us to get involved in their issue. But we don’t have to assume the worst and explain why some people get themselves into a bubble and make some suggestions for keeping perspective.

Listener Question – What do you say to a great guy that simply has no time for you?: Only been ‘together’ for a month after meeting online and although he’s claiming to be exclusive, he finds time for everything and everyone else…just not the relationship. One of my favourite BR posts is about being ‘super busy’.

What Nat Learned This Week: Accidentally skipping past a queue of traffic and feeling mortified afterwards while worrying about the death stares of other drivers (haha), flagged up my reliance on ‘rules’ (and fear of breaking them) when it relates to stuff that I’m unfamiliar with.

You can listen to this podcast below. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe on Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher or via a podcast app on whatever device you use. If you’re new to podcasts, find out more about what they are and how to subscribe with this handy guide.

Leave a comment or post on Facebook and please subscribe. If you know someone who would enjoy it, please help spread the word. It all helps! Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. If there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know! Nat xxx

Super Late: How we treat time says a lot about how much we respect other people’s time

June 23, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

If you’ve ever stood (or sat) around waiting for somebody who is late, you will understand how frustrating and downright awkward this can be, especially when they either don’t warn you that they’re going to be late or they have a habit of being late on the regular. Equally, if you are typically late and have received flack for it, you may struggle to understand what the problem is because from your end of things, you either feel that there are genuine reasons for your lateness or that they’re making an unnecessarily big deal out of it.

A friend of mine was recently kept waiting for four hours – yes, you did read that correctly. Four feckin hours. That is far beyond the bounds of acceptability. My first thought was, What’s so special about this guy that you’d circle around Victoria station for a few hours while he hung out in the pub with his mates?

We know when we’re going to be fifteen minutes late and a person who is four hours late knew this some time between one and two hundred and forty minutes before they decided that they would bother to show up.

The way that you feel about and deal with timekeeping is really a matter of values, namely your personal values, the ones that speak for your character.

Sure, there will be people who will argue up and down about how culture has its part to play in the acceptability of lateness but we can all think of generalisations that are made about cultures and races that are not actually true of the people we encounter from these.

It’s not that things don’t happen and that none of us can ever be late but how we typically treat time does say a lot about how much we respect other people’s time as well as our own.

People who don’t really care about keeping people waiting or disrupting their schedules, have an over-inflated sense of their own importance. When did common courtesy die a death? In an age where you could almost say that we’re over-connected, how the hell can a person fail to notify us that they’re going to be late when we have mobile phones, texts, email, Facebook, WhatsApp, IM, Skype, Twitter, Instagram and the list goes on?

We’ve got to quit with this bullsh*t, super busy malarkey. Habitual lateness (super late people) is just an extension of this whole carrying on as if we’re busier than a world leader. No we’re not!

When we don’t respect and value our own time (boundaries), we over-promise ourselves in the name of pleasing and fear of saying no, winding up malnourished in the self-care department. We also don’t acknowledge where our concept of how long it’s going to take to do something or get somewhere, is inaccurate.

Admit The Cover-Up & Stop Overcompensating

March 27, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Over the years of writing BR, I’ve emphasised how relationships are 100:100. We have to own our own and let others own theirs. We have to show up and be our true selves rather than show up on the basis that we are half of a person and that we’ll do a bit and they’ll do the rest. With the whole 50:50 premise, we’re leaving a lot out. Where did the other 50% of us go? It’s difficult to dispute when we’re putting our whole selves in and are willing to evolve but once we start making others responsible for part of what we should be doing, the waters get murky.

There’s a very specific reason though why going into relationships with a 100:100 outlook is vital:

When we have a 50:50 mentality and we’re of the people pleasing, trying to fill voids inclination, we tend to overcompensate for our partners because aside from being excessively emotionally reliant on them for our self-esteem and very quickly struggling to discern where we end and they begin, we on some level don’t feel worthy and take ownership of other people’s feelings and behaviour. This means that we feel that we are more responsible for the relationship than they are.

We’re thinking in 50:50 terms and then devaluing ourselves (or feeling devalued) and then feeling that we are 70:30, 80:20, or even 90:20 responsible for the relationship.

We know that we have things twisted when we deny, rationalise and minimise concerns as well as our own needs, expectations, wishes, feelings and opinions. We keep telling ourselves that the reason why a person is unable to show up emotionally and in other ways, is because they’re having a “tough time” or are “busy”, or that we’re “needy”, “too sensitive”, or that it must be our “problems”. We pull back, tread carefully, up the efforts, shrink a little (or a lot), force a smile, keep trying to show how much we love and care only to feel as if that’s making it worse, and sometimes put up with some pretty unpleasant if not downright abusive carry-on.

Part of us is almost thinking, Jeez – all they have to do is the exam equivalent of showing up and signing their name! I’ll take care of the rest! Or, we’re thinking along the lines of, If it were me and I had somebody right here ready to love and care about me (even though I wasn’t pulling my weight), I’d be so grateful and loving. I wouldn’t want to leave.

Of course, the problem is that when they do leave or there are attempts to tackle the issues, because we covered their ‘share’ of the relationship and felt excessively responsible, we also feel excessively to blame.

We blame ourselves for it going wrong, for not being “enough”, and keep trying to retrace our steps to figure out where we botched things, wondering what happened to the “amazing” person that they were in be beginning… when we didn’t really know them and they hadn’t unfolded.

At what point did we start covering for them?

For many Blame Absorbers, it can be right at the beginning, often because they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. There’s this underlying concern that this person may figure out that they’ve made a mistake so they buffer this by making some overpayments into the pleasing investment account (like when we make overpayments on our mortgages). This overcompensating can also happen because on some level below the awareness line, they sense that this person chimes with their pattern…so again, they get cracking with building them up. It can come down to an uneasiness that comes with the familiarity of certain feeling and thought responses to what is happening, or the familiarity of the person’s behaviour. It may feel like ‘home’…

It might start at what appears to the early signs of problems. Things may appear hunkydory and then, boom! They come back one day and it’s as if they’ve turned into Hollowman or Hollowwoman. The lights are on but nobody’s home. Or they suddenly respond lukewarm or coldly where they appeared to previously reciprocate and enjoy something. Maybe it’s after the first conflict or after feeling wounded by criticism. They’re asked if something is bothering them or whether they’re “OK” and they claim that everything’s “fine” while acting the opposite.

If you’ve been overcompensating for your partners, you will know because you’re either in it and taking ownership of their feelings and behaviour, or you’re out of it and doing the same thing and feeling wounded by your “failure”.

You’ll be damn near exhausted from trying to figure out the magic words and deeds to keep this person happy so that you can feel happy. You might not know your up from your down because you’ve been ignoring your instincts and listening to them deny, minimise or rationalise the very real concerns. You will feel as if you are failing or have failed because the relationship is all about your effort and on some level you know that you’re giving you away and all for what? To be left feeling inadequate and that nothing was ever good enough?

Well it’s time to ask, What about me?

It’s time to get honest and open up your awareness about where you have held you back and taken over their responsibilities. It’s time to be honest about where you have been hurting and where you’ve had to practically cattle prod partners into responding and showing up. You’ve got to be honest about where you forgot you while trying to make another person the centre of the universe. They’re just not that special. Why are you bowing down and acting as if a miracle has taken place in being given the time of day and now it’s like you have to prove that they didn’t make a mistake in being that person they were in the beginning? Why does everything rest on you?

We can empathise with people and recognise where they have their own stuff to deal with but you know what? If someone’s stuff is going to prevent them from chipping in with love, care, trust, and respect and they’re going to enjoy the fruits of you being an almost skivvy in the relationship, it’s time for them to jog on, because your efforts will not be respected and appreciated for it. If anything, they will feel some level of guilt and rather than step up, they’ll act out, keep distancing themselves from you while telling you what they think you want to hear or pulling other passive aggressive acts because the nicer you are the worse they feel; or they’ll make an exit where they can go back to their comfort zone or press the reset button, all while likely taking no responsibility.

Do not accept less than the very basics of what you deserve by overcompensating and then feeling that you have to wait for some sort of payback. Never treat you like you don’t matter in a messy effort to prove to someone else how much they matter. You know where you stand when you show up as a person who can own their own and has a good sense of self, because you can quickly tell where you’re being left hanging by somebody who is of a very different inclination. Instead of blaming you, you recognise that you both want different things and that no relationship of any decency is going to go anywhere good when it lacks consistency, commitment, balance, progression and intimacy that only materialises when two people show up to a relationship.

Forgive you for where you let them off the hook from showing up and where you forgot your own responsibilities. Learn from this experience and what you’ve experienced will be transformed from loss to the gain that it is. These experiences are there to teach us where we need to step up and show up for ourselves in order to change the nature of our journey.

Your thoughts?

Being ‘super busy’ isn’t a justifiable reason for accepting crumbs and mistreatment

January 13, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Many people protest about how “super busy” they are – I’ve been guilty of this at times myself – and I regularly hear the, “I don’t have time for dating” and “I don’t have time for a relationship” defences along with what pretty much amounts to, “You draw the short end of the stick including my casual attitude towards you and even my neglect because, well, you know – I’m super busy. Have I mentioned how important I am or how insane my job is, or how everybody wants a piece of me?”

Just as who people are is self-evident, where a person’s priorities lie and what they make time for is self-evident too.

I don’t dispute that we’re busy people living in a busy world. We live in a time where protesting about our never-shrinking todo list and almost competing about how crazy hectic our lives are is the norm. There’s also the pursuit of the work/life ‘balance’ plus the pressure we put on ourselves to be perfect and to achieve.

That said, if you’re someone who is doing the whole “I don’t have time for dating / a relationship” but saying that you do want one, or are expecting somebody who deserves better (and will probably keep giving you more of their time in the hopes that you’ll change your mind), to basically put up with you throwing them a bone from time to time, and are even justifying inconsiderate or even shady behaviour on your ‘busyness’, it’s time for you to go on a BS Diet.

If you genuinely believe that you don’t have the time to date, then don’t date or certainly don’t give potential partners the impression that you’re up for and are offering more than what you are.

If you don’t believe that you can spare a few hours a week, or you feel that you only want to use that time to engage in distant (read: lazy) communication and/or only want to use that time for sex, ego stroking etc, you don’t have time for a mutual relationship. You want to keep it casual. If a person having needs, feelings, expectations, opinions etc is ‘taxing’ and you’re already mentally working out how to stop them from getting ‘carried away’ (possibly without being direct and honest), halt.

Your reasons for not having time are your reasons – own them. You don’t need to justify those reasons to anybody once you honour them but when you don’t do this and engage in contradictory behaviour that may leave a person questioning themselves and certainly questioning your integrity, an explanation will be looked for because your flip-flapping and backtracking will create questions and confusion, even if to you, it all makes logical sense.

Until you’ve genuinely rearranged your priorities, or your work / home situation changes, or whatever it is, it doesn’t make sense to half-assedly pursue dating or a relationship for your own ego’s sake, or to tick some box in your head or with your family, friends or ‘everyone’, because ultimately, people are humans with feelings and lives of their own.

I’m not saying don’t get laid or have fun with likeminded folk; I’m saying quit with the whole I Am The Busiest Person On Earth, Possibly Busier Than A World Leader or Superhero protestations. You doth protest too much. Stop using it to manage down people’s expectations – manage your own.

Busyness is something that offers us protection from having to be vulnerable and having to face aspects of ourselves and our lives. You don’t think workaholics are the way that they are because they’re so crazy about their job, do you?

If you’re on the receiving end of this whole “I don’t have time for dating / a relationship” malarkey, take them at their word, not at their strokes whether they’re ego or sexual ones.

It’s hard not to take it personally especially when it feels like you’ve been having a great time or that you could be so great together ‘if only’ they’d put in the time, energy, effort, and emotion but fact is, as humans we overestimate our capacity to be and do certain things and when it all gets a bit too real for us and we don’t have the high of the honeymoon period to carry us along – everything feels great at the beginning including new habits and interests – the reality of what we’ve been saying and doing along with any expectations created plus our own feelings, is exposed.

The thing is, it’s not your job to open up someone’s schedule or their emotions for that matter. It’s their job to make time and if you take over their responsibilities, you will take away any foundations that would act as the basis for a healthy relationship. It’s not your job to convince a person into being involved with you or to make more time because you’re getting into the whole selling territory. It’s a slippery slope because they end up on a pedestal and this automatically makes your relationship imbalanced.

I hear from people who have been making the busy excuse for ‘partners’ for anything from months to 20 years. Sometimes we forget that we’re too old to be waiting for mummy or daddy to come home and make time for us. It’s also safe to say that we hang around out of fear that if we tell them to jog on, their schedule will magically open up for someone else. In the meantime, we accept crumbs and they have their behaviour reinforced by our continued presence because they don’t experience natural consequences.

Don’t let anyone put you on layaway!

If they can’t manage their time and ‘fit you in’ now, how are they going to fit you in later when there will be more commitment and expectations? What’s your plan – to wait around? To hang in the shadows? To be The Most Perfect Person On Earth TM and/or to have no needs, feelings, opinions etc? That’s a half life.

If a person doesn’t have time for you they don’t have time for a relationship which means that it can’t progress, it won’t be balanced, consistent, committed (in whatever guise that takes – it doesn’t have to mean marriage) or genuinely intimate, plus over time you will become desensitised to this treatment due to being used to that person (and you) using their super busyness to justify their behaviour and attitude. It certainly won’t be mutual but you’ll certainly be shortchanged.

Revisited: Behind every excuse lies the real reason

August 2, 2013 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Don’t forget that I’m on a ‘break’ until September so I will mostly be featuring some of yours and my favourite posts from the archives.

One of the things that I’ve recognised as a differentiator between healthy and unhealthy relationships is the presence of excuses, whether it’s yours and/or theirs. In the worst of situations where you may be denying, rationalising, and minimising, you may even be making excuses for their excuses which only goes to show how poor the original excuse was.

Just like how on the other side of a jumped boundary lies disrespect, on the other side of an excuse often not only lies at least some element of disrespect but also the real reason.

An excuse is a reason that is given to justify an offence or fault but its primary purpose is to lessen responsibility by getting you to overlook, excuse, or even forgive off the back of it. This of course is rather tricky because when there’s excuses it means that any commitment is being lessened, which means everything else tied to it becomes pretty flimsy. You may also be overlooking things that are busting up your boundaries.

People often get ‘reasons’ and ‘excuses’ mixed up because there appears to be some crossover. Excuses allow people to remain in their uncomfortable comfort zone, dodge conflict by avoiding honesty both with others and themselves, dodge accountability, and cast themselves in a better light.

Saying “The dog ate my homework” gives the impression that you’ve been a victim of misfortune and avoids conflict whereas saying, “I couldn’t be arsed to do my homework” or “I forgot” makes you look lazy and lacking in conscientiousness.

Likewise saying “I’ve been really busy” gives the impression that you’re so busy (ya know busier than a world leader) that you haven’t had the time to contact or see them whereas saying “I’m not interested / am half-hearted / have been trying to get back with my ex” will not only have you in the position of saying something that most people squirm at and possibly inviting ‘conflict’, but if you’re the type of person that likes to hedge your bets, you may want to keep them as a rainy day option. If anything you’re hoping they’ll take the hint and do your job for you and at the worst of things, you may be hoping the excuse allows you to avail of their ‘usefulness’.

Proportionate Responses: It’s JUST a text

December 21, 2011 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

One of the most popular questions in my inbox at the moment is something along the lines of “My ex sent me a text saying Happy Holidays/Great result tonight/Did you see the snow?/Are you ignoring me still? (or some other feeble message) – what should I respond with?” Some of you are even thinking ahead and clocking up some serious energy consumption pondering what you should respond with if you get a Happy Holidays/Christmas/New Year message.

Here’s the thing: It’s just a text.

There is nothing in “Happy Holidays/Great result tonight/Did you see the snow?/Are you ignoring me still?” that says “I love you”, “I want to get back together with you”, “I’ve changed”, “I’m sorry” or even “I’m making a great deal of effort to show you how much I care.”

If you attach any of these meanings and:

1) Start imagining your future

2) Respond back by pouring out your feelings

3) Invite them around for a shag

4) Cancel your plans or put everything on hold

5) Go into a tailspin and begin ruminating about what it all means, the Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda and yada yada yada

6) Call and keep calling in the hope they’ll pick up

7) Dump your current partner

8. Turn up at their home/office/place where they hang

9) Tell them all about themselves, or

10) Contact their new partner,

you’ve had a seriously disproportionate response.

You are experiencing high intensity emotions/rumination or engaging in high level action for low level contact and effort.

Do you know what you respond with when your ex sends a text saying Happy Christmas/Holidays/New Years?

You either say nothing (it may well be a bulk message anyway), or say nothing because you’re No Contact, or say ‘Thanks and same to you’ or respond with “Happy Christmas/Holidays/New Years”. That’s it! Next! Move on and go about your business. Anything else is OTT.

The Right Decision Doesn’t Always Feel Good

December 5, 2011 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Let’s imagine that you’ve been frustrated for a few months about your diet and after giving yourself a hard time and lamenting that you don’t feel good, you finally make the decision to go on a diet. You decide you’re going to lose ten pounds, that you’ll go to the gym three times a week, and cut down on certain foods. After the initial decision high, within a few days or weeks, you begin complaining that ‘this’ is really, really hard. Much of your time becomes consumed by staring at the ‘forbidden’ food and trying to restrain yourself from eating it.

You don’t like what you’re feeling now because it feels like you’re denying yourself and that’s starting to feel worse than when you were unhappy with your weight.

In your daydreams, you imagine what would happen if someone came to you and offered you, for example, a tub of Green & Blacks white chocolate and raspberry swirl ice-cream. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist it!” and you imagine how it will taste and how you’ll feel while you’re eating it. Instead of renewing your efforts and ensuring that you have mini milestones where you can pat yourself on the back and even reward yourself, you’re consumed with feeling bad about the decision you’ve made and fantasising.

In fact, you’re so preoccupied with busting your proverbial nuts over acting in your best interests that you’ve forgotten the many months you’ve been utterly miserable.

It’s not long of course before you have an off day at work or you’re just frickin worn out with having to fight the temptation, and your resolve finally crumbles. Once the ‘high’ has passed, you feel bad again, only this time it’s about ‘letting yourself down’. In the end, you might just think “Eff it!” and abandon the diet all together. Each time reality nags, you bury the thought and eat some more, although you don’t feel any better about your weight either. And lather, rinse, repeat.

This may sound vaguely familiar to you. It may well be because you’ve experienced this with an actual diet, but actually, this is what many people go through when they make a decision, such as ending a relationship that wasn’t working for them, or they even cut contact.

Just like staring at a bar of chocolate and hoping that the impulse will strike you to resist it is futile, so is staring at your phone wondering if they’ll call, why they haven’t called, are they having the time of their life while you’re sitting there trying to have the willpower not to call, and whether you should call your service provider to see if there’s been a ‘fault’.

If I kept staring at someone’s Facebook page and tracking their movements, I’d backtrack on my decision too – talk about torment!

Jumping out of your skin each time a text comes through, or refreshing your email and checking your junk folder is equally futile. Going through the motions of life saying that you’ve ‘made’ a decision or that you’re No Contact (NC), and then running the I’m Going To Think About ‘Them’ Although I’ll Pretend I’m Not application in the background is like running on the spot. You may also have the I Wonder Why I’m Not Good Enough application, along with the I Wonder If I Made The Right Decision application running.

Behind Every Excuse is the Real Reason

September 23, 2011 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Just like how on the other side of a jumped boundary lies disrespect, on the other side of an excuse often not only lies at least some element of disrespect but also the real reason.

An excuse is a reason that is given to justify an offence or fault but its primary purpose is to lessen responsibility by getting you to overlook, excuse, or even forgive off the back of it. This of course is rather tricky because when there’s excuses it means that any commitment is being lessened, which means everything else tied to it becomes pretty flimsy. You may also be overlooking things that are busting up your boundaries.

Saying “The dog ate my homework” gives the impression that you’ve been a victim of misfortune and avoids conflict whereas saying “I couldn’t be arsed to do my homework” or “I forgot” makes you look lazy and lacking in conscientiousness.

Reader Question: What does it mean when a man says ‘I can’t give you want you want’?

May 27, 2010 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

I have a gazillion questions in my inbox but this email jumped out at me:

“What does it mean when a man says ‘I can’t give you what you want’ or ‘I cant be the man you need me to be’?”

When a man (or a woman) makes statements like this, these are what I call your golden opt out moments or ‘windows of opportunity’. If you have boundaries, values, an awareness about red flags and a reasonable level of self-esteem, a warning statement like this will make you very uncomfortable and bring you back down to earth with a bump. And it is a warning statement and when you hear it, it’s time to get out of the relationship and suffer the short-term pain for the long term gain.

He is giving you a chance to get out now while you can.

He’s also telling you who he is and trying to make you be real about him and the relationship so that you can opt out.

But here are the translations:

When a man says ‘I can’t give you what you want’ this translates to:

‘I can’t give you what you want…. I’m also not prepared to give you what you want so please stop wanting from me and move on’.

That’s it. It means exactly what he says.

This man already knows his capacity or what he is prepared to give. He’s also wise enough to recognise that you want more than what is on offer. There’s nothing mysterious about what he’s saying – he’s giving you a heads up and a warning.

When a man says he cannot give you what you want, it’s a red flag and a sign to run in the other direction.

Don’t make the mistake of millions of women by deciding that you know better – you don’t. Also don’t make the mistake of deciding that you will marginalise your own needs so that you can hang onto him because you’re setting yourself up for a mighty big, painful fall.

When You’re Accused of Cheating

April 20, 2007 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

I used to date a guy that was convinced that every single guy was trying to get into my knickers. Every time we went out, he’d end up having a hissy fit if I spent too long talking to one particular guy, they were flirtatious or just happened to look in my direction. It drove me insane and we had horrific arguments over it and thankfully I told him to beat it, but I know that had he been accusing me cheating, things would have been far worse.

It’s one thing if you are cheating but often, when people are accused of cheating, it exists only in the insecure, possessive, jealous person’s mind. No matter what answer you give, it’s not the right one and you could claim you’re not cheating till the cows come home but they don’t want to believe it.

When people make accusations of cheating it tends to stem from 3 places:

Fear and insecurity based on past experiences or your past that have them feeling paranoid
Mistaking certain behaviours from you as indicators of cheating -hypersensitivity
They are cheating

Past Experiences – Theirs and Yours

Relationships need to be based on trust and honesty which means that you are both likely to share your pasts, even if they don’t exactly place either of you in a glowing light. If you’ve admitted that you cheated, especially if it was several times or in several relationships, it is understandable that a person can feel a little nervous about whether or not you have changed or if this is a serial habit.

If they have been cheated on in the past, this can be a devastating experience with far reaching effects, however I have stated repeatedly on this blog that you should not be in a relationship if you’re carrying major emotional baggage and this issue exceeds the maximum weight. If you’re so badly affected that you can’t trust anyone then you need to work on your issues and preferably alone. Whilst most people will be understanding of past issues, this patience will wear thin when you have to keep defending yourself and being punished for their experiences. You’ll want to move the relationship forward and they’re stuck in the past. Whilst they may make noises to the contrary, your partner is showing signs of not trusting you – they don’t trust relationships, they don’t trust themselves and they are having difficulty trusting what you say and do. They may not see it that way, but this is how it is.
Is there anything you can do?

Whilst it doesn’t matter what you say or do with some people, I would certainly be conscious of whether there is anything that you are doing to enable your partners behaviour.

Are you a flirt?
Do you blow hot and cold?
Do you have a wandering eye?
Are you a naturally secretive or withdrawn person? Maybe even emotionally unavailable?

If you have something to take responsibility for in this, it may be time for you both to have a discussion about what you are both doing together as it sounds quite destructive.

Hypersensitivity

Been super busy at work lately? Maybe a bit too absorbed in your own stuff? Privately worried about something and finding yourself being closed off? Got a surprise in the pipeline and being secretive?

Sometimes people mistakenly jump to the wrong conclusions. I don’t expect you to walk on eggshells however, being part of a relationship means that you need to be sensitive to each others needs and natural insecurities, and this means that you should be careful of behaving in a way that inadvertently ends up hurting the other persons feelings.
Relationships involve a contribution from you both and you can’t just decide to shut off and return to the relationship when you feel like it.

They are cheating

In my experience, this is something that tends to happen when it’s the guy who is being paranoid and this is because certain types of men tend to base their accusations of what they think you’re doing on their own actions. Otherwise it’s just plain old guilty conscience.

Most of the time it’s paranoia when people are repeated accusers of cheating so I wouldn’t go running to accuse them of cheating unless you have good enough reason to suspect it.

The darkside of being made guilty without cause or trial

Some people when they find themselves on the receiving end of someone who is accusing them habitually of cheating, eventually decide that if the person isn’t going to believe them, they might as well do it and be guilty as charged. Whilst I understand the frustration, this is not the way to handle the situation. If you feel like you want to do this, you’ve reached your own breaking point and it’s either time to walk away, or tell your partner to resolve their issues and commit to the relationship and trust you or leave you alone and end the relationship. Don’t give them any further chances to take out their issues on you and they are either forced to confront their issues or be on their own.

As a general guideline, if you are with someone who is constantly accusing you of cheating, or just being out of control with their jealousy and possessiveness, this is a MAJOR RED FLAG and you you either have to walk away and cut your losses or force the person to deal with themselves. You’ll find more often than not that it’s easier to walk away…
If you are actually guilty of cheating…that’s a whole other post….