The 3 hardest things to do in challenging relationships

There are all sorts of things that cause us stress.  Some of these things include situations that are occurring in our world, anything that causes us anxiety, things that are beyond our control, and our challenging relationships.  In naming just four, we might also concede that all four can be combined in one event that can stress us out to the maximum.  The very nature of stress is it’s so often a convoluted, confusing and confounding combination of things.  These situations easily exhaust us and demotivate every sense of our working through them.  Then add the dimension of a challenging dynamic like abuse.

Life is never free of stress, and we need to be very well aware of the impact of stress in causing or creating the following three issues, which are powder kegs in the realm of relationships, and in abusive relationships the explosive nature of stress in these situations cannot be overstated.

1.             The first thing that we struggle with majorly in these relationships is discerning the contribution of fault.  Some situations it is people finding it very hard to see their own contribution, and whilst this is common to many of us, it is the narcissist who can never see their own contribution.  They gaslight the other party into a corner that has them apologising for what isn’t their responsibility.  In the narcissist’s refusal to take responsibility for their part in the wrongdoing, the innocent party is left with no choice if they ardently seek peace.  Peace is in their hands, but it will surely cost.  The narcissist knows very well that this is simply a war of attrition.  In never seeing their fault, they will hold out, knowing that the other party is desperate for peace; desperate enough to wear their responsibility.  Looking at it from the other angle, it is people finding it hard to get over what they did wrong; they take too much (or all the) responsibility.  They are playing the peacekeeper role.  Of course, in narcissistic relationships this works hand-in-hand with the partner who will accept no responsibility.  Most of us also have the pride issue to get over in seeing our own fault, but this is mainly pertinent to relationships where there is give-and-take, and not all-take-and-all-give.  It is a genuine wisdom to discern the actual contribution of fault and to own only what is yours to own.

2.             Going to the other person to talk about the conflict is the second thing we struggle majorly with.  There are at least two issues involved in this.  The first one is, we struggle to have the courage to address the matter with the other person involved, and perhaps we lack faith that we can speak the truth in love.  And it does take a lot of knowledge and skill to hold a crucial conversation successfully.  The second one is, it isn’t safe to go there, because of the person’s reaction.  Perhaps we even know that they will overreact and, maybe it’s violently, or we completely don’t anticipate it, and they do react violently, which in many cases creates trauma.  We know we have to engage with the person who has wronged us, or who we have wronged, but the big unknown is a conversation that goes sideways.  Going to the other person is a very hard thing to do, and we and they are blessed if we can have the conversation.  It is good to discern, however, whether we can or not, and whether we need external assistance or not.  Whenever we go to the narcissist to speak the truth in love, we can always expect it will end up going pear-shaped.  Indeed, this is confirmation that we are dealing with a narcissist; that every challenge is met with unrelenting aggression.

3.             The third and final relationship issue we have the hardest time with is forgiveness.  This is a highly variegated matter.  Particularly pertinent to relationship issues of abuse — when there are clear and enduring inequities in the relationship — we may forgive too easily, especially when the other person hasn’t sought forgiveness, hasn’t repented, when they haven’t learned yet what they need to learn in order to have a viable relationship with us.  Or, perhaps it’s a case that there is no chance of a viable relationship and we must forgive them in a way that transfers their debt they have to us to God; that the good Lord will hold them to account one day.  One of the biggest issues in forgiving and then trusting again too easily is we set ourselves up for more hurt.  Very often in congenial relationships, forgiveness isn’t really an issue, because mercy flows between both parties.  But true reconciling forgiveness is hard, and not truly possible, when there is inherent injustice.

Inspiration for this post is from peacemaking ministry, but I have adjusted the angle of approach and applied it to particularly challenging relationships.

Photo by Harli  Marten on Unsplash