when to walk away (part 1)

Last month, I had a great week visiting several of my people in the north and finally getting to put my arms around people I haven't been able to see in WAY too long. It gave me a lot to be grateful for but also led to a lot of really deep conversations about what we had learned from being stuck at home for the past year and especially how we now saw what things and people were most important to us. There's a big part two coming about the former but today's post is about the latter.

A common theme that came up was the transactional nature of relationships and reevaluating your priorities, really looking at which relationships you desperately wanted to reconnect with and which ones no longer serve you. It also led to some serious thinking on my part about why so many people struggle to walk away from those relationships and insist on dragging them with them to the detriment of all parties involved. Why would we rather cause the other person more harm by refusing to allow them to move on because we don't want to hurt their feelings? How frequently do we stay with a partner even though our needs are no longer being met? How many times do we hesitate to hit the "unfriend" button even though we have made every attempt to distance ourselves from a friendship that has run its course? Why do we continue to show up to family social events even when our families don't respect our boundaries and make us feel badly about ourselves? And, on the other side, how many relationships have we allowed to sink before they even get started? How often do we self-sabotage because we are so stuck in our past failures? Why do we push away the people we love because we're afraid to grow up, be happy, succeed, or take risks? Why do we keep telling ourselves that we are too flawed and will never find love and happiness?

Toxic relationships aren't only defined by overt abuse and can be intimate partner relationships, friendships, and even family. Some of these won't apply to all types of relationships but here are some of my observations of red flags that may indicate that is time to move on:

• Apathy about spending time together
• Constantly forgetting to include the other person or deliberately leaving them out of plans
• Being disparaging and bossy rather than encouraging and supporting the other person to become their best self
• A lack of consideration for the other person's time, plans, and desires
• Refusal to recognize or respect when the other person is feeling hurt or uncomfortable
• Severe inequity in one or more areas of your shared life (financial, emotional, labor, sexual, planning, etc)
• Conflicting life goals (kids, careers, living expectations)
• Refusing to make compromises
• Completely sacrificing a sense of self for the other person
• Disrespecting boundaries
• Poor communication/intimacy/vulnerability
• Inability to understand each other's love languages

You have to actively choose the people you surround yourself with. If you stay in relationships because it's comfortable and struggle to find more positives than negatives, you are only doing yourself and the other person a huge disservice. Sometimes walking away is the real kindness.