Love Dragons

Did you ever wonder why some relationships drift apart?

Often, what was seemingly harmonious in the beginning changed somehow over time. What is going on here?

When two people come together whether in a relationship they bring all of their life's memories and beliefs and attitudes towards the world with them. Sometimes these things manifest as what I call a mental dragon (e.g.: depression, narcissism.) This dragon compromises the way a person interacts with people.

Life experiences in general cause us to grow and change, and so our internal dragons may grow, shrink, and change.

When you’re in a relationship, and your partner has a dragon, sometimes it is enough to adopt attitudes of acceptance, forgiveness, love, and gratitude to restore harmony in the relationship.

But what if there is a destructive dragon in the relationship such as one person's strong need to constantly control the actions of the other person? (E.g.: jealous behavior, or monopolizing all of your spare time.)

Or what if one person is operating with a dragon that is very powerful and it's causing then to behave in a way that repetitively hurts the other person... badly. (E.g.: Gaslighting behavior that makes you feel like you’re going crazy, or sexual violence.)

Sometimes, it doesn't matter how much you work on yourself and your own mental and physical dragons (while loving and forgiving the other person.) If the other person is reckless in letting their dragon grow instead of working to shrink it, they can easily drag you into their misery.  

The important thing to remember in any relationship this is that it is not your responsibility to help the person to shrink their dragon.

For most of us, having any part in fixing another person’s dragon is not only completely draining, but also impossible. In order for any change to happen, people have to want to fix their dragons, and they have to do it themselves. (In the case of a narcissist, even if the person does recognize their own dragon, they may not actually see any benefit in changing!)

Click to tweet: We are all only responsible for our own dragons.

So when you're being hurt by another person in a relationship where you struggle to see yourself exiting, it’s worth asking yourself: is staying in the relationship healthy for you?

Also: is staying in that relationship feeding your internal dragons (think: codependence) allowing them to keep you more and more stuck in your life? Is it worth it?

(Safety Note: If you’re in a dangerous situation right now, I urge you to get in touch with your local women’s shelter and make a safety plan – they often have the resources and the confidentiality like no other!)

Have you ever had to make a brave decision to leave a relationship which was hurting you?  

Please share your comments below. <3