Responsibility......
We TEACH people how to treat us. We cannot change ANYONE, we can only
change ourselves and in turn that should bring about change in others.
Either the change you wanted or the change should show you that you
cannot or will not accept the behavior from the person.
What WILL work is clear open honest communication. Telling the person
what what they have done (or not done) is hurtful to you, or it has
hurt your feelings, and when you have communicated that to them and
they continue to behave the same way they are telling you with their
actions or lack of action that they are either not willing to change or
they do not want what you want in the relationship. And that will help
you decide what your deal breakers are.
What will NOT work is DRAMA, LIES or MANIPULATION, none of them will
EVER get you what you want. IF you want a person to take YOU seriously
do NOT shoot yourself in the foot by threatening to finish with someone
IF you do NOT mean it.....That kind of behavior will only result in the
person avoiding you if you are angry, and certainly not taking your words at face value.
Yes, it sucks to be in a relationship with someone who expects you to do all or a lot of the work, But did you ever stop to think that you may have caused that pattern to emerge when you were willing to or doing it at first? Or Perhaps you prolonged it when you felt them pull back a little and you kept pushing forward anyway? Perhaps you were the one willing to pick up the phone if they had not called you enough times in the day or week? Perhaps then the person thinks that YOU will do all the work because you have been doing it so why do they need to?
In order to work through that kind of stuff out YOU need to be honest with YOURSELF and admit the part YOU played in the pattern..... But that can only occur if you are honest with yourself about how and why things are as they may appear to be now, it didn't happen on it's own, it happened because two people contributed to the problems, and fear when it's the driving force behind behavior sure can mess things up... It is only when we are not allowing fear to drive our behavior, and be our driving force that we can and will be able to see that our behavior is irrational, as we can NEVER lose something we truly do not have.....
Joan