Can we make choices that don't hurt others' feelings? We try but someone it doesn't always work out for us. But the truth is we have no control over how someone responds to our choices and when we make that matter more than our own needs, we make choices that don't work for us. We can't hurt others' feelings but their feelings can be hurt when that's how they choose to respond to a choice we decide to make.
I always think of BB King’s signature song, ‘The Thrill is Gone’ when I hear about relationship breakups because while we have to go through the process of ending it, it actually ended long before that, when the thrill was gone, when we no longer felt the same way about someone, when we realized that something had changed and we just were no longer on the same path. If we ever were – more on that in a minute.
Some time ago a friend who was faced with a relationship dilemma called and asked for my advice. She was romantically involved with a man who was in love with her but she didn’t love him. She didn’t know what to do because although she had tried to honor his feelings, she simply did not feel the same way about him.
And she felt guilty because he was so nice and tried so hard to show her how much he loved her and wanted the relationship but she felt smothered and ‘too loved’. The thrill had gone for her but not for him. She felt responsible for his feelings and guilty because she could not reciprocate them. But she also did not want to continue with a relationship that had little value for her. What should she do?
At the beginning of the relationship they were on the same path and then they were not. You know how it is when you meet someone, it’s great while you’re in that blind phase of first love but then reality sets in and you start looking at someone in a different way. This isn’t isolated to new connections, it is happening with every connection.
When the connection point is shifted because someone or something changes we have to set a new level of connection or end the relationship. It is no longer serving us and we need to move on. So how do we end it in a nice, respectful way? How do we avoid hurting someone’s feelings or making them feel bad? That becomes the focus of our decision instead of what is right and best for us. While it’s nice to be nice, it’s not a good idea to base our choices on how someone may react to them or feel about them which is something we do not know.
Are we responsible for others’ feelings? Is it true that because someone feels one way about us that we need to try to match their feelings, even if we don’t share them? Is this a test of our ability to love or is it a test of our ability to honor our own feelings? Knowing the difference can be difficult and if we let this person go, will we have a chance at another relationship?
read the rest of the article on the blog at enlighteninglife.com