The Language of Letting Go: October 10th

Payoffs from Destructive Relationships

Sometimes it helps to understand that we may be receiving a payoff from relationships that cause us distress.

The relationship may be feeding into our helplessness or our martyr role.

Maybe the relationships feeds our need to be needed, enhancing our self-esteem by allowing us to feel in control or morally superior to the other person.

Some of us feel alleviated from financial or other kinds of responsibility by staying in a particular relationship.

"My father sexually abused me when I was a child," said one woman. "I went on to spend the next twenty years blackmailing him emotionally and financially on this. I could get money from him whenever I wanted, and I never had to take financial responsibility for myself."

Realizing that we may have gotten a codependent payoff from a relationship is not a cause for shame. It means we are searching out the blocks in ourselves that may be stopping our growth.

We can take responsibility for the part we may have played in keeping ourselves victimized. When we are willing to look honestly and fearlessly at the payoff and let it go, we will find the healing we've been seeking. We'll also be ready to receive the positive, healthy payoffs available in relationships, the payoffs we really want and need.

Today, I will be open to looking at the payoffs I may have received from staying in unhealthy relationships, or from keeping destructive systems operating. I will become ready to let go of my need to stay in unhealthy systems; I am ready to face myself.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

My Certified Health Coach Website

********************************************************
I stayed in a dysfunctional marriage for 22 years because of financial security, and because I didn't believe I could make it on my own.  I also kept myself drunk & compulsively overeating to 'cope' with an unbearable situation.  I managed to get sober for 9 years during that marriage, but made a conscious decision to go back to drinking one day. I'd also manage to lose lots of weight, thinking that perhaps my marriage would improve if I would look better, but it never did. So I'd go back to overeating since those efforts never 'paid off'.  I punished myself for being 'not good enough' when in reality, it wasn't about ME at all. It was about the fact that we were oil & water, the two of us, and no matter what I did, he was mentally ill and refused to deal with it.

In 2002, I filed for divorce, frightened by the thought of making it on my own, but more frightened to stay married & spend another 22 years miserable.  I decided to go from riches to rags, and it turned out to be the best decision of my life.

Doing anything in life just for financial reward is never rewarding at all.

I take full responsibility for the role I played in keeping myself victimized in that relationship. When I became willing to look honestly & fearlessly at the payoff & let it go, I began to find the healing I'd been seeking my whole life. When I became ready to face myself is when I became willing to stand on my own 2 feet and to strike out on my own, come what may.

Nowadays, I may never be 'rich' financially, but I am rich from a recovery standpoint. I am responsible for myself and my actions, and grateful for the opportunity.