Looking back, good things came from failed, bad, misogynistic, and plain awful relationships. You say, “What? Oh, you changed the direction of your life and escaped the negativity.” That, too, but I extracted enormous gains from awful situations.
From an awful boss who would assign tasks that needed completion on ridiculously short margins, with no apparent haste shown in the end product, I learned to dig deep for creative ideas and techniques. He was an ogre in all particulars, including appearance. And he meant me no good. After a few years, I began to delight in blowing on the embers to see if I could thoroughly enrage him. There was always the possibility that he would get apoplexy.
My first marriage limped towards failure for several years before ending when I entered grad school. But this spectacular failure left me linguistically, culturally, and intellectually enriched.
There is an obstinate view that only good relationships positively affect us. But so much of the good we take from relationships is what we make from them. While you can take good things away from the bad, you also take away the injuries and scars. There are costs to profiting from handling the toxic waste inherent in bad relationships.
Some people celebrate New Year’s with plunges into frigid lakes and oceans. Likewise, I’ve known people who purposely plunge into relationships they know will be damaging. It’s a truism you don’t know, going into a relationship all that it may entail. While extracting myself from one disastrous relationship that had started so very wondrously, I recalled the old saying that “its hard to recall that your original task was to drain the swamp when you are ass deep in alligators.”
The positive result? That dangerous people are just that; danger keep out. There are the good, the bad, and the ugly. Have fun, and remember I told you so.
Discover more from Louis N. Carreras, Woodcarver
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Beautiful post ✍️
Very good plus++
This is a tough topic for me. Most of my relationships have been bad. Seriously bad. Bad like, “That’s assault, ma’am. Why didn’t you call us? There’s nothing we can do now” bad. Now I guess I’d be labeled as “Avoidant attachment style” as if that’s a pathology. What does a person learn from a bad relationship? A lot. Too much to write here. “Thar be dragons” is a good starting point.
We do get good things from the bad relationships, and some of those good things are complex, intricate and revelatory. What we get might be based on our attitude toward life and what happens next. Maybe, also, our starting point. Really good post, Lou.
Thanks Martha, and as you can tell from some of the awkward passages it’s not as easy as I suggest. and a lot of the wisdom comes at the far distance of time.
It also comes with self-knowledge. It took me therapy to get that and a bad experience to fully understand the therapy.
I was very lucky where I went for therapy they had a sliding scale of charges depending on how much you made. I received some amazing care for an incredibly low cost, and it was a huge part of how I came to be saved from myself.
❤️ I was lucky, too. I called two therapists my insurance recommended. Both called back. One had a heavy French accent. I love French films so I went with her. She was smart, funny, Gallic sense of humor, an amazing life. “My fazer, he want me to join the church but eet was not for me. I ran away to Paris and became a Bee-bop singer.” She was perfect for me. I owe her everything, really.
I had a strange first meeting with a female therapist who I did not keep. I hadn’t even sat down when she informed me that she would not go to bed with me. I was flabbergasted. A big part of why I wanted therapy had to do with my relationships and the last thing I wanted at that point was a relationship with my therapist. I think she was insulted, and I left and requested someone else. Not all therapists have it all together. My next therapist and I worked together for about four years.
You and I were fortunate.
Yes we were. Some of the stuff we learn about ourselves might not be easy to accept but I view it like being short (which I am). It’s how it is. 🙂
Very wise.