hey there everybody and welcome to this presentation on overcoming
guilt after ending a relationship i'm your host dr dawn elise snipes
in this video we're going to define guilt and then we're going to explore some common themes
that trigger guilt after ending a relationship and issues to reflect on to to determine whether it
is healthy guilt or unhealthy guilt so let's start out with what is guilt well anger is a reaction to
a threat guilt is anger at yourself for something that you did that you think you shouldn't have
done or something that you think you should do or should have done that you didn't do
guilt indicates that something threatens your self-esteem or causes you to fear being judged
or rejected by others or maybe even yourself a lot of times when we feel guilty our inner
critic is telling us what we should or shouldn't have done sometimes it is appropriate to feel
guilty guilt is part of our conscience and it can tell us when we've made a mistake when we need to
make amends when we need to learn from it but holding on to guilt
doesn't do anything but drain our energy holding on to anger doesn't do anything but drain our
energy guilt and anger are designed to motivate us to change to motivate us to make amends when
appropriate and to learn from the situation so we don't make that same mistake in the future
sometimes though we may feel guilty for things that are out of our control
if you have guilt over ending a relationship
write down a list of all of the reasons you feel guilty and then identify which
ones are things that you need to make amends for or learn from so you can forgive yourself
you can quit being angry at yourself and you can use that energy to nurture future relationships
and which ones are things that you feel guilty for that are out of your control
some of the things people tell themselves after ending a relationship contribute to their guilt
and most of them have the word should in them i should have tried harder well what were the
problems in the relationship and were they even reconcilable or if you tried harder would it have
just prolonged the inevitable was the relationship even worth saving sometimes there's problems in
relationships that are not reconcilable and it's just not a healthy relationship and it's not
worth saving was the other person committed to trying to save it as well and it's important
to remember that relationships take multiple people at least two people to have a relationship
and if only one person is trying to make the relationship healthy then it's probably not
going to work which relationships from your past taught you that you should no matter what
the situation try harder if you didn't succeed then it was because you didn't try hard enough
and for some people this may go back to early childhood maybe their parents got divorced
and their inner child truly believes that their parents should have tried harder to stay together
and that would have given them a better childhood they may have learned from prior relationships
somebody told them that they should have tried harder or maybe their culture teaches them that
ending relationships is not okay and no matter how bad it is you should just continue to try harder
and it's important to evaluate those messages and for yourself determine which ones
are healthy and helpful that you want to hold on to and which ones are not okay for you to
hold on to which ones are unhealthy for you to hold on to and what you're going to do about it
another statement i should have set better boundaries from the beginning
well that may be true but let's look at it from a more objective point of view people
who regularly violate boundaries and feel they need someone at their beck and call
may be drawn to people who need to be needed because it's easy to manipulate them
and sometimes we'll call this narcissistic people who fear abandonment or who need to be
needed may not maintain healthy boundaries from the start because they so want to be a part of
the group they so want to be liked they so want to be loved they so need that external validation
that they may fudge on their boundaries a little bit they may make exceptions here and there and
allow people to encroach on their boundaries because they so desperately need that connection
but let me ask you let me put out this scenario if someone doesn't have a fence around their yard
and they have all these beautiful flowers and you decide to go tramping through their yard and you
trample down their flowers who's the guilty party now i'm assuming we're talking about
adolescents young adults adults here who can make logical rational decisions i'm not
talking about a three-year-old or a deer or something else but when we're talking about
rational young adult or adult human beings you know was there should there have been something in
the back of their head that said it would not be respectful for me to trample this person's flowers
even though they don't have a fence up i'm going to go around i'm going to stay on the sidewalk
if you're in a relationship and you try to start setting boundaries
and the other person throws a temper tantrum it may indicate that the relationship was more about
their need for power and control than truly caring about you and this can be devastating
to come to this realization unfortunately sometimes it's the case you recognize that
you you were drawn to each other because of each of your own baggage each of your own stuff and
it's just not a healthy relationship it's more parasitic than than helpful ultimately you can
learn from the interaction about setting better boundaries but their tantrum over not getting
their own way is their responsibility and if they continue to try to violate your boundaries by
telling you that it's not okay to set them that represents another boundary violation
another thing i often hear they cannot help it i should just be more understanding well again
i'm assuming we're talking about young adults adult human beings who can make rational
decisions can the person truly not help it or are they choosing not to change and when we talk about
it what is it is it anger outbursts is it um being sloppy around the house is it addiction what is it
most of the its are at least somewhat modifiable and if the person is refusing to change if they're
not choosing to try to amend a hurtful harmful behavior then you need to make a decision
about what is healthy for you and even if they can't change it even if it's something
that is ingrained in them for some reason and they can't help it sometimes you have to make that
decision that this is not something that you can cope with in your life where did you learn that it
was your responsibility to take care of everyone else at your own expense you know sometimes this
could come again from childhood where you wished that someone would take care of you you wished
that your caregivers would have prioritized you a little bit more so we want to look and see
are you trying to rewrite the past by acting the way you wished your caregivers would have
however and we're going to talk about prioritizing self-care in a minute but what will the results be
if you continue to stay in this toxic situation what what are the results going to be if you stay
in a relationship and continue to make excuses and enable this person's unhealthy behavior
if the tables were turned if you were the one engaging in this behavior would you expect them to
stay or would you recognize that yeah this is kind of unhealthy i got some stuff i need to work on
and it would hurt but you could understand and and respect their decision to leave
couple other statements that person needs me and i'm a bad person for taking care of myself
and it's selfish for me to prioritize my own happiness in relationships there's going to be
times where you do prioritize the other person's needs over your own immediate
happiness and that's going to happen occasionally it should not be the rule
if you don't take care of yourself eventually you're going to be too worn down too exhausted
too sick too depressed to be able to be there for anybody you're not going to be good to anyone
and then what's going to happen is that person suddenly going to step up to the
plate and take care of business probably not if you feel you must provide the other person
with referrals or suggestions about things they could do and if it's safe you may even consider
telling them what must change in order for the two of you to resume your relationship
but it's important to help them understand how their behaviors impact your happiness your health
your welfare and let them know this is what i see is a healthy relationship
and this is what i need to happen it have happened if we're going to be in a relationship together
think about you know if you're telling yourself i'm selfish for taking care of myself is this
thought based on an adult relationship or based on lessons from your relationship with your caregiver
maybe you grew up in a in a house where you were parentified where you had to be the adult and your
caregivers needed you to take care of them or your siblings needed you to take care of them
and you were taught that you had to prioritize everybody else's needs above yours
what kind of model do you want to set now for your kids your friends your family
and again if the tables were turned would you want a friend or a significant other or a family member
to always prioritize you over their needs for self-care
yet another guilt statement ending this relationship caused the other person
pain and that's my fault well it could be true if you were the one to end the relationship
then you are the trigger for that pain however pain is inevitable in life and all relationships
have a risk of pain associated with them it's likely you both had a part in ending
the relationship you may have been the one who actually said no we're not doing this anymore
but why did you do that why did you say that it was likely because of behaviors from that
other person so don't take all the blame for ending the relationship recognize that
again yes you may have been the one to say all right we're done however their
behaviors contributed to you saying i can't be in this relationship anymore it's not healthy
and and really consider when you're feeling guilty would it have been
better to stay in the relationship delaying the inevitable or end the relationship now
what other things do you tell yourself after ending a relationship that may trigger your
guilt add those to the comments below and don't forget to subscribe and click
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when a relationship ends it is almost always painful we often second-guess ourselves and
minimize or deny the problems to try to convince ourselves to go back and stop the discomfort
ending a relationship hurts and sometimes a known pain is less terrifying than an unknown
pain so knowing that this relationship is unhealthy but it's predictable
may be less terrifying less threatening than being alone or trying to get into a new relationship
guilt is another way we may try to convince ourselves to go back to the relationship if
we perceive something as all our fault then the ball's in our court so maybe we can fix it
and stop the pain and it's important to recognize and i know i've said it like three four times now
it takes two to tango and if that other person is not willing to change their behaviors
then you're getting back into a very toxic situation that's probably only going to get worse
unfortunately when relationships end it's often the result of multiple factors
some of which are going to be out of your control
when evaluating what is going on consider your part their part the influence of other people
and the circumstances that are happening right now sometimes relationships end because
people are going in different directions and it's just really crappy timing
and and that can be part of the circumstances but is that your fault and the answer is no and it's a
matter of choosing so if two people are getting ready to graduate college for example and they
both get great jobs but on other side opposite sides of the country and they decide to break up
yes that hurts however what is one if one person gives up their dream to follow the other person
is that going to en end up coming back and biting them in the butt later
i don't have the answer for that some people say yes some people say no but it's important
to examine all of the factors that contributed to a relationship breaking up a healthy meaningful
relationship brings out the best in you instead of causing distress or bringing out the worst