I’m not angry, I’m hurt and there’s a big difference…

When someone repeatedly lets you down, it can send all sorts of feelings and questions running through your mind. You may feel angry with them or you might even start resenting their behavior or may be disappointed so frequently that it causes sadness. The point is, it can hurt you and your relationship with that person.

There was a person in my life who had a knack for making promises and failing to keep them. This person would make a commitment to do something, make changes in the way she thinks and deal with others and then nothing happens. This person might have had every intention to do what she said she was going to do, but it just didn’t happen. Someone you trust looks you in the eyes and tells you, with certainty, that you can rely on them and then they let you down. It feels like you’ve been lied to. I mean, our word is everything. So how can someone be so careless with it? It is not easy when dealing with someone that is unreliable, or someone that could possibly be over committing themselves. Below are pointers that will help us maintain our sanity and peace when interacting with such people.

Never Assume Anything. Assumptions can be dangerous, and more often than not, they will harm you and your relationships. I know it is difficult not to assume things when someone continues to let you down, but the truth is, we don’t know what is really going on with that person. We can’t read their thoughts, and we don’t know what they are going through. Whatever the reason, it’s unfortunate because it causes a lot of damage to relationship.

Accept Them For Who They Are. Our expectations cause us to hope for a change in their behavior, but let’s face it, that’s unlikely to happen. So we must accept their inconsistencies. We can’t change how people are. Everyone is on their own path and they reach different realizations at different points in life. We need to remember to ACCEPT instead of EXPECT. Accepting the inevitable will save you from the pain of bitterness and anger that expectation causes. If we have no expectation of future outcomes, it is so much easier to accept the disappointment. The broken promises will still end up hurting our feelings, but we have the choice whether to allow them to hurt us or allow them to turn into bitterness and negative feelings. Once we stop taking things personally, we can still maintain our peace even when others disappoint us.

Tell Them Exactly How You Feel. Without anger or resentment, explain to them how they make you feel unimportant and how their words feel empty because of their tendency to let you down. If you don’t tell them, how will they know? Just remember to speak from the heart and maybe you can help them to see things from your perspective.

Stop the Bleeding. Once you have shared your feelings with the other person and let them know their actions are hurting you, and nothing changes – it’s time to stop the bleeding. End the cycle of expectation, disappointment, and pain. This is when you set boundaries and make it clear that your relationship requires equal effort. If they oblige, then the relationship can happily be maintained. However, if the dynamic changes is too much for them and they decide they can’t handle it, then you now know the friendship/relationship was forced and needing to end anyways. When you choose to stop letting the behavior of others affect your life, you will see that ending the cycle of pain contributes heavily to your happiness.

Know When To Move On. After you have explained your feelings and given the other person time to examine how their behavior affects others and reevaluate your relationship, if nothing has changed, then it is time to move on. Trying to maintain a relationship that only causes negative feelings doesn’t benefit either party. Life is hard enough without trying to force friendships/relationships. Someone who truly wants to improve their relationship with you will appreciate the forward honesty. A real friend is someone who will work with you to tackle the difficult topics and resolve conflicts. We are never in total control of how people act, but if we set boundaries in our relationships, we can control how people treat us.

Ultimately, we can somewhat control how we allow others to treat us by setting firm boundaries and knowing when to move on. If there are relationships in your life that are strained or causing you emotional turmoil, it’s time to evaluate them. You can decide what you are willing to accept in those relationships. What we allow in any relationship is what will continue. Life is short and it is exhausting to try and maintain a forced relationship that is not mutually beneficial. Surround yourself with people that encourage, lift up and support you in all that you do. Real friends will bring up the hard issues and will work together to resolve conflict with you quickly so that you can maintain a lasting and authentic relationship with them.