YouAlberta
Maintaining relationships can be hard. Especially when considering the number of relationships we choose to maintain. Among many things, relationships require nurturing effort and respect. But it can be pretty exhausting.
If you are like me, you may be a member of a big family (immediate and/or extended) or a part of an even larger community. This does not factor in other personal relationships with friends and professional relationships with colleagues. We can find ourselves being spread fairly thin and feeling like there isn’t quite enough of us to go around. This can leave us feeling quite guilty or pressured for not making the time. Especially when considering what is respectful culturally. Here are a few things you can do to handle the stresses of dealing with too many familial or community relationships and maintaining them in a healthy way.
Know your capacity/know yourself
Some may classify this as being selfish, but it’s actually quite the opposite. Putting yourself first will frame how and when you are capable of giving to others. It is difficult to contribute to a healthy relationship if you are not healthy yourself. Knowing what you are bringing to the table and knowing how you function within relationships is vital to a healthy start or maintenance of a relationship. Demonstrating self-awareness will prevent any party from deflecting other issues external to the relationship they have with each other.
Set reasonable expectations
Relationships require expectations. Most of the time, these expectations become moving targets as relationships grow or diminish with time. Nonetheless, having expectations for how often you plan to stay in touch, see each other, and what you are willing to do for each other in a respectful way is a solid approach to avoiding disappointment. It can definitely be awkward having a conversation about this, but it is less awkward than dealing with the fallout of an incident. Expectations guide how you move forward in a healthy way.
Boundaries
Setting boundaries is drawing the figurative line in the sand, and this is important because it avoids tolerating something you didn’t want to in the first place. Setting boundaries is simply a statement of what you are comfortable with and helps you figure out what lines cannot be crossed. Again, it may seem awkward, but it pays off in the event that your personal boundaries are crossed.
Respect for yourself
You’ve set out your expectations, and you’ve communicated your boundaries – now it’s time to follow them. This is how you respect your own wishes. When you set these boundaries and expectations, you do so with a specific mentality of not overexerting yourself. Now that they are in place respect why you made that decision and stick to it. You can’t expect others to respect you if you don’t respect yourself.
Communicate Openly
Communicating openly and honestly is really just stating where you are at. It is not about putting other people in their place or you making any demands. It is just letting others know how you feel and why you feel that way. When doing so, it allows others to adjust accordingly. Communication is a two-way street, so it is important to practice self-awareness to concretely understand the differing perspectives and to not only be heard but to hear others.
Love/care from a distance
To clarify, I am not talking physical distance but rather a bit of emotional distance. Despite popular belief, you can love people from a distance, and that distance may be necessary to maintain a healthy relationship. What this looks like is occasional phone calls and being there when it matters most, but not discussing too many intimate details about your life. This can allow any differences in perspective or lifestyle to be secondary to what matters most, each other.
In the end, I think dealing with these relationships is a “good” problem to have. Despite the stress and mental space thinking of relationships can take up, it’s at least a sign that you have someone who cares about you and that you care for others. Fostering these relationships can be challenging at times, to say the least, but when things are good, they are worth all the effort out there.