While I don’t believe anyone would deliberately hurt you, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t. This list though does not include folks close to you just by proximity e.g. some relatives, colleagues, associates at the office… and what not. These people are close to you by reason of their position, not necessarily because of a ‘close relationship’. Let’s not even talk about those that pretend to love you but in their hearts, they don’t give two hoots about you, they’re in your life only for their personal agenda. Actually, both the people that love us and the people that don’t can hurt us for the same reasons, but we’re usually more interested in hurts from the people we love. We really don’t need to bother too much about the people we don’t have a relationship with.
So why do we get hurt in relationships? Here are four broad reasons I have concluded that causes us to get hurt;
- Our Illusions: Everyone loves in different ways and degrees; we have different kinds and variations of love and different love languages. Most times, because we cannot tell how much someone else loves us or to what degree they do, we either believe they have the same kind of love for us as we have for them, or we impose on them the kind of love we wish they had for us. That I love someone to the degree that I can take a bullet for the person does not mean the person will reciprocate that degree of love for me. We get hurt when we discover that the love we thought someone had for us was more a figment of our imagination than reality.
- Our Expectations: People express love the way they prefer, but expect to be loved the way they choose. We get hurt when the people we love respond to us in a way we don’t expect them to. I have a friend who I always quarrel with because I feel she does not show care, but I suspect the truth is that she does not show care the way I want her to and not because she doesn’t care. (I still have to verify that). When we expect people to react or respond to us in a certain way and they don’t, or vice versa we get hurt. We have all kinds of expectations for people around us; emotional, financial, psychological, physical…, we forget that the people around us are not exactly like us and that they are wired differently. They don’t think or feel the way we do, and they can’t read our minds to know how and what we expect at each time, so let’s give them a break.
- Our Experiences: Our past experiences and relationships determine how we interpret the present. I grew up pecking my mum and siblings on the lips, so I will not consider it a marriage proposal if someone were to kiss me, but a person who has never experienced expressions like that may quickly misinterpret an innocent gesture and get hurt when the gesture is not followed up and vice versa. The experiences of those that are close to us will affect the way they respond to us, and the way we interpret their actions to us will also be influenced by our experiences. Try to see the actions of the people close to you through their eyes and not yours.
- Our Situations: Imagine walking into your house and expecting your wife to be at the door to smother you with hugs and kisses, just for her to throw you a casual “hi” from the sofa and look away. You seethe and sulk and decide to ignore her for three days, and then she tells you, “honey I got fired today” ‘ouch’. The way people we love relate to us and the way we interpret it is spiced by what is going on in their lives and ours at the moment. Let us always make an effort to find out what is up with the next person before we blow our tops.
