Standing up to the one you love may seem scary, but in some cases, it could save your relationship. You should be standing up for yourself in your relationship when your romantic partner is clearly in the wrong. When what they are doing or saying to you is wrong, it is time to stand up for yourself and shift the balance of power.
When you love someone, standing up to them can be scary. You worry what their reaction will be to you standing up to them. You worry if it will make things worse. So often people just keep their mouth shut or try to keep the peace. This doesn’t do any good. More often that not (by a landslide) the one you love does it again and again. And you do nothing again and again. Any wonder it keeps happening? What you allow will continue.
Standing Up for Yourself in Your Relationship
There is nothing mean about standing up for yourself. Actually, you should be standing up for yourself whenever someone is mean to you. Why would you worry about their feelings when they are clearly showing you they aren’t giving any thought to yours? When the one you love does something mean to you and you aren’t standing up for yourself, you are being mean to yourself as well. How could that be a good thing for you or the relationship with the one you love? It can’t be. It will only be bad for your relationship in the long run. How do you think dysfunctional relationships start anyway? It is times like this that plant the seeds of dysfunction, and boy do they grow quickly.
You may be worried that standing up to the one you love will cause you to lose them. On the contrary, not standing up to the one you love will cause them to lose respect for you. You can’t love what you don’t respect. So actually failing at standing up to the one you love gives your relationship a grim long-term prognosis. Sometimes speaking up for yourself is all you need to do. Sometimes it just isn’t enough. Many clients have told us they have spoken their minds on many occasions and wonder why the behavior is continuing. They feel they have been standing up for themselves but it isn’t doing a damn thing.
This happens because there comes a point where they have heard it all before. Words don’t scare them. They don’t take them seriously, otherwise the behavior wouldn’t continue now would it? Exactly. When words are not enough, you are going to have to take action as well. Standing up to the one you love is best done when actions and words are used. Words without action are empty. They are perceived as empty threats and empty promises.
It may seem frightening to do, but you need to get over that. Your relationship is headed towards ruin if you don’t do anything so get your act together. If you want a healthy relationship, you can’t just have boundaries, you need to enforce them. And words alone won’t cut it. A healthy relationship is a relationship with trust and security. If you are afraid that standing up to the one you love, when they are being mean, will cause you to lose them, that says a lot about your relationship. It says your relationship is dysfunctional, and that this relationship has brought out the worst in both of you. The one you love now feel they can get away with mistreating you, and you think so little about yourself that you will tolerate it.
How will a relationship headed in this direction lead to happiness? It won’t. So, start standing up to the one you love to get your relationship headed in a new direction.
This is a great article, and it’s giving me encouragement and inspiration to stand up for myself in my current relationship.
Hi and thanks for your input but I have tried over and over again to let the person know how I feel and how I do not need a unhealthy relationship in front of my daughter it’s kind of crazy cuz I still been kind of believing in our relationship in the beginning he was very abusive and he changed he has not put his hands on me and years but we cannot come to any type of agreement understanding there’s always fighting arguing person and who’s doing what and who is better than who or who ain’t doing enough so I’m just tired and I don’t know what else to do and I need help to find a way to get strong enough to get out of this relationship because I do not want to be together for 10 years and we already been together for 9 with the drama famous crazy because we just moved to a new state and I don’t want to just give up on him or leave him cuz I don’t want anybody to do that to me but I have asked him numerous of times to go to church with me or go to a therapist with me and it’s like now I feel like that’s not even going to help our relationship anymore because it’s just too much arguing fighting and no trust
Either choose to let go because you already gave this enough time and chance to work, or make more excuses to stay. You can’t fix it yourself, and he doesn’t want to.