Maintenance in Relationships

SO. I'm back again to talk about relationship dynamics because so many things bother me to no end and I just gotta say something! :P

Sometimes I do think that extremely high maintenance people are people who have not had the chance to form their own boundaries, hence the disregard for the boundaries of others (NOT ALL). For example, say a person is super clingy and wants to see another person every single day and they want to text all the time. (They are essentially allowing their partner 24/7 access to themselves, and I don't think that that's okay. This may just be a personal opinion but I feel like being that way sort of strips some of your humanity away I dunno... I kinda touch on this later. ) Their partner may not be available to speak all the time, and this unavailability will eventually frustrate the high maintenance end of the relationship. Basically, because the high maintenance partner is always available to text/call/be with their partner no matter what, they aren't going to understand why their partner wouldn't be. "I always text my bf back quick so why can't he text me back quick?" Or, "I always want to see my partner so why do they not want to see me constantly?" There's a level of disconnect here that I'm trying to describe and I'm kinda failing here aahaha...

Maintenance dynamics are very important though, and I think that they can determine the outcome of a relationship very early on. I've been in one relationship where boundaries were not even able to be set because my partner would not allow it. It was "wrong" to not want to speak to them for some time, and it was wrong to not want to put energy into giving them attention sometimes. That took a huge toll on me, and was extremely exhausting. BUT after getting out of this relationship I had no idea what boundaries were really supposed to look like, and I became a very high maintenance person as a result of this entire mess. I needed constant reassurance and communication, as well as attention in order to believe that the other person really liked me because that is what I was taught was the standard, but that never felt right. Again, it was terribly exhausting to go searching for attention in every person who I had feelings for after the relationship ended. I depended on these people to keep my spirits up. If it was a day where I didn't get to speak with them much, it was a bad day. If it was a day where they did speak to me and spent time with me, it was a good day. (This was around five years ago, and I've grown as a person and realized that I am so much better being lower maintenance, hence the earlier mention.) Dependency is such a terrible thing sometimes. NOT saying that you shouldn't depend on others at times! This brings me to my next point, though...

High maintenance people (not all) do depend on the actions of their partners and correlate those actions with their own emotions more often than not. It's extremely unhealthy when done constantly. I do understand the other side. I have been on the other side, and it's mentally taxing. People who are so emotionally dependent need to realize that they are their own person. WITH their own emotions, opinions, and feelings. It is not healthy to disregard everything that you are in order to squeeze yourself into your partners identity. You do not have to become nothing in order to become someone's something! Yes, I do understand that a lot of these dependent people do not necessarily choose to be this way! Most of them have dealt with past issues and are just responding in a way that they deem fit, but this does not justify this behavior. I will reiterate; it is UNHEALTHY. If your partner is condoning this kind of behavior in you, they are manipulating you and most likely have problems of their own that they need to sort out. If someone really likes you, they aren't going to want you to throw yourself out in order to become their shadow. They're going to encourage you to keep yourself IN yourself. I know that sounds strange, but what I am really saying is that they are going to encourage personal growth! They like YOU. Not the husk of who you were. A good and easy analogy for this.. Hmm... 

You are a box with beautiful gems and trinkets inside. Your (good) partner absolutely adores these little gems! They would never ever throw these gems away. Yeah, some of them may be a little dusty and scraped up and maybe even broken, but even still, your partner isn't going to just throw these out! These gems can always be cleaned up and polished. (Not by your partner alone. It is never your partner's job to fix you. It is also never your job to fix someone else. You can aid in the growth, yes, but you are not responsible for it.) Now, if your partner is a scumbag piece of shit, they WILL throw all of these gems out, and then either leave the box empty, fold it up and tuck it into a corner, or fill the box with whatever they want. The gems are everything that makes you, you in this analogy, as I'm sure you've guessed. I dunno, but you get the point!

This was longer than I meant for it to be, but I did have quite a lot to say. I would continue this because I have even more to say, but that can be labeled as something else rather than being grouped in with maintenance. I did kind of get off topic there in the end, but I did want to just throw that last bit in because maintenance does directly coordinate with dependence in lots of instances. I could go on and on about dependence though, but again, that can be in its own blog. I always say this in the end, there are SO many different scenarios that pertain to the main topic at hand, and not everyone is going to have experiences like the ones I've described above. A multitude of combinations of behaviors are possible, but it would take me forever to touch on all of them. I just wanted to speak on the overarching idea of this topic, and provide a select few examples. These do not represent everyone in a certain group! The brain is so expansive, and so are the behaviors that stem from the brain. Anyway enough of my yapping! Love ya <3