This Relationship Corner: Ditch the Defensiveness

There's a line from the new Star Trek movie that I particularly enjoyed. As Spock and Kirk are arguing, and Spock tells Kirk, "Your defensiveness indicates that you agree with me." It doesn't matter what century we're in, we often resort to defensiveness when we can't, or won't, see that we're wrong. It's a common human failing, one that will destroy your relationships. Even your potential for relationships.

I'm a huge fan of the website Cracked, and when they aren't pontificating on the possibilities of a zombie apocalypse, or the realities of creepy urban legends, they will sometimes feature columns full of relationship advice. A recent column focused on five turn-offs found in male dating profiles and why those personality traits are relationship repellent.  If you want a textbook case of defensiveness, read the article's comments section. Man after man complained that the writer should also talk about what women do wrong and why women, not men, are the problem.

In other words, the men commenting refused to accept that their attitudes and actions were a problem. They aren't the problem, it's everyone else who's the problem.

This Relationship Corner: A History of Bad Relationships

I'm a big believer that your first bad relationship should be considered a mulligan. It shouldn't be held against you, because we're all entitled to a relationship mistake. When we're starting out in life, we don't have a lot of direct experience that tells us whether this friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, is actually a horrible person who we need to keep the hell away from. Sometimes we don't even realize that we're in a bad relationship until we get out of it, or when we catch a glimpse of someone else's good relationship and see what we're missing. It can be an eye-opening experience and might make us more cautious or wary about future relationships.

That's why this first bad relationship shouldn't be held against us. We had no idea what was going on. However, when we have a second, third, or a long string of bad relationships, that's another matter entirely. Then, I hate to say it, we don't get off the hook so easily. We bear a lot of responsibility for these bad relationships for one simple reason: we are the common denominator in all our bad relationships.

Today, I'm going to address this history of bad relationships. We're going to explore what we need to understand about what's going on and how we can right the course of our relationship history.