- Hi everyone.
Welcome back to Aspergers from the Inside.
You're here with Paul.
Today I'm looking at a question of
why are relationships so difficult?
Maybe you've asked this question before yourself.
I know I definitely hear it a lot from others
and have felt it myself.
Sometimes it feels like when we're alone,
everything's easy, and suddenly when we're in
a relationship with other people,
whether that's a friendship or in a family
or a romantic relationship,
suddenly things become significantly more difficult.
So why is that?
It turns out there's actually a really good reason for that,
which I want to discuss a little bit today,
because a lot of the time, it feels like
is a relationship even worth the work
because it's so much hard work
and it's so difficult to maintain,
and we think, well, is it just gonna
break down eventually anyways,
so what's the point in trying?
I hear a lot of people say that they've been burned
so much before that they even believe
maybe I'm just not cut out to have friends.
Maybe having friends is too difficult.
Maybe I don't need friends.
Maybe I'm better off without friends.
That's not the case.
Human beings need some level of social connection.
Autistic people are no different.
We all need some level of social connection.
I can fully understand where that sentiment comes from
because relationships can be really, really challenging,
but it's also important to remember
that giving up having a relationship,
giving up having friendships,
giving up that social connection
is not really a viable healthy option.
As much as we might wish it were the case
that we could have an easy way out,
unfortunately there's no easy way out.
So let me give you an analogy to see why
sometimes being in a relationship
is more difficult or challenging than being on your own.
And my analogy is like of dancing.
You can imagine if you're dancing by yourself,
you don't need to worry about anybody else.
You can have the craziest dance moves,
you can dance with your eyes shut,
you can move this way and that way,
and it really doesn't matter what you do.
You're having a good time and everything is completely fine.
If you wanted to dance with somebody else
and interact with that person and have fun
with that connection, then all of a sudden
the way that you're dancing and the way that you're moving
is completely different because it has to be
a little bit in sync, communicating with the other person.
So that means that we actually can't,
we lose a degree of freedom that we previously had.
Previously, I could do whatever I want and it didn't matter.
Now, all of a sudden, I'm in a relationship,
there is someone else in my life, in my sphere of influence,
which means that the things that I do
have an effect on the other person,
which means that we need to be in sync a little bit
so that we can have a relationship, dance together,
and have a good time.
The reason I like this analogy is because you can imagine
if we're not in sync, then someone's gonna get
an elbow to the face or have someone step on their feet
or get kicked in the shins or something, right?
It's not fun to be really, really close to somebody
and to have them hurt you.
That's why, when we get close to people,
sometimes the people we're closest to
are the ones that hurt us the most,
which is why sometimes intimacy,
actually opening ourselves up to that intimacy,
is really scary.
So I talked about attachment strategies, not strategies,
attachment types and typical behavior patterns
in a previous video, and you can imagine
that when we're dancing too close
and we're not really in sync
and we're stepping on each other's toes,
one person might try to cling on
and try and dance even closer and say,
look, even though I know this is not good for me,
I'm gonna stay anyway, and the other person might think,
this is not fun.
I'm gonna go away where you can't hurt me anymore.
Now, if we want to build a healthy relationship,
if we want friendships, if we want healthy, supportive
family relationships, romantic partners,
all of these things which are so important,
it's a matter of learning how to find that middle ground
of taking a little bit of space.
If we're too close and we're bumping into each other,
take a little bit of space so that we can continue
to interact, continue to learn about each other,
continue to learn how to be in sync
and have this relationship.
I do a lot of relationship coaching,
so I'm in a bit of a special position
that I hear a lot of different people's relationships.
Most people only have information
about their own relationship, so it's easy to think
that we're the only one.
I want to share something that's basically universal
in almost every relationship, and that is
the closer we get to a person, the harder it becomes,
because the things, our own issues
that were lying dormant in us,
suddenly start coming to the surface
when we have to interact with another person
and form a relationship with another person.
All of a sudden, if we have any rejection issues
or a fear of intimacy or maybe we've been hurt in the past
or maybe we really value our freedom
and we're not sure what this whole compromise thing
looks like to learn to live with another person.
All of those issues that we already had
suddenly start coming to the surface
when we get in a relationship with someone,
especially an intimate relationship with someone.
The reason I'm mentioning this is because
when that happens, sometimes it's easy to think,
oh, it's a problem with this person,
it's a problem with this relationship.
I need to end this relationship
and find a better relationship,
where actually, if you're feeling that,
it's probably because the relationship
is doing what it's designed to do.
Relationships can be incredibly healing,
and one of the reasons that they're healing
is because they bring back up to the surface
all of our past history and past trauma and past issues,
and they bring them to the surface
and force us to deal with them
so that we can then move on through them.
So that's one of the reasons that relationships
can be so healing, but also why they can be
so difficult at the same time.
So if you're finding that you're in a relationship
and it is really difficult, it's not necessarily a bad sign.
It might mean that you have to make
a little bit of distance.
Maybe you're trying to be too close too quickly
when you're not really ready for it.
So we need to learn how to dance together,
and the better that we can understand each other,
the more we can be in sync with each other
and form a relationship that's actually
healthy and healing as opposed to just traumatic
because every two seconds someone's stepping on my toes
or elbowing me in the face.
So where was I?
I think I had a final point.
Did I have a final point?
If not, I'll find out in a minute.
Maybe that's it.
Yep, it will come to me as soon as I hit pause or off.
It's the end of a long week.
Words sometimes flow.
You might notice I talk really quickly.
That's because if I talk slowly, I forget what I'm saying.
Anyway, I hope you found this video valuable.
I want to encourage you to persevere
and find healthy relationships
because we all need that social connection,
even when we feel like we want to stay
by ourselves sometimes.
That's what I was going to say.
We don't need to be really close
to another person all the time.
So imagine if I'm dancing by myself,
I've got all this freedom, and I want to dance
with someone else, maybe that's great for a little while.
And then I say, well, this has been fun.
I'm gonna go dance with myself for a little bit
where I can have all of this freedom and express myself
however I want, and then I'm gonna come back.
So we can look after ourselves in the way
that suits us the best, and build a kind of relationship
where we're able to dance by ourselves sometimes
if we need to, and we're also able
to connect with other special people in our life as well.
It's not an either/or thing, and if we can have
a little bit of both, then it's what allows us
to really look after ourselves and what allows us
to really build that connection as well.
That's gonna have to do for today.
I hope you found that interesting
and you could relate to that.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
If you find relationships difficult,
what your particular challenges are
and how you deal with that so that you can make
the relationship a healing one,
and I will see you again next week.
Okay, bye.