Look what you made me do

Look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
Look what you just made me do
Look what you just made me do!

This song by Taylor Swift was playing in my mind as I was typing the title. I am a Swiftie at heart!

But this post isn’t about Taylor Swift or this song.

Its about you and your relationships.

How often do you take effort in your relationship? How often when things go wrong instead of blaming yourself or your partner (which can be very tempting at times, plus it’s like a defense mechanism) you talk to them patiently and try to sort things out?

We all have some or the other fantasy about our relationship. We all expect that our future mate will be perfect for us. They will know exactly the right thing to say at the right time and exactly what to do to cheer us up. Basically they could read our mind and they would be good at taking care of us.

Many of us belive in the concept of “soulmates”. We believe that somewhere out there is our soulmate, the person who is perfect for us and we are perfect for them, just as we are! Who needs to change when they appreciate you like you are?!

I can’t complain, I was also the person believing this notion and I did find that special someone who seemed perfect for me. But the only thing is we are not together anymore. We couldn’t continue our relationship. The reason is well, even if we had great communication and understood eachother well, and loved each other a lot, we wanted different things from life. I imagined my future somewhere else and he was happy with his life here.

I am just saying! These things happen. If you look practically, no relationship exists without effort. You need to take effort in the beginning to understand the person and then to make the relationship work.

Even in my earlier relationship there were so many ups and downs, I was a impulsive and impatient girl, but his patience helped me be less impulsive. I learnt to trust him some more. And he never broke it. Basically, I was a different in many ways before going into this relationship and then I became a better version of myself, at least in some cases.

This is what relationships are all about. Learning to grow together.

But sometimes we think that if the relationship was “meant to be” we wouldn’t have to work so hard at it.

That’s so not true. I have seen many couples who seem like they are perfect for eachother, but there are times when they listen to eachother and try to solve the problem.

Aaron Beck, the renowned psychiatrist says that one of the most destructive beliefs for a relationship is “If we need to work at it, there is something seriously wrong with our relationship.”

-From the book Mindset by Carol Dweck

Its the growth mindset applied in relationships – where we think my qualities are fixed, my partner’s qualities are fixed and we are not going to change, ever. So if it doesn’t work, ta ta buh-bye!

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t work like this. I mean only if you and the other person are ready to work at your relationship, it will get better.

When people come from a fixed mindset into the relationship, after breakup they are not able to get over it. They have this strong urge to take revenge. Because they feel that this breakup will leave a kinda mark of “loser” on their forehead and they will never be able to undo that. When that’s simply not the case.

In her research on growth mindset couples, Carol Dweck found that people with growth mindset are able to forgive the other person after breakup and move on in their life. Even if they were heartbroken, they learn to move on because they do not associate one breakup with lifetime disappointment.

So when things go wrong, instead of saying – Look what you made me do!

We can be a little more willing to hear other person out and try to work on the relationship. And can also be more open to new opportunities after earlier breakup because, it does not define you. It hurts, so take your time, heal. But move on.

A no effort relationship is a doomed relationship, not a great relationship. It takes work to communicate accurately and it takes work to expose and resolve conflicting hopes and beliefs. It doesn’t mean there is no “they lived happily ever after”, but it’s more like “they worked happily ever after”

– Carol Dweck