Relationships can be a wonderful addition to our lives, or they can leave us feeling depleted and hopeless. A relationship is supposed to add to our lives not take away. A healthy relationship will support your life, it will encourage you to be your best self. If you are in an unhealthy relationship, you will feel discouraged and alone. All abuse isolates you and leaves you feeling alone. Pay attention to how you feel after you spend time with someone. If you feel depleted and alone, this can be a sign that you are in a toxic or unhealthy relationship.
It can be difficult to be honest with yourself when you are navigating the toxic waters of an unhealthy relationship. It can be helpful for you to write down your most painful deal breaker and then not make excuses if your boundary is crossed. When we are in a relationship and someone crosses our boundary, our natural tendency may be to try to explain or understand why someone crossed it. This can be a trap because it takes the focus off of the fact that the boundary was crossed and that is the point, not why someone crossed it or how far down the line they crossed it.
Writing down your most painful deal breaker can be a way for you to step out of the fog of what is happening to you in your relationship. For so many, it's not what someone does, it's what someone continues to do that is the most painful. For example, someone lying is an over stepped boundary, but the more painful damaging deal breaker, is someone that makes no effort to change that hurtful damaging behavior. One example of a most painful deal breaker may be: I tell you how what you do is hurting me and you say you are sorry but make no effort to change. If that is the deal breaker and the boundary continues to be over stepped, then there is no relationship and you may want to ask yourself "What am I doing here, this is not a relationship. This is me being hurt by someone who does not care." If someone cares, then they make an effort to stop. If someone says that they care but they make no effort to stop, then stop listening to them and start paying more attention to what they do.
Take care everyone, I hope you write down your most painful deal breaker even if you are not in a relationship.