Sometimes people think they are ready to begin a new relationship, and unknowingly they may still carrying some old hurts from past relationships. Left unresolved, these old hurts can be like toxins to a new relationship. The first suggestion is that you take a self awareness test. If you are one who believes that you do not have any issues whatsoever, then you just failed the test. Everybody has some sort of stuff in their trunk, even if they are not consciously aware of all of it. It’s healthy to be honest with yourself, it is quite liberating when we quit trying to act perfect, when were not.
Many guys go around talking about the luggage or the baggage that the women they meet are carrying around, while they completely ignore their own trunks of junk. No one is infallible, everyone misses a beat from time to time. When we stop being so bloody difficult on ourselves, trying to be perfect in our imperfections, we might just start giving others a break. See when we lie to ourselves, (denial), and we hold onto past pains like they were gift wrapped, we are walkin toxins.
Have you ever been with someone that was afraid of doing something because they felt that you would do the same thing to them that someone else did to them in their past? You suddenly realize that you are being portrayed as the mean person who did them wrong after wrong from many years ago. It’s certainly unfair to you to be colored ugly before you have done anything, but it happens all the time. Take a moment now and do some self introspection, have you ever been guilty of holding past hurts against people who have nothing to do with your pain? How do you think that makes them feel? What do you think it does to a relationship when you hold your past hurts against present partners?
People often become so deeply wounded, and fixed on their pain that they don’t always realize what they are doing to those they say they love. To avoid hurting others, we need to be honest with ourselves, otherwise the pain cycle will just continue in a toxic cloud of destruction. How do you know if you are carrying around some potentially harmful sepsis? Are you regularly talking about what someone else did to you, or how someone else mistreated you? Do you bring up your past hurts in your new relationships? Are you saying, yeah that is what my "X" used to do to me? Do you avoid sticking out your neck a little in the present, because you are afraid of it getting chopped off like it did in the past? Are you so insecure, due to past hurts, that you continue to live out fear based objectives in the present? Are you so attached to things that you feel bring you security, that you won’t let go of them even if deep down inside you know you would be better off? Are you always blaming the other guy for all your problems? Do you find yourself being dishonest about these kinds of things to yourself and others?
When we carry around old hurts it’s like having a hammer strapped to our belt loop. At the first sign of anything resembling a similarity to an old hurt or painful situation, out comes the hammer! We get our thumper out because we don’t want that old scar to be touched. We are protecting our hurt by clobbering anyone who even comes near it, even if they had no foul intentions whatsoever. People often react from past pains, nailing someone for those past hurts in the present, and then they walk away from it as if it was justified, as if they had done no wrong, and they place the blame for it on the person that they just clobbered. Does that sound like love? If you really love someone you would not want to hurt them right? So be honest with yourself, take ownership of your hurts, the only way to get past them is to first admit them.
Emotional disturbances from old hurts get burned into our memories, we are not going to forget them, but we can relinquish them through forgiveness. Everyone has been hurt, you hurt me, I hurt you, they hurt us, and sometimes our hurt or continuing pain is self-induced. Sometimes people use their pain to get attention, like a little child that goes up to mommy to get a kiss on the booboo. Being a sympathy seeker is of no reward while the fungus ferments from within, it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse.
How can we be truly be loving in our relationships if we are so busy digging up the past and piling it up on our companions? I think you get the point, but just to make it clear, your spouse is not a nuclear waste dump. They are not in your life to be personal doormats, they are in your life to love. And if you are harboring sepsis, out of love you need to read; Forgiveness Is Loves Prerequisite.