I was talking to a gal about a pattern in her relationships. She had good understanding of the dynamic:
“He does this, then I do that and then he does this and then this happens…”
She concluded that nothing could be done as they were both pathological.
“Well yeah, something can be done. If one of you will give up your pathology, the whole thing won’t exist anymore. It will be cured!”
The sorry fact is, a lot of people have no desire whatsoever to “get better”. They want the other person to get better.
“Essentially this is a control issue,” I said. “You want him to be the one who gets over his stuff…”
This is no way to win. Your odds of making someone fix their problem are very low. Your odds of fixing your own problem, if you try, are HIGH.
What do you think?
Am not sure why but I feel this is very true. It seems to be the theme for me at the moment with Saturn transiting conjunct my venus and pluto transiting conjunct my moon. It really is me who has to change! Acknowledging one’s habits is the easy part, changing them is something else completely. Well worth the effort though.
Backing down is hard to do. I grew up with cardinal with a capital C parents and…yeah. They sure gave me a lot to learn, so I thank them.
I’m able to back down, but sometimes I have to force myself, if just to see if I’ll get a better result while interacting. (and…usually I do!)
This would be my current situation. I don’t know how to fix it, I don’t know how to give up control and I don’t know how to fix it so that thing will be remedied.
i was discussing something like this a little while ago.
there are things it isn’t appropriate to ask someone to give up for the sake of getting along. figuring which is pathology and which is integral can be tricky.
er, i had someone trying to convince me that any two people could get along if they tried hard enough.
but they both have to… and i think partnership is pushing it…
Im struggling with this. I do take a certain pride in taking my portion of responsibility. But it usually means I have a tendency to take a larger share than I should own up to.
Being hyperaware of my pathology, I tend to see the other persons side too much and feel a certain compassion for their pathology because I usually know why its there and where it comes from and I dont feel I have a right to judge.
I think Pluto in Capricorn is teaching me to set BETTER FIRMER boundaries.
Im learning that setting boundaries actually frees you to open up and be vulnerable because you are operating from a safe place if that makes sense.
Ha! Gosh i could have written that 😉
Brilliant post.
I sure understand this one. Why do people get this backwards?
Maybe they are not seeing their own behaviour & learning patterns, so they can’t even conceive of what you are saying. Or they are blind or choose to be blind, or remain blamers.
Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?
I always thought the stress was originating from my husband. Then for a couple of months, I was on a prescription med that had the side affect of making me not care much about anything, loss of empathy maybe, just didn’t care. It gradually changed his whole persona and for the first time (ever) I realized how much I was contributing to the general unease and stress. It was shocking!
It has taken me my whole to make any headway with letting letting go with my end of the tug of war rope. It’s still a battle but I don’t think I would have a marriage if I didn’t learn it to the extent I have.
“whole life”
It’s not about changing sometimes when a married couple you grow apart or someone cheats. And you forgive time after time. You always hear I will change, I will do this and that and it changes for mo then it goes right back. Especially when you tell someone for years what you don’t like it what bothers you and they don’t listen until it’s reverse on them . I mean we all have faluts ect… But you can only change so much but when you been hurt so many times it becomes a trust issue to where you can’t believe anything anyone says
Well, in my personal life I can’t deal with politics anymore. I know I have discussed it here a few times, but in my personal life I am discussing it less and less to the extent that if I am spending time with someone and I am thinking of something political I just won’t speak for ages. I will then go back to them when I’ve collected my energies enough to have a non political conversation.
It was COVID exhausted me. I just can’t deal with that neurosis. I can’t deal with the double think either if I say something to someone that is a little outside the central point of the subject but that strongly impacts it the person might accept it but have it make no impact on the thing they are holding onto and I just can’t figure that kind of thinking out.
It’s pretty much the only way to apparently handle passive aggressive people. Take the spikes out of your conversation.
If someone only wants to tango and you want to learn to waltz you might need to dance with somebody else.
I have Pluto in my first in a wide conjunction to the ascendent in Virgo, so I have always tended to size people up by what they do and say, be compassionate about their pathology, and keep my lip buttoned.
me: “i am literally incapable of changing your behavior”
them: “why are you giving up?”
i am recognizing the limits of my power. it makes things so much easier to let go.