A Definition of Love that Has You Trapped

This year has been, among other things, uncomfortable. 

Since I’m sure you’re well aware of many of the ways it’s been uncomfortable, I won’t spell it out, but instead will focus on one in particular. Specifically, how nearly impossible it has been to make sure other people are comfortable.

For example, have you not known what to say to your hair dresser who isn’t wearing a mask while he cuts your hair? Have you been the odd one out in your friend group when it comes to feeling that not meeting indoors is important? Or have you and your spouse held differing opinions about whether it's ok to have your kids in school or to have your grandkids visit? 

I’m betting you have, or something like it; some significant or small scenario in which you get that sinking feeling in your belly that if you are a stand for what’s truly important to you, you might make someone that you care about uncomfortable. 

For some of us, this is a nightmare. It makes our stomach turn to put someone else ill at ease, or to ask someone to really consider our needs. But now, faced with little decisions that potentially have big consequences, it can feel like you’re in even more of a bind when it comes to wanting to please people.

I have a theory about why this is so hard for so many of us: because we got the message that love means never making someone you care about uncomfortable. 

Take a moment to let that sink in. Love means never making someone you care about uncomfortable.

Not everyone has been operating under this definition of love, but if you have, you’ll know because when you read that it made you recoil a little, it resonated like a bell, or it made you space out a little. 

It’s a thing. And in the best of times this definition of love can make us feel trapped. Damned if we do and damned if we don’t when it comes to decision making. And in a year like 2020 that definition of love leaves you positively screwed.

Even if you've outgrown that definition of love with your spouse and you're able to be yourself, assert your differing opinions or have difficult conversations without feeling like you're administering torture, you might still be stuck in this old dynamic as an adult child in your family of origin, or with important people in your life, like your boss or best friend. 

Which is precisely the bind we find ourselves in culturally during Covid times. If love means not making you uncomfortable, but there’s no action I can take that doesn’t make at least one person I dearly love uncomfortable, then I’m pushing up against the edge of feeling like I’m not a loving or good person.

So how did we get here? 

Well, when you were a kid, did you ever get the message that your emotions or your energy level or even your opinion about something made your caregiver uncomfortable? Let's say you cried and your mom got cold and withdrew from you. Or you were exuberant and loud and your dad snapped at you to tone it down because you're being ridiculous. Or you exclaimed, "I want ketchup on my eggs!" and your parents said, "We don't eat ketchup on our eggs in this family!” 

If you get this message enough times--that who you are or how you're behaving is not ok with me and I'm going to shame you or withdraw a sense of being loved and belonging because of it--then you have it in your bones that making others comfortable is what love is about. 

You didn’t get this message because your caregiver was hateful or mean or didn’t love you. You got this message because your caregiver was not willing to or capable of managing their own discomfort—and (consciously or not) they wanted you to be different so they didn't have to feel uncomfortable. 

Before you know it you’re off to the races being a people pleaser. It could be something as seemingly innocuous as your dad flaming out while stuck in traffic, and you putting on the good boy act to try to appease and calm him. Or that your mom was often anxious or depressed and the only thing that seemed to help was you appeasing her.

As I share this I am aware of really feeling for whoever it was around you who didn’t want to feel uncomfortable. Because who does? But as someone who has spent much of my lifetime having empathy for other people at my own expense, I’d like to say that just because you might understand that someone you love doesn’t want to be uncomfortable and wants you to somehow morph to accommodate that desire, it is not your job to manage their discomfort. It’s theirs. 

I also know that saying that doesn’t make it any easier to be a stand for yourself when it seems it is disappointing or frustrating to someone else.

So what do you do?

1. Start with asking yourself if it feels true that you directly or indirectly got the message that to be loving means that you don’t ask someone to enter into discomfort. If so, make it conscious to yourself. If you don’t understand the underlying mechanism behind your behavior, you can’t hope to do things differently.

2. Don’t keep it the unspoken rule. The next time you find yourself in a difficult conversation, particularly with a family member, name the dynamic that’s happening. “It seems like we have this unspoken rule in our family that we’re not supposed to make each other uncomfortable. I can see that what I’m asking is uncomfortable for you, but I want you to know I’m not trying to hurt you. I love you, and I’m simply asking for what feels right for me.”

When avoiding discomfort has been the underlying goal in a family or a group of friends for decades, sometimes it takes naming the unspoken rule in order for people to identify why they might feel so hurt or betrayed that what you want is so difficult for them.

3. Take it upon yourself to learn how to better regulate yourself when you’re uncomfortable or emotionally activated. Because here’s the deal, you don’t have any control over whether the people around you become better able to self-regulate when they are emotionally activated or uncomfortable, but you do have control over whether you do. And I hate to say it, but this is going to be a required skill if you’re going to change up long-held, unspoken rules. Not only is that uncomfortable, it can feel downright panicky. 

In fact, I suspect at this point some you are thinking, “yeah, I understand what you’re saying, but I think I’ll just keep trying to make people comfortable as best I can” And hey, I get it. Most of us have gotten very good at either complying and going along with what’s expected of us or defying by feeling we need to fight for our way.  But both of those actions are reactions to what’s going on around you, and neither are particularly pleasant.

I’m suggesting the middle path—being a stand for what is true for you while being kind and empathic to the other people involved. Rather than reactionary, this stance is chosen. And it has the capacity to be truly loving to yourself while also being truly loving to another. 

So in this time when our “normal” has been so disrupted, I encourage you to take a step toward a love that isn’t about comfort, but about consideration, truth and connection to yourself and others.

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