What makes one relationship work versus others, or why do we get along with one person versus another? I’ve been musing about this recently. I am asking myself that question because it matters to me.
It matters not because I want everyone to get along with me, but more so because I want to get along with others; it matters because relationships are at the crux of everything we do; it matters because it’s part of our humanity.
Think about this, the first most intimate relationship we all ever had was the one in the womb of our mother. Her fears and joys we shared, it was the first relationship we never did ever remember.
But truly what is it that makes one person choose to like someone over another person. How often do we judge someone based on their looks, or on the comments of others?
If we search deep into our circle of relationships and truly spend time contemplating what each of those relationship mean to us – we’d learn more about our inner self.
Each relationship is so unique; who we are sometimes changes depending on who we are with as if certain people bring out the best or the worst of us. We can be different people to our parents, spouses, children, neighbors, classmates, best friends, and even that special relationship we have with ourselves. Each relationship mirrors back something in our life. It helps us identify our strengths or weaknesses.
I recently had an experience with someone I work with who I thought we had a healthy relationship. But, something went sideways. I had already experienced a conflict with the person and rather than confront and discuss what upset them they chose to clam up. It was very uncomfortable because of the roles we each played ( I being Mayor for the city of Lake Helen and they the city administrator)- I had to be the “big” person and bring it up in a professional manner – which again, because of the nature of our roles could not be ignored.
We were able to move on from the incident and the working relationship seemed to be back on track, until a second instance where something I asked was misrepresented by that person (this now seemed to be a pattern in the behavior). A conversation that was discussed in private was now being twisted in public – there was only one other witness who also agreed that the allegation was not true.
Imagine my surprise and disappointment. The personal trust that I had endowed upon this person… totally vanished in a flash. I no longer felt comfortable being myself, I no longer felt that I was in a ‘safe space’ around that person. Asking someone a question and ordering someone to do something are two different things – I was accused of “ordering” – which simply was not the case (fortunately a history of emails proved in my favor). My ‘ask’ was taken as an order. Professionals always ask for clarification, if the person was unsure about the intention of my question the onus was not on me to ask for clarification – it was on them. Making assumptions makes an a$$ of you and me. (Which reminds me of a great book: The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz).
But guess what… again, there was the opportunity to hash it out. I embraced the situations as any public official can at the cost that the city administrator was in a position to behind closed doors spreading half-truths about that conversation. I embraced the moment with honesty; understanding that we have to do important work together – I set boundaries. I have come to learn that not all relationships will be great; and I know I can make sure that this one is at least, workable! Just because I am at level zero in trusting that person with my heart, doesn’t mean that we can’t work together. To me, the situation was about trusting the person to do their job, and knowing that the onus of their performance fell solely upon them , and that made it a ‘workable’ relationship.
So in conclusion on my musing on this topic, I believe that developing a good relationship is a process of trusting and feeling safe with the other person. It’s about communicating and managing conflict… it’s also about forgiveness and greatly about Love. Loving people for who they are and being able to separate that they are not their actions is a challenge.
As far as what happened to the relationship? Would you stick your hand in the fire if it burnt you once? I think not. You guessed correctly – I forgave the actions and I did not stick my hand in that fire after the second burn.
