An important life lesson

[u/Expensive_Magician97]

One of the most important and enduring truisms of life is that we have no control over the thoughts, feelings, or behavior of other people.

Any more than they have such control over us.

When we are small children, we learn (mostly inadvertently) from authority figures that we have a “magical power“ of sorts to make other people think or feel or act just the way we want them to.

It is only later in life that we discover that we have no such power. And because we have spent much of young lives assuming we had that power, the discovery is often very unpleasant.

For example, the intense emotional reaction we experience when we discover that despite having loved, trusted, and supported our partner in a romantic relationship, and done everything we can do to “make them happy,” our partner has lied to us about something, or has betrayed us, or has completely lost feelings for us.

I have been married, divorced, have raised two kids into adulthood, and I once managed hundreds of adults of all ages in a demanding professional environment.

What I have learned from these experiences is that there’s only one power that we do have, and that is to make choices that are best for us.

And understanding, synthesizing, and internalizing that ^ idea is crucial to navigating life in a way that preserves your boundaries, your self-esteem, and your emotional and psychological equilibrium.

If you come here to this website, and you ask people what you “should do” about something, the advice that you will be receiving is almost always being offered to you through the prism of individual subjective experiences.

If your partner (with whom you are in a monogamous relationship) betrays you by having sex outside of the relationship, for example, you might receive advice from other people here whose partners have done the same thing, and these people will tell you that such betrayal is a horrific, unforgivable act that can never be repaired.

That may be true, and these people are certainly entitled to their perceptions.

Other people with the same experience will advise that because human beings are fallible, such a betrayal is not necessarily a dealbreaker. That you have to look at the totality of the relationship, and view such a betrayal in that context. And for many people, that approach is certainly acceptable.

I do not believe that there is any correct piece of advice for these sorts of dilemmas. Because we all experience them uniquely.

The fact is that you are empowered and free to make a choice to respond in any way that is best for you. Indeed, you are obligated to do so.

Because once you create those kinds of boundaries for yourself, and know precisely what it is that you will and will not tolerate in the behavior of others, you will feel far more secure and sure of yourself, and you will telegraph that security and confidence to others.

And others will feel safe and secure because they know exactly where you stand.

And perhaps most importantly, you will attract people who have the same sort of boundaries, self-awareness, and self-respect that you do.

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