"I'd Rather Be With Anyone Than Alone"

Let's face it, boiled down to it's basics, counseling people is mostly about helping people deal with their pain and unhappiness. Relationships are a common arena where many people experience pain and unhappiness. Let me talk about one belief, rarely discussed, that causes much pain in relationships. It's a belief that both causes people to enter the wrong kind of relationship, and to stay in a negative one for too long.

The one statement/belief that greatly contributes to prolonged unhappiness in many relationships, dating and marital, is: "I'd rather be with anyone than alone." This feeling is one of the most common statements I hear from people ages 15-60 regarding relationships in general. So how does this statement cause pain? To begin with, it implies that people would rather be in a relationship of any kind, unhappy or not, than be alone---that being alone is worse than being in a negative, unfulfilling relationship. This statement says, "I'll bear whatever negativity there is in my relationship, no matter how extreme, than be without one." I have found this to be a major contributor to the prolonged pain people endure in relationships.

There is always conflict in relationships over time, that is a given. But what we do with that conflict is the real crux to whether the relationship flourishes or decays. The next step in dealing with a conflict involves the couple's willingness to discuss and work on the issue, but even that is affected by this statement because if I am terrified of losing the relationship and being alone, I probably will be reluctant to even address the problem for fear that discussing it might cause a blow up and a break-up. It might be safer to ignore and just bear the problem. If I'd rather be with anyone than alone then I will probably ignore everything I am unhappy with in the relationship so as not to cause waves. This causes any love in the relationship to decay and resentments to build up. So this belief causes people to both initially ignore conflict, avoid problem solving, and ultimately resist leaving a relationship that is beyond resolution. Both actions prolong pain in relationship.

I rarely counsel teenagers, but recently I had a seventeen year old boy talking about the suffering his girlfriend at college puts him through. It was horrible to hear. She said every insulting and degrading thing she could to him whenever she felt he was not being a "good enough" boyfriend. She truly was unreasonable in her complaints of his talking to anyone else but her or wanting to do activities with his friends, but he simply took it and felt worse and worse over time. He only came to see me because his parents insisted I try to "talk some sense into him" and get him to leave this shrew of a girlfriend. When I asked why he stayed he said she was the first girl who showed interest in him, and he'd rather...well, you know. The other side of the coin is his girlfriend who would rather verbally abuse this guy three times a week and be in a constant state of frustration than find someone more suitable to her needs. She would rather beat a slow horse to death than risk looking for a faster one. Rather than ignore the conflict as many do, she went to the other extreme and frantically tried to emotionally "beat" the change into him. Both were unhappy, and both were too scared to move on. She talked about marrying him in a year. He said he saw no solution to her unreasonable demands and complaints, but would probably marry her.

This issue also affects whom we choose as a partner in the first place. It sets up an expectation that I have got to have someone/anyone around me at all times lest I feel the horrors of being alone. That means a dysfunctional person is better than no one. We can see this when people surround themselves with empty "frenemies" who take advantage of the relationship every chance they get, but are not helpful or supportive in any way. This belief also causes extremely negative relationships to continue for too long. What is it about being alone that makes so many of us choose continued unhappiness over it?

Everyone is terrified. I'll leave the discussion here for now...