Why Not Imposing Might Be Hurting Your Relationships

Speaker A: 00:00:00

All right, so this one was prompted by an experience rather than a writing prompt, which has been in what I've been working with so far.

Speaker A: 00:00:08

I hope it's worthwhile and not just some public therapy session for the entire world to see.

Speaker A: 00:00:15

But here goes.

Speaker A: 00:00:17

I don't like to impose on people.

Speaker A: 00:00:20

I don't know if you do or not, but I certainly don't.

Speaker A: 00:00:23

I don't even like to feel like I might be imposing.

Speaker A: 00:00:28

Now.

Speaker A: 00:00:29

I don't know that I see the point in paying a counselor to help me dig into my childhood for any potential issues or anything like that.

Speaker A: 00:00:36

But the fact remains I don't like to impose.

Speaker A: 00:00:39

And I think that in some cases that can be a good case, a good thing.

Speaker A: 00:00:44

It certainly helps keep me from being lazy and relying on other people to take care of things that really should be my responsibility.

Speaker A: 00:00:51

But there are, I think, some downsides to this.

Speaker A: 00:00:56

The first one is I think maybe behaving this way, not wanting to impose on people, can make me maybe remain a little bit immature, sort of thinking that I can manage things on my own and that I don't need anybody.

Speaker A: 00:01:13

Even though the height of maturity is not actually being completely self reliant, it's recognizing that I have limitations and I was designed by God to need other people.

Speaker A: 00:01:58

I wonder if it's keeping me a little bit immature, but that's actually not the worst one.

Speaker A: 00:02:05

I think that in some cases the desire to not impose on people is keeping me missing out on relationships.

Speaker A: 00:02:15

And this hits a little bit hard because I've never really been good at maintaining relationships.

Speaker A: 00:02:22

I do a reasonably good job of maintaining relationships when I'm around people, but making space for them instead of being in the same space can be a little bit of challenge.

Speaker A: 00:02:33

Yeah, I can maintain friends, I certainly have.

Speaker A: 00:02:38

But I always seem thinking about myself.

Speaker A: 00:02:42

I always seem to be more focused on ideas and actions or activities.

Speaker A: 00:02:46

And I struggle to pull myself back to what's actually important, which is the people.

Speaker A: 00:02:52

The way this often works out in my life is that I don't text, I don't call, I don't send an email without a purpose.

Speaker A: 00:02:59

I don't just reach out to connect with people.

Speaker A: 00:03:03

I don't want to interrupt them.

Speaker A: 00:03:04

I don't know what to talk about, especially if we're catching up after a few years.

Speaker A: 00:03:10

And maybe a little bit I'm a little bit afraid that they don't actually want to connect with me, that it might be an imposition that they don't like.

Speaker A: 00:03:18

There are probably some reasons behind this Refer you back to that counselor comment before, but it was really highlighted for me a couple times over the past week because of two specific experiences.

Speaker A: 00:03:31

The first was that a couple of friends from high school were going to be in town and they reached out to see if we could get together, me and them and my family.

Speaker A: 00:03:39

And to me this was incredibly meaningful because they're in town on vacation and they wanted to reach out and get together like that.

Speaker A: 00:03:48

That just meant a ton to me.

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And of course we had a great time.

Speaker A: 00:03:51

It was really good to catch up.

Speaker A: 00:03:53

We had a couple of problems like a restaurant being closed and some of those experiences that create the memories we weren't expecting.

Speaker A: 00:04:01

But it certainly raised in my mind the question how often have I been in proximity to friends and I don't reach out and check to see if they want to get together?

Speaker A: 00:04:13

I think at this point any number is too often, but yeah, too often.

Speaker A: 00:04:35

The second experience was really similar.

Speaker A: 00:04:37

I had an old roommate.

Speaker A: 00:04:39

We had lived together around: 2000

Speaker A: 00:04:42

And he was in town for a funeral and reached out to see if we could catch.

Speaker A: 00:04:46

Catch up over lunch.

Speaker A: 00:04:48

We hadn't seen each other for almost 20 years, give or take a couple years.

Speaker A: 00:04:52

It kind of gets muddy in my head.

Speaker A: 00:04:55

And I was really humbled that he would even reach out to me.

Speaker A: 00:04:58

He certainly has other friends in town that he's much closer to that he's got a lot more history with.

Speaker A: 00:05:04

And the fact that he reached out to me meant a lot.

Speaker A: 00:05:08

And as we were getting together and he started sharing some of the things from his other relationships, other friendships that he has and how he connects with people, it just reminded me of how well he'd maintained relationships with some of his older friends over the years.

Speaker A: 00:05:26

And it kind of helped me realize that maybe there's something significant that I've been missing because I'm not that guy that reaches out now.

Speaker A: 00:05:34

Will this change everything?

Speaker A: 00:05:36

Truthfully, I don't know.

Speaker A: 00:05:38

Probably.

Speaker A: 00:05:38

At least not at first.

Speaker A: 00:05:40

I have a long history of not reaching out, of not imposing on people.

Speaker A: 00:05:46

But it's something that I do hope will change.

Speaker A: 00:05:48

And maybe as I see that change, maybe I'll discover the kind of person I can become when I really do or am willing to impose on people a little bit for, you know, for the benefit of the relationship.