In any sort of relationship, my mantra has always been:

Pick your battles

When you are in a relationship with more than one person, you have to decide either to compromise, let someone else have their way, or push to do what you want. Any reasonable relationship has to have a combination of these three things. There has to be a balance of power, so to speak…

Why?

Ok- let’s give a hypothetical (no fooling- I’m making it up as I type)

A and B are in a relationship. They are buying a house.

Person A List

  • screened in porch
  • soaking tub
  • 2+ acres
  • white kitchen

Person B List

  • four car garage
  • game room big enough for pool table
  • steam shower
  • large wine fridge

A is really vocal about what they want in a house. B has decided to let A have their way. So they get a house with all of the things A wants and none that B wants.

Person A List

Person B List

  • Traditional Décor
  • Shades of green and pink
  • bedroom entirely pink
  • carpet
  • modern décor
  • black and white
  • no pink
  • hardwood floors

B is trying to be non confrontational. Though B does really want the things that A wants, B is willing to concede. A is again really vocal with what they want and the house gets decorated with all the things that A wants.

Imagine the relationship continues like this. B wanting things, A pouts and gets mad, B acquiesces…

This pattern continues through to everything. B is trying to keep the peace, so always gives in to A…

At what point does B break?

B is surrounded by colors that they don’t like, sitting on furniture they can’t stand, and parking their car on the street. They don’t have a workroom in the garage nor a vintage PacMan machine.

At what point did B lose who they were? At what point did B’s wants, needs and desires disappear?

At what point does B disappear?

At what point have we let so much go that you’ve let your personality go?

As with everything, there needs to be balance. If it is actually a relationship, both sides must give and take. A relationship can’t be one sided. If it is, it’s no longer a relationship: it’s more like a dictatorship…

I know people are always saying that we should let things go…

And I agree with that- to a point…

Sometimes you need to have your way.

Sometimes you have to let your partner or your child have their way.

Sometimes you have to compromise…

Figure out what is most important to you, what is most important to the other person in your life, and work from there…

But don’t let the person in your life disappear…there’s a reason why you liked them the way they were before…

76 thoughts on “Let It Go, Go, Go, Gone”

  1. I admit that for a long time I was the person who disappeared. I spent so much time trying to be who others wanted and giving up my wants that I lost who I was. It’s hard and leads to depression. I’m finding my way back now.

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    1. I’m glad you’re finding your way back to yourself. I think sometimes we don’t even realize we are letting ourselves go until we are gone. While I’m non confrontational to a point, I know that sometimes I need to win

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    1. Not at all. Yet I’ve seen it happen, and I think there are those who really think it’s better to limit disagreements to the point where you concede on everything

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      3. I’m thinking about what you said (thanks for that btw😆) I got inspired to do this blog because of comments on another blog that I wrote, where a bunch of people commented that you need to let the small stuff go, because it’s not worth it. I think there are people who think that the small stuff isn’t worth fighting about,,,which it isn’t, until it is…..does that make sense?

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      7. I think there are some people who don’t want to compromise. Or they compromise so rarely the other feels lost. For some relationships there are always/never situations

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  5. Excellent post and I predict a lot of comments which I enjoy reading. You probably have some follow-up ideas. I do also. The problem for some is that communication is learned. Some people don’t like confrontation and haven’t learned to give feedback without it being received as criticism. I am leading towards my support of Toastmasters as it teaches what is not taught in school, how to communicate, how to listen and how to give feedback. It’s not all public speaking. I think your post is pretty accurate, people in a relationship sometimes end up blowing up after decades of living in a world that they didn’t choose. – David

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  6. I think those people who let others have their way all the time (B) have less sense of self. The other is louder, stronger more vocal and since they would rather not have a confrontation the other wins? It is not really winning as there are times the A person gets what they thought they wanted and then find out it is not what they like after all, but now can’t back down. You have to have a real sense of yourself so that you can compromise.

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  7. This is a great post. I feel like I was raised by my parents to feel like my own needs and wants were not valid. I have struggled at times in married life to voice my own needs because of this. One can definitely disappear as others have said.
    I feel like your post should be part of premarital counseling.

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      1. seriously…those shows are ticking me off these days. You’ve got couples that clearly should be in therapy disagreeing about oh you know, the basics..one likes modern the other likes Victorian..one wants a fixer upper, one wants already furnished, one wants a condo, one wants 2 acres..and yet they put on those happy faces and gush over “great SPACES (AKA rooms) for entertaining..” yeah, right..let me guess.. he’s envisioning a poker party, she’s dreaming of tupperware parties.. (or tea clubs! 😉)

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      5. Me neither.. when my husband and I went on a cruise, we were on deck every morning to see the sun rise..the ship was completely quiet, it was awesome to share that.. I would have done it on my own if I had had to, but the memory of those sunrises wouldn’t be the same..

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      6. My husband gets up early and even my getting up a half hour earlier annoys him. Can you imagine someone up at 6am and their partner up at 11? I can’t imagine!

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      8. It’s these kind of things that really add up. People say they’re stupid, but they’re not. Like room temp….I’m at my desk with a blanket around me because my husband can’t work with a warm room….it starts to get to you

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  10. Very good post and why did it take me 30 years of marriage to figure it out? I think, though, that part of my problem was the way I was raised in that mom always said “The husband is the master of the house.” I was fortunate to find a guy that didn’t take too much advantage of that, however, I do know now that I should have stood up for myself (and the kids) way more than I did. Just the other day I took a stand on something and the kids said “It’s the new mom.” LOL

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  11. This is absolutely how I live my life. I’m exceptionally fortunate in the fact that my Hubby and I either have the same tastes in most things or he really doesn’t care one way or the other. We are both really happy with the things in our lives because we so rarely have disagreements on the kinds of things that really matter. That and we actually talk about and decide on pretty much everything together. Granted, it took me going through a very one sided relationship with a narcissist to learn the importance of the give and take partnership. It took me even longer to figure out that this balance is important in every single relationship you have, not just the romantic ones.

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  12. Great post and comments as usual- I can’t help but hit the Like button on so many comments!

    I am def person A. And now that I am 54 and have lived alone for at least 20 out of the last 30 years, excluding my darling son (who is kinda an A person too but “it’s my house and I earn the money son”), I can’t imagine I will ever be very good at compromising… *shrugs kinda happily

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      2. Yet…I’m going to say that there are a bunch of divorced couples who played this game for awhile. We have friends who constantly bicker over everything

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  17. I was Person B and my Ex was (and still is) Person A. I acquiesced to be a people pleaser and to avoid ugly arguments with him. He was verbally abusive, but I didn’t really understand how bad until I finally left. I had my own controlling behaviors too, but he picked the furniture, art, etc. I picked a few things but not much. When I moved out, I left 90% of it behind because I never picked it. Great discussion BTW.

    My challenge now is to not disappear and acquiesce in new relationships. I did in the 5-year one after my marriage, so obviously I have not learned that lesson. The pandemic has given me the space to sit back and reflect and hopefully fix or improve this part of me.

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  18. Yep, so very true, LA. Relationships are about reciprocity. If there is none, it is not a relationship, as you write. And, today, for me anyway, relationships are also about having the difficult conversations to reach a compromise, rather than acquiescing, which, of course, is easier in the moment, yet, as it turns out, not in the long run. More painful in the long run. Nice post.

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      2. I did in my first marriage, which is why it ended. Now my husband and I are in much more equal footing. Mainly because he doesn’t have strong opinions n the things that matter most to me and vice versa. Our real issues were regarding his family

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  21. With my about to be ex throughout our 30 year marriage I always said that as long as we could/would talk to each other re what was bothering us we would be fine. I also said that I knew we would change as long as we changed in the same direction we would be fine. Wouldn’t you know that we encountered both of those obstacles i.e. signs of growing apart more towards the end of our marriage?d

    If I wanted to go back and analyze how and when these fissures started to appear, and I have a little bit, I could say there were some instances of that. I would also say that when those earlier divisions came up, I feel that I raised them and we’d get past them till they came up again. I think the roles were reversed starting around the midpoint of our marriage. Either way, we have now split and are each probably the better, or at least the more relaxed and hopefully happier, for it.

    I always told my kids that when it came to relationships you should figure out what you absolutely could not stand to live with and the rest would be negotiable. I probably should have added that you should also prioritize those issues, which I think also applies in picking one’s battles and in consciously choosing to let some things go. I think I probably just reached the point where I knew his behavior when reeking of alcohol was just not something I could get past anymore.

    Final point – I think he would say that he was the person who disappeared early in our marriage. I also think he wanted it that way since I believe he saw himself as the breadwinner and me as the homemaker, even though our lives were not always run along those lines at the time. I think as time passed he continued to feel less himself (he actually told me that, come to think of it) while I felt that I was being forced to lose myself more and more to support his newfound outside interests, which didn’t jive with mine, not to mention to coddle him in all his aches and pains and interpersonal insecurities and perceived slights.

    For some reason I’d say he wanted me to become his mommy, now that our kids were grown and gone, and I was just not prepared to take on that role vis-a-vis someone that I’d expected would be able to establish his own satisfactory life after retirement. Maybe he did that and just decided it wouldn’t include me. I’m OK with that. I just wish he had let me know sooner.

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    1. My first husband had a substance abuse problem. I knew that I could got get past it anymore. You have to know what your non negotiable things are…and be honest with yourself

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