Skip to main content

Safe People: What I'm learning

No, I haven’t died. Life is just happening. 

Lately I’ve been reading Safe People by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. It is the first of several books I want to read as part of my healing process, and it is a real eye-opener. I’m not even finished with it yet, but I have seen myself in some of the pages. 


One thing I recognized in myself is what the authors refer to as the false solution of doing the opposite. I was once deeply hurt by a guy who was dominated by his mother and just couldn’t cut the apron strings. So when I met the man I married and he was rude and unkind to his mother, I didn’t recognize that as the red flag it was. I was just so glad he didn’t let her push him around. In that regard, I was drawn to the opposite of what I had before when neither extreme was healthy. 

The book talks quite a bit about people who close themselves off from relationships, both romantic and platonic, because they have been hurt in the past. I’m certainly in that position right now romantically. I’ve had to face the fact that I have been a horrible judge of character in the past. And what’s to keep me from being a poor judge of character in the future? I know I have learned some lessons I won’t soon forget, but still. I don’t ever want to hurt like that again. I would rather never love again than love and be trampled on. I have enormous trust issues. 

As I said, I haven’t finished reading Safe People, but so far I would recommend it. Have any of you read it? Let me know what you thought in the comments!

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 8, 2018 at 6:30 PM

    I have heard it said that it is wise to free ourselves of relationships that are unsafe either mentally, spiritually, or physically. I have experienced both of those "extremes" you mentioned, in previous relationships, so I know where you're coming from.

    I looked for red flags while on my vacation. This includes family, friends, and even church folks. Certain behavioral patterns will show up if we watch for them, and we can sense when something is off kilter. It was definitely a learning experience for me.

    In one of the churches I visited I didn't feel I could trust everyone, even though I knew most of these people in and from the past. I weighed it out and decided to not go back - for fear of being hurt. Well, that was the underlying reason, although some other situations factored in.

    As far as romance goes, I'm not there yet, but if or when it happens, I want to be careful.

    Perhaps I can find this book used on Amazon. It sounds like a good read.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Case You Were Wondering...

I've been thinking I should probably write a post to clear up a few questions that some people may have about my blog and its purpose.  I'm going to try to do that today. My blog is to help me heal emotionally, and hopefully help someone else who is going through something similar. I want to tell people that need to hear it that change can come to their lives, and they can be strong enough to take steps that they need to take. Some of you may be wondering how I feel about marriage now that I've been wounded so much by someone who was supposed to love me. I still believe in marriage. I've seen too many good marriages to believe that good marriages don't exist. Of course they require a lot of work by both people involved for it to be that way. I do feel like it's not fair that I went into marriage willing to give it my best, and my husband went into it...I don't know. I like to think he probably had good intentions at first. But he certainly didn't...
4 comments
Read more

Dealing with Anger

Most people are familiar with the idea that there are several stages of grief. That can be grief for a loved one or even grief for a lost relationship. Psychology Today lists 5 stages of grieving a relationship:  denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I've read that these stages may not be in order, and not everyone experiences all 5 stages. Anyone want to guess what stage I am in right now? Yeah, that would be anger. And it's not fun. I should clarify that I'm not flying off the handle and making life miserable for the people around me. But sometimes I really want to throw my phone across the room, or something like that. (Thankfully I haven't given into that since iPhone screens aren't exactly cheap to replace!) Anger is a funny thing. While I'm trying to heal from a particular situation, I'm finding that other things and other people can trigger anger right now. Recently there was a situation involving a different person t...
3 comments
Read more

Marriage Advice That Is Wrong If You Are In a Toxic Marriage

If you're married or even seriously dating you might read books and blogs with marriage advice. You'll hear advice from pastors, family, friends, maybe even strangers. A lot of that advice will be good for some, or even most situations. The problem is when you are hearing and reading advice that isn't good for you. The person giving the advice will mean well. But they just can't see the full picture. Today I want to talk about some advice that can actually be harmful if implemented in a toxic marriage. I'm not listing these in a particular order. I'm just writing as I think of these.  Don't talk negatively about your spouse to other people. See the problem with this? If you are being abused in some way, keeping quiet about it is the last thing you should do. This just enables the abuse to go on. Tell people what is happening to you. Some may not believe you. Find someone that will.  Don't focus on the change your spouse needs to make. Focus on...
3 comments
Read more