How to Avoid Relationship Drama to Improve Your Life
So You Want to Let Go of Relationship Drama?
Relationship drama is something I’ve learnt to reduce and try to completely avoid as much as possible. Going into my 30s, it’s become easier because I’ve proactively looked at where conflicts were being caused and worked on compromises to strengthen my relationship.
After several long-term relationships and now married to the love of my life, I can say that it’s a pretty peaceful and joyful commitment.
My husband Kekai constantly gets women (and some men) throwing themselves at him, despite the wedding ring on his finger. He promptly shuts them down and recounts the uncomfortable situation to me and I have a good laugh about it.
Regardless of how many external parties try to insert themselves into our lives, we’ve built a formidable fortress together that protects us as a unit.
From our experience, this is how it’s come to be like that:
Work On Yourself First
I spent a good amount of time being single before meeting my husband, which was about 3.5 years without being in a relationship though I was “seeing someone” for a year and another for another year.
I think that ambiguous relationships helped me define what it really was that I wanted in a partner (yes I was open to females not just males but I guess I attract more males).
Write Your Wishlist
It’s important to define what you want in a partner and in a relationship. Most of the time, it’s easier to figure out what you don’t want and that is just as helpful – just switch around the values to make up your list of what you do want.
For example: I DON’T WANT someone who seeks out the flirtatious attention of others, or makes me think that they’re not ready to commit to one person.
So you flip it to: I WANT someone who will be faithful and doesn’t need attention from others.
Which is exactly what I did. Then I found someone so faithful, his response to women hitting on him is mostly “My wife is hotter than you.” That’s nice and all but I feel a bit embarrassed when he says things like that. A simple ‘no’ is fine for me but Kekai tells me that doesn’t work most of the time (who are these whores? Have some self-respect!)
Your Ideal Partner Wish-List
I wrote a ‘wish-list’ of sorts, outlining the qualities I wanted in a partner. I stuck by it and affirmed it constantly, whenever I’d meet someone or an opportunity came up. It was so easy and quick for me to say ‘no’ because I knew they weren’t the one I was looking for in the first place and didn’t want to waste time knowing my future husband was out there somewhere.
The sort of things I wished for had absolutely nothing to do with physical attributes. I was looking for the inherent qualities in a man that would ensure a fun-filled life that was drama-free for the most part.
Now when I met my husband, the whole situation was full of drama because he had been trying to get out of a toxic relationship for almost a year. Meanwhile, I was carefree, had just quit my job and had a 3 month world trip booked for my Dirty 30th birthday.
I friend-zoned him as soon as I met him but he fell for me the first time we met and pursued me while dealing with his clingy ex. She would stalk him, then stalk me and even contacted my family who were in Hawaii and by then I had enough.
This was only going on for the last two weeks of my trip but it was enough for me to distance myself from him until I realised he was doing as much as he could to release the drama and I should be supportive of him.
I took a good look at who he was as a man and how desperately he needed to be loved and nurtured after a traumatising few years with a crazy bitch. So we reconnected just after a few days of space and it’s been the greatest adventure of my life ever since.
If your current partner isn’t what you want and you’re compromising on your own values to stay with them, then maybe it’s not a great idea to stay in your relationship. Don’t try to change someone. You can only support their decisions which makes a healthier relationship in the long term because no one is too controlling of the other person.
The Relationship Wish-List
The sort of relationship I wanted was full of adventure and laughs. It was laid-back and open, honest and full of love.
As simple as that.
Whether you’re currently in a relationship or not, figure out what it is you want out of that relationship and don’t be too specific or you’ll likely disappoint yourself when things don’t go exactly how you wanted them (like I want to get married within a year for example, though this happened to me without me specifying it).
Understand What Your Partner Needs
This is an ongoing process because of how people change over time. So you just have to commit to constantly understanding and acknowledging what your partner needs and vice versa.
Is it more love? Is it more attention? Do they need reassurance or ways for you to show them that they can trust you?
Being open and honest helps avoid misunderstandings and miscommunication.
Trust is Key
My relationship so far has been mostly long-distance. When we started dating, Kekai would constantly update me on where he was going, who he was with, what they were talking about, etc. He told me everything about his day not because I asked him to, but because he wanted to. He wanted me to know that he was serious about us.
I heard so many stories of him rejecting women who contacted him after hearing about his long-term relationship break up in the hopes they’d have a chance, that it instilled his loyalty in my mind. He told them all he was already in a serious relationship and then cut ties with them after.
It helped shape my perspective of him and develop a deep trust between us from the very beginning.
Don’t Waste Time Talking About Drama
I grew up in a family that avoids any type of drama at all costs. Being Filipino, there’s a lot of this in extended family groups but we just mind our own business.
When something happens to you that frustrates you and you need to vent, you have a variety of ways to release your anger. My favourite methods to deal with these things is to write in a journal, meditate or discuss with my husband. Then we let it go and try to forget about it.
There were many times in the first few months of our relationship when Kekai’s ex would contact him to talk, to try and convince him to come back, just basically make a lot of very inappropriate comments and be taking desperate measures.
Anything to do with this sort of third-party drama, we would discuss very briefly: “Hey so this happened…” he would say. “Oh that’s bat-shit crazy,” I would reply. Then that would be the end of it. No need to discuss it with others, to bring it back up amongst ourselves and essentially give attention to those that seek it for sinister reasons.
We move on with our lives and focus our energy into building a great life together, talking about our dreams and goals and progress, rather than relive the negative vibes of a crazy person. This makes a huge difference in avoiding relationship drama.
Jealousy
It was about 6 or 7 years ago when I decided to release certain negative emotions in my life which I considered to be unnecessarily detrimental to my well-being. Dealing with depression and bi-polar disorder and not wanting to succumb to prescription drugs to dull my senses, this offered a natural solution that I was sure would help me stay more positive for the rest of my life.
Release the Emotion of Being Jealous By Loving Yourself
“Jealous” is defined as “feeling or showing an envious resentment of someone or their achievements, possessions, or perceived advantages.”
I could break this topic down in a whole other post, so to summarise here, I started analysing my thoughts when I felt a pang of jealousy and wondered why I had those thoughts.
If someone was tall and beautiful, I would’ve yearned for more height and thought that might make me more attractive. People would stop calling me a midget or dwarf, or laugh at me if I were on the dance-floor of a concert because I couldn’t see a damn thing. I could wear more types of clothes and date guys over 6 feet tall, I presumed.
Then instead of thinking all that bullshit, I ignored the immature comments and reassured myself that I can get whatever I wanted in life and my height wasn’t a disadvantage to my goals. I could date tall guys if I damn well wanted to (my husband is 6′) and I was the one who created these self-limiting beliefs that drew out feelings of jealousy.
I invested time in learning to love myself and appreciating everything I have to offer as my highest, authentic self.
Pretty quickly, maybe a year after I first had the thought of getting rid of jealousy as an emotion, I believed I was free of it.
Know When It’s Time To Let Go
“But what if someone so beautiful, maybe even a celebrity or pop star pursues your husband?” you may ask.
Well firstly, I am so sure that my husband will be faithful to me because I do my best to understand and meet the majority of his needs and wants (up to what determines a healthy balance of give and take in our relationship).
I also know he’s the faithful kind and trust me, I have met so many people who have met the right person for them that nothing external could break up their relationship. It pains me when I hear someone declare “all men are cheaters” or that sort of thing.
What a grossly over-simplification of a section of the human race based on a few bad experiences that continue to perpetuate themselves in that disbeliever’s life, simply because of their limiting beliefs and the Law of Attraction (where like attracts like).
Secondly, if he wants to cheat, or leave me for her, then I will let him go because I’m not going to try and change someone’s mind. I will focus my energy on finding someone else who will love me even more and stay committed.
This is how some of my previous relationships ended, not for a particular person but because they just couldn’t commit to a relationship any more and wanted to be free – other women were just a by-product of that need and not the cause.
Avoid Situations That Make Your Partner Uncomfortable
When you start to understand what makes your partner feel uncomfortable, you can start to avoid situations that might present certain opportunities to bring relationship drama. For some, it might be huge sacrifices that they make in order to please their significant other and for others like us, it’s very simple or small changes to our lifestyles.
Friends With the Exes
My husband and I don’t stay friends or keep in contact with our exes for the most part. His exes have proven they took a long time if at all, to get over him and there’s always the chance they will make a move on him if the opportunity came up.
I’ve blocked contact just because my life is simpler when I cut out people who have hurt me in the past, unless they make a really huge effort over a long time to stay in my life as a friend.
Now whether or not you should stay friends with your ex is not the issue here – that is something that is unique to your situation especially if you have kids together. So I’m not going to advise on what’s best in that aspect.
What I will say is if your partner is uncomfortable with you being friends or whatever with your ex, then talk it out and make a compromise.
I don’t have a problem if Kekai wanted to stay friends with any of his past partners because as per the previous point, I don’t get jealous and I trust him beyond a shadow of a doubt.
From his perspective, he has zero reason to communicate at all with any of his exes, and despite his last one still trying to insert herself into his life after almost 2 years of it ending.
People Who Bring Drama
Look anyone who brings indirect drama or just has so much drama in their life, are the types of people that we both tend to cut out of our lives completely. Why should I spend my valuable free time listening to someone constantly bitch about their stupid boss/boyfriend/girlfriend/mother etc?
If I can’t completely avoid them then I’ll usually steer the conversation onto something more positive, like what trips they have planned (Aussies love to travel so this topic is easy to bring up) or what was the last movie they absolutely love and recommend for me to watch.
Just thinking about other people’s drama can give you a headache and it doesn’t have anything to do with you most of the time! So let them get on with their life and you get on with yours separately. If they are reaching out to you for advice, sure you can help them out. Just don’t get caught being someone they rely on because that’s too much responsibility to have from someone you’re not in a relationship with. It could cut into time with your significant other and then start draining your energy. Put yourself, and your relationship first.
Flirtatious Attention
A lot of drama starts when one person or both in the relationship don’t feel like they’re getting enough attention from the other person.
I find it hard myself to give Kekai the level of attention that he wants, because I’m used to being alone and I actually love having a lot of time on my own. So he will bring this up to me and I will make a conscientious effort to give him attention.
In many other situations I’ve observed (not my own) people will attend a social gathering and try to replace what they feel they’re lacking from someone else.
A lot of this can be avoided by being open and honest with each other about how you feel and taking each other seriously to understand the gaps in the relationship.
We don’t really go out to big parties and get wasted like in our individual past lives, or hang out one-on-one with someone who wants us to be more than friends, so there’s no creating opportunities for awkward situations.
Other times it’s simply ordering lunch or working out in the gym when my husband will get approached. As long as you consistently brush it off and say a firm ‘NO’. then it’s a solid reassurance to your partner that you’re not interested in such attention. It’s also a way of respecting your partner and what you have, preserving the trust and honesty that forms the basis of your relationship.
Thanks for reading, I hope it helped you and if so, please share and subscribe to my blog!
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