How to avoid unhealthy relationships if you are a highly emotional person

You are human, and relationships are difficult to maintain over time. Most of us are afraid to die alone, so we build relationships partly to fill the void, partly for appearances, partly for the stories we make up to deal with life’s difficulties. All the rest depends, again, on your education, religious beliefs, real experiences, etc. With time, you may realize that only a very few of those relationships last. And those that last are genuine. 

Being healthy is not all about yourself; it also depends on your environment (thank you, Aristotle). You’d be surprised, once you change your environment, how much it influences your mindset. To help out, let me give you three simple real-life examples of unhealthy relationships and how you can, with your own limited means, manage to let them go without harming yourself any further—by asking yourself the right questions:

1. A "friend" you have known for over 30 years cuts you off a few days after you bury your own father, without any explanation. Your first emotional reaction may be to overthink what you have done wrong to deserve this—add to that the pain of losing the presence of someone you loved deeply—and here you go again, falling into the vacuum of self-doubt.
Turn the question the other way around, toward the liability section, if you are into balance sheets: what is wrong with her that she cannot discuss the issues at stake directly with you? Why can’t she come to your face and tell you what is wrong instead of hiding behind her screen?

Remember, there are always two sides to every story. What follows is equity.

2. A man who is also a father invites you for dinner. He lights a candle, smells good, wears his perfect suit, and starts talking only about himself. He serves you his certainties about life and his moral comments, and each time you try to share your own thoughts based on your experience, you receive a condescending look. Again, you might be tempted to wonder what is wrong with you. But once more, turn the mirror the other way. If the man or woman doesn’t ask any questions about you, it is because he is not interested; perhaps she/he is interested in what you can provide to her/him.

And there is a big difference between genuine interest and profit-driven interest. Like a dear friend of my father reminded me a few months ago: the biggest crooks he has ever met actually wore suits.

3. You just got a new job, and your direct supervisor is located miles away from you. All he knows about you comes from your CV, your LinkedIn page, and his biased perception of you when you speak online or on the phone. When your superior blames you, emails you nonstop during an entire week, including the weekend, because a payment you didn’t process didn’t arrive on time, and uses what he perceives as your “occidental” culture as the guilty factor, your emotional reaction may once again be to wonder what is wrong with you. But remind yourself where you come from, where your father was born, how he raised you to be tolerant of cultural differences—and do not react.

It is very difficult not to react to bullying, especially after the pandemic, especially in the world we are living in, and especially if you are a highly emotionally sensitive person. If you don’t set boundaries, any relationship will disappoint you—because communication is difficult. The probability that you will mess up sooner or later is high.

In my own small experience of life, people often do not apologize, while I have been apologizing all my life—because I always knew how heavy life can be, how appearances can be dismissive, and how little I actually know. 

So forgive. Even in silence. And not because of religion, but because of yourself. The more you hold grudges, the more they will eat you up—and that is a purely empirical observation.  

Protect what really matters. And what really matters is you.