Less Than Perfect Relationships

Finding ways to manage being annoyed by the people we love

One thing we don’t have enough practice with is staying in relationships that are not ideal. Everybody does not want to leave their relationship. That’s why I wrote Drama Free. Some people want to stay in dysfunctional relationships, particularly with family, sometimes with friends, partners, or even work. Sometimes we’re just trying to figure out how to navigate the situation better while preserving our mental health and well-being. 

There can be a lot of pressure to do something when we’re faced with a problem —to confront the issue head-on or to sever whatever is causing the issue. If we don’t like our job we may feel pressure to just quit. If we’re having an issue with a friend we may feel like we have to cut them off. However, there are times when, even though we’re not happy with something, we’re not ready or don’t want to let it go. 

Just because we don’t like the way our siblings treat us doesn’t mean we don’t want to be in a relationship with them anymore. Of course we may wish they treated us better, but the path forward may be figuring out how to be in a relationship in a way that honors our mental health needs. 

We sometimes blur the lines between what qualifies as abuse (in which case we need to leave the relationship) and what’s just annoying or uncomfortable. I’ve had friends that have a lot of problems with their partner and it can be hard to watch. That doesn’t mean the relationship is abusive. 

My daughter will tell me her sister is annoying her, and I respond by telling her that she annoys me, her sister annoys me, even the dog annoys me, and I still love them. It’s normal to be annoyed by the people you love. Loving people doesn’t mean we will love everything about them. The people we love are not perfect and their imperfections will sometimes bother us. We need to normalize this feeling and learn to accept that people will get on our nerves, and we can still love them. 

When you are trying to figure out how to manage relationships that are less than ideal:

1. Draw a distinction between abusive practices, annoying practices, and behavior that is intolerable for you personally, based on your beliefs. Sometimes we lump all of these together in our process of feeling through a situation, but they are all very different. 

2. If you determine it’s that second option and someone is engaging in behavior that you find annoying, what will help you to tolerate it? Changing the subject when you’re talking and the annoying topic comes up? Taking a break from them when you’re feeling annoyed? Decide what would be helpful for you. 

3. Set boundaries. Once you have distinguished annoying versus abusive or intolerable behavior, set boundaries with people around what behavior you will not accept and enforce that boundary. 

You’re not going to like everything about every person, environment, and situation in your life, and that’s ok. Not liking something doesn’t always mean you have to let it go.

Journal Prompt

What relationship in your life right now is less than ideal? What practices allow you to stay in that relationship?

A Few Things That Caught My Attention This Week

• When Did Everything Become a ‘Journey’?, by Lisa Miller in The New York Times.

• The Idea of You. You can watch this movie on Prime Video.

• End or Mend: Managing Difficult Family Relationships with Nedra Tawwab on the Reimagining Love podcast. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you stream podcasts.