Is Your Self-Righteousness Killing Your Relationships?
by Jimmy Jacob on Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 - 6 Comments - Avoidance, Bloggers, Confessions, Dating Personals, Emotional Cheating, Love, Negative Relationships
Recently, I wrote a free dating advice guest blog for a great and opinionated blogger about how to attract the elusive man. I knew that there were going to be people that disagreed with me (despite the fact I pointed out and addressed my own personal flaws), however I wasn’t expecting the backlash directed at me and how all my relationships are doomed to fail because of the mistakes I have made in the past. (I found this to be ironic, since I’m the one in a stable relationship and the people who were berating me were unsurprisingly single.)
It got me thinking how so many of us are so self-righteous when it comes to our own relationships and the relationships of our peers.
Right or wrong. Black or white. Insight is always a matter of perception. In all things we do in life, especially when it comes to dating and relationships, we try to convince ourselves that we will prosper in all our romantic endeavors. However, the older we get, we really start to realize moral issues such as honesty, sexual fidelity, commitment and jealousy are constant problems in our love lives.
We try to hide our human fragility and complexity to those around us because we have been taught that unless you are going through a certain situation yourself, others are trained to only see the ‘black and white’ of things. Hardly, do people around us ever recognize the shades of grey.
For example, a man leaves a woman for another woman. Instantly he is deemed to be “a dog” to many around him who should have d*ck cut off. The other woman in question is labeled as the “homewrecker.” However, if people would actually get off their self-righteous thrones, they could recognize the shades of grey. They would be able to question if the relationship he left a woman for was actually healthy. They would be able to see that sometimes a ‘homewrecker” could be “the one” to somebody else.
What if a man cheated on his wife once and felt guilt and remorse over it? If you looked at things like they were just ‘black and white,’ you would immediately judge the man for his infidelity. If you saw the grey in the situation, maybe you would notice how the wife in question has been emotionally cheating on her husband for months now by connecting with past lovers for “innocent” conversations over coffee and chatting on dating personals sites. Who is right and who is wrong? But more importantly, who the F*CK are we to judge?
There is an obvious connection between morality and personal relationships. Sometimes our relationships don’t always promote our moral values and sometimes relationships that do promote our moral values are not always the healthiest. Unfortunately, we live in a society that mostly cares about appearances and how a relationship looks in Facebook photos and a couple’s well-furnished apartment, rather questioning the shades of grey.
Facing the why of our actions is difficult when it comes to our relationships. However, we seem to assign that grueling task to others around us without any hesitation at all. We live in a hypocritical society/environment and it’s about time for us to change. We need to empathize and stop judging someone’s relationship problems before questioning our own romantic woes.
So the next time you feel like writing an angry comment and self-important comment or telling your friends all the wrong they are doing in their relationships, take notice of your own romantic entanglements first because believe me, one day someone will throw back a stone in your glass house and shatter you without thinking twice.
Recognize the shades of grey now before you become trapped in a ‘black and white’ world you never wanted to live in.
What are your thoughts and feelings towards this subject matter?
Hey Heath!
Thanks for the support, bro. Although I do believe in constructive criticism, I also believe one should shut the hell up if they're sitting in front of their computers with the Kardashians in the background while cyber stalking their ex boyfriends.
looll
*nods head*
Thanks Eva! Glad to see you back on here!
Long time lurker….
But let me write something…I co-sign what you said! People should thrive more on working on themselves than judging people. If a person can grow after doing something wrong , we should applaud them instead of trying to bury them.
I agree. It is easy being the one looking from the outside in, but when it's you in the position you realize there is much more to it…especially when emotions are involved. Nothing about love or relationships truly makes sense, they contradict themselves constantly. Love is pain, pain is love etc. The key is to know and figure out who you are, what you are willing to deal with and live your life accordingly, then maybe if you're lucky you will find someone that melds with who you are.