Give Up Your Good Intentions—They Hurt Others

 ”You won't say you have a problem,
But it feels like you want SOMEONE…
I should've guessed that you would only ever hurt YOURSELF
I should've guessed, ain't nothing that I could do would stop YOU”
RAC featuring Speak, I Should Have Guessed (2014)

We often want to stop those we love from hurting themselves.  A sibling, or a friend or an adult child is hooking up with someone who is toxic for them. We see all of the red flags, but our loved one is totally clueless. So what do we do?

In recovery we learn to get out of the way. We learn to separate our lives and our problems from those of others. And we learn that we can’t save anyone from themselves.

If a friend is suddenly gaga—and seemingly clueless-- over a man who is recently divorced, between jobs and liking his Corona, we may feel our stomachs churning for this friend. All of the red flags are waving like crazy before our eyes, while the words coming from our friend’s lips are “I think he’s the one!” We want to jump right in, point out all of the pitfalls we see, throw some cold water on our friend and raise the “I saved another one” flag over their head. But we can’t do that with any real success.

When someone isn’t seeing obvious red flags, it means that they are in denial. And people are often in denial for a good reason: There’s something that they need to learn that they either aren’t ready to learn yet or that they haven’t learned yet.

Sometimes a person isn’t ready to admit that they have a problem. Every addict knows that they have struggled with owning their addiction—even after they have entered recovery. And we struggle with it because it is still serving a protective purpose in our lives. The addiction is how we emotionally survived growing-up and sometimes it still serves us as adults, helping us to keep something at bay that we aren’t emotionally equipped to face yet.

And sometimes a person repeats an addictive pattern of behavior, like repeatedly falling for Mr. or Ms. Wrong, because there’s still something about themselves that they haven’t learned yet and they need this toxic person to finally shine the light on the truth. The truth could be that they fall in love with someone just like their father or mother because there are things from their childhood that are pent-up inside of them and they need to uncover these things. The only way they can do this is by finally learning the lesson that only this person can teach them about themselves.

So, yes, sometimes we know that someone we love is only going to hurt themselves, but they need to experience that hurt. It’s actually necessary for their inner-healing. It will give them the answers they need, even if it is painful. This means we need to avoid the compulsion to be a good-doer. Any attempt to rescue them is actually going to stall their progress towards becoming healthier people.