Why Healthy Relationships Can Feel Uncomfortable

You’re familiar with dysfunctional relationships. Perhaps you grew up within some tricky family of origin dynamics. You had an absent parent. Or, maybe you’re familiar with parentification – you learned to be the responsible one as a child. Unhealthy, or dysfunctional relationships might be status quo from much of your experience. You crave an emotionally healthy and stable relationship.

So, why do healthy relationships in your life leave you feeling uncomfortable?

This is a great question…or curiosity. I think it’s more about what truly is familiar to you – to your nervous system – than what you might like. Meaning, while you deeply desire healthy relationships, it is uncomfortable for you to be in them. What can happen is there might be a difference of opinion or perspective, and you’re used to needing to respond in a particular way. If you were parentified, you might be used to people pleasing to make sure the other person is appeased.

However, this leaves you feeling perhaps small, or unseen. You might even be angry, knowing you couldn’t express your own opinion. Maybe it’s scary. What would it be like to have your own opinion…?

If, in the case of a healthy relationship, there is space for you to have your own perspective, and it is different than the other person’s, what then? Healthy relationships include differing values and opinions (among other things). It’s how you navigate these differences that separates healthy from unhealthy relationships.

Repair is one way to go about a difference that may have ended in tension.

If you’ve never experienced difficult conversations (or differing perspectives), you might feel wildly uncomfortable in this space. The best way to begin is one small choice at a time. You can’t learn to trust healthy connection overnight. It takes time. Experiencing what it’s like to sit in a little discomfort from a disagreement, then taking to the person you trust, could feel so so difficult. This is where growth can happen. In this space, you might be able to begin learning what it’s like to cultivate healthy dynamics.

If chaos is familiar to you in relationships, it makes sense that calm would be difficult.

Ironically, calm or health can feel very challenging. I invite you to be curious about the hardest part? Are you uncomfortable because the relationship or the situation is unhealthy, or because you’re not familiar with having a hard conversation and being safe. (This sense of safety includes emotional, psychological, relational and other areas.)

The absence of chaos can feel unnerving. You don’t know it or trust it. That makes so much sense, if your learned experience is that relationships are untrustworthy or unhealthy. If you’ve had to behave in a certain way to maintain the relationship or keep others regulated, anything otherwise would be new.

New experiences aren’t bad but they can feel uncomfortable and your nervous system might not trust the newness. Yet.

Another experience common to clients who are familiar with unhealthy relationships, is the chaos. While the chaos is emotionally dysregulating, causes anxiety and may have historically led to a traumatic experience, it can become familiar. You don’t like it, but the emotional uptick gives you a rush. Again, it might be how you know relationships to be.

The felt sense of safety in healthy relationships might feel boring. You might even notice at times that you begin to stir up chaos, because you are familiar with that. Your nervous system might briefly appreciate the calm, but you do not trust it. That makes so much sense. Can I invite you into a new practice?

When you notice safety – which can feel boring – can you settle in for just a moment?

Can you take a deep breath, notice what it’s like to be grounded and calm. How does your body experience this? It might be uncomfortable…but not because it’s bad, just because you’re not familiar with calm. You might be unfamiliar with peace – or lack of chaos.

Learning to trust healthy connection is not something that happens overnight. Counselling can be helpful in exploring your history with relationships, or perhaps the relationship you’re currently in. You might appreciate a trauma-informed counsellor who can support you in nervous system regulation and healing parts of you that have been hurt in past relationships.

If any of this feels familiar to you, I invite you to reach out. I’d love to connect! I work in the Langley area and offer in-person appointments. I also offer online counselling appointments anywhere in BC. Sometimes couples counselling is helpful in the context of relationship struggles. However, you might find individual counselling could also support you in healing. Please reach out and book your appointment!