Relationship sacrifices you should be making
IT is often said that if you want good your nose has to run, which means you have to be willing to go the extra mile to beat the odds.
To do this, chances are you will have to make sacrifices in various aspects of your life, such as your relationship.
But as regards to making sacrifices for your relationship to work, consultant psychiatrist and whole person wellness consultant Dr E Anthony Allen said the sacrifices should be of a nature in which both people experience wellness and growth of the whole person — body, mind and spirit.
“Any sacrifices would have to be to gain that wellness and growth. That wellness and growth only comes when each person wants the best for the other and it is a mutually beneficial relationship. There’s mutual support and not each person bringing 50 per cent but each person bringing 100 per cent, so there’s not dependence but interdependence,” Dr Allen said.
He added that very often people enter relationships only for them to win and do what they want, but it should be a win-win relationship where both people must win.
“So we are concerned as much about the other person’s well-being as ours. If you define a healthy relationship in that way there are things one would need to sacrifice and things one should not,” Dr Allen said.
Below, he explains what one should be willing to sacrifice for a relationship to work.
Self-centred behaviour
Dr Allen said what one will sacrifice is living a life that is centred on them as an individual. “You are moving from “me” to “we”. So one is sacrificing a life that is individualistic for a life that is relational,” he said. Dr Allen added that it means one has to be prepared for sacrificing time to build that relationship and a family if there are children.
Finances
Whether it is a serious relationship or a marriage, household expenses have to be shared and Dr Allen said financial sacrifices for the household will have to be made for the relationship to work and for one individual not to feel burdened.
Time spent with friends and work
Dr Allen said balance between work and home and friends and home is necessary. “With that balance you will need to make sacrifices; it doesn’t mean that you will make your work or your friendships suffer, but you make sacrifices in the interest of a balance that will make your relationship healthy,” he said.
Excessive hours spent with family of origin
“One needs to sacrifice some amount of excessive allegiance to one’s family. Sacrifice some of the time you spend with them,” he said. Dr Allen explained that you don’t sacrifice your loyalty, but you have to recognise that once you’re married or you’re in a stable long-lasting relationship, your relationship with your partner takes priority. It is second only to God — if you believe — and is more important than your work, friends and family of origin.
The psychiatrist said any sacrifices you make should be for the well-being of the relationship and both people in a win-win situation.
“On no account should any member of that partnership give up any loyalty or activity to please the other person in a way that they are going to lose something or that the relationship will lose something,” he said.
“So they are not going to do something which will affect their growth or make it suffer to please the other person or to let their other loyalties that are necessary suffer to please the other person. That is an unhealthy and destructive relationship.”
