Book Excerpt from Women, We're Only Old Once (Cooper): Difficult Relationships That Take Even More of a Toll As We Age

 

Difficult Relationships That Take More of a Toll As We Age

Long-standing relationships that are chronically stressful begin to take a greater toll as we age. We know that chronic stress and mental anguish have a greater impact on our physical bodies as we age. Making a final attempt to mend difficult relationships or to let go and to stop obsessing about them becomes an essential task when you are on the cusp of old age. Mental distress robs us of valuable time and energy we need or want for other pursuits so it becomes essential to pick our stresses.

Difficult relationships are not those friendships that seem to have a natural ebb and flow and enter and leave a life. Most of us have countless relationships that we can pick up after years. Difficult relationships, on the other hand, become tiresome, unbalanced, and demanding. If resolving a difficult relationship were easy, we would have done it long ago. However, we somehow have gotten entangled in old feelings, responses, hurts, and misunderstandings.

The measure of the need to change the difficult dynamic is the degree of stress the relationship causes in our life. If we are thinking about it, reliving it, and inventing scenes with this person, then it’s taking valuable time and personal resources. As we age, we begin to weigh the stress against the value and importance of the relationship. More than likely these stressful relationships involve family because they tear us between our sense of family and our inability to resolve the stress. We do not easily leave our tribe, and I believe most of us cannot walk away without first truly trying to resolve the issues.

Difficult relationships that involve family, either birth family or relatives by marriage, are packed with emotional baggage from the past. Why else would someone choose to be in a room with unspoken but detectable resentment? Why else tolerate passive or active disrespect? Why else would someone not tip the house of cards and let it fall?

Resolutions of any difficult relationship requires will and readiness on each person’s part. Both or all must accept part ownership in the successes and failures of the relationship. If we find that we feel we are the victim and abused or misunderstood by the other or, more important, feel no fault for the problems, we are setting the stage for another failure. Resolution requires accepting ownership and responsibility for our actions that contribute to the problem.

We decide. We either work to reform the relationship, to leave it, or to stay in it as is for the rest of our days. If we choose the last, then we must lower our expectations and quit obsessing about it. If not, we ought to pick again. Make peace with the selected option. Remember that we always can pick our stress.

A contingent of my family, like many, struggles in the environment of starkly differing political beliefs that divide families. Americans seem to have come to a place in our society of acceptance of calling others bad names or characterizing opposing philosophies as evil. I, like many women, struggle for peace in the household. My experience is classic in that members of my family had shared joys and despairs for years but had evolved into a pattern that did not allow for meaningful communication, let alone resolution.

Tension and disrespect started to show in unrelated communication, and I found myself spending too much time and energy agitating over the turn of events. I requested that we have a frank discussion not about the politics or philosophies but about the way we treat each other and prepared myself to listen. They didn’t want to talk about it, and I had to come to understand that it was a lot more important to me than them. I had to come to terms with their explanation that their lives were too busy to resolve the communication issues that since I exposed my concerns were now wedged between us like cement barriers.

I had taken the risk of losing the relationship, the reason most of us don’t give words to the tension. I lost. It was more like a burden lifted out of necessity than through a Zen moment when I finally let it go. I realized how weighted down I was by the struggle to resolve a particularly difficult relationship.

As often happens when we are ready, I was given the gift of words for my decision when the following quotes appeared in column in our local paper (DeBey, 2011). The timing was perfect and I breathed the last breath I would spend on this struggling relationship.

·     “It is important to surround ourselves with people who can nourish and sustain us.”

·    “Surround yourself with people who will sustain your very soul. Treasure every moment with them.”

This simple, even obvious, message seemed like a revelation to me; clearly, I needed permission to move on. Many women do in our complicated quest for relationship peace. Our choices can become less about giving up unhappy or unfulfilling relationships and more about choosing what we want from life. Eventually, we will lose the anger and the hurt and keep our care and love in perspective and intact. We become cleared for those occasional contacts and at least mature enough to value what we do have and stop obsessing over what we don’t have.

Most of us feel deep gratitude for those relationships that seem to work for both or all of us. Good relationships are what we do for each other, a gift we give each other and accept from the other. In the dimension of growing old, we are more prudent in how we use our time and energy in relationships. As my story shows, it’s not easy to give up those long-held relationships, especially family, even when that final line is crossed. We are old enough to know when we are struggling against the current of a difficult relationship and although it may take us time, we will know when to stop.

We may find that we don’t have to give up everything, or we may at last discover the line that we won’t cross. We will be guided by our true intention to stay in the relationship and desire to find the balance that reduces an unhealthy obsession. At least, we will learn as I did whether there is interest in our relationship partners to resolve the difficult relationship. On occasion, we are rewarded when they and we return to ride the same wave.

Women, We're Only Old Once is winner of the Phoenix Award for best new voice in health & fitness.

other awards?

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Bertha Cooper has also authored a popular pandemic book, Old and on Hold. currently on sale at MSI Press for $5.