Giving you up in relationships equals boundary issues.

Think: people pleasing, playing roles, overfunctioning and overcompensating, not addressing code amber and red behaviour, morphing, blending and adapting to suit whichever partner you’re with, and putting your partners on a pedestal by treating them as if they’re an authority over you and a parental replacement.

These habits not only guarantee pain but they also cut you off from intimacy–you can’t do these and be yourself and be vulnerable, which also cuts off commitment and the other landmarks of healthy relationships.

When you associate relationships with sacrifice, very often, it’s fear of loss of freedom and/or fear of loss of self, the irony being that to avoid sacrificing in this way, you procrastinate in an unavailable relationship where you can almost feel as if you’re a prisoner of your own fears and are playing a role where you’re anything but yourself.

It can appear as if you’re not only trying but damn near breaking your back in your relationships but it’s still avoidance. On some level, you will fear that committing will be cosigning to the painful future loss that your fears tell you is going to happen [and that your current relationship habits are acting as ‘protection’ for]. You’re making motions but you’re not having to commit.

If you on some level fear that being in a relationship is going to result in sacrificing you or that being vulnerable is going to result in sacrificing you, it’s because you’ve either witnessed this in key relationships in your life and vowed, “I’m never going to put myself in the same situation as my mother/father/whoever it was”, and/or you’ve been sacrificing you in your relationships (because you believe that this is something that you have to do because the other person is seen as more important/valuable and are trying to create a tipping point of reciprocation so you can increase self-worth) and each hurt is feeding the fears and also renewing the vow that you’ll never put you ‘back there’ again, ‘back there’ being the source of the original hurt that set the stage for this pattern of sacrifice.

It’s a vicious circle because, if you on some level fear that you will lose something by being in a relationship or by opening you up to vulnerability, you make decisions on that basis and you’re either going to be outside of a relationship, ‘free’, but still afraid, or attempting to be in a relationship or in one, but also still afraid. Relationships will equal loss and who wants to ‘lose’?

You will also sacrifice the things that you truly want, need, and desire because you’re catering to these fears and forgetting who you truly are.

It’s also critical to note that any relationship where the other party expects you to give you up as a way of ‘proving’ your love and making them more important, is a relationship to run in the opposite direction from, FAST.

If you recognize that you have this fear of sacrifice /fear of commitment, recognizing its origins is the beginning of using awareness to break that pattern and to work through anything that needs some healing attention. An easy starting point is: Who taught me that this is what relationships look and feel like? Who or what taught me to be afraid?

So examine where your story of relationships are about sacrifice came from. Ask questions, examine your family connections or your relationship history and see where you can rewrite that story and address any old hurts that are presenting themselves in your current relationship habits, because it’s not worth sacrificing your life and hurting you, just to keep old stories in play.

Ultimately, the real sacrifice that you have to make is giving up the value of the protection that these beliefs and stories give you (hiding out) for something more valuable and important to you (your true self and the relationship you want).