How to Decide if Someone You Love is an Asshole

There's good and bad in every one of us. We're all capable of being victims or acting heroically if the situation calls for it. But some people are chronic mind-game players who at some point in their lives seem to have decided that they prefer to drain the ones that love them rather than doing their own genuine healing work.

This might be because these people have never witnessed happiness and healing and don't believe that it's possible. It might be because they're so overwhelmed with their own conflicts and unresolved experiences that they just haven't been able to figure out any way of getting what they need other than by manipulating someone else. Perhaps they're just misunderstood.

For the most part, those people who seem to fight tooth-and-nail to re-create their chronic dramas rather than walk away toward resolution, are "victims" of learned helplessness. They haven't been given enough opportunities in life (especially the first few years of life) to solve problems for themselves and experience the joy of success and achievement. This is a nice way of saying these types of people are spoiled brats.

Whatever the reason that someone is occasionally (or frequently) abusive toward you, the important question you need to answer for yourself is, "Is this guy I love an asshole, or is this guy someone with genuine problems who needs my love and tolerance in order to grow and become a wonderful person?" Is my friend a wonderful gal who sometimes has a slip due to stress or bad events, or is she an asshole who puts on a good show most of the time?

The answer is the latter.

Assholes are not assholes continuously. They are decent human beings sometimes 90% of the time... as long as things are going okay for them. But the moment things don't go marvellously - for them - they feel that it's okay to take it out on you.

Assholes believe that your flaws (and their own) are unacceptable and they feel they have the right to correct your flaws... and that you have the responsibility of helping them pretend that they do not have flaws. They abuse you because they take it personally when you display a flaw in any way that might require their attention or or energy. They also abuse you when you in any way acknowledge their flaws. This isn't the same as being a selfish two-year-old who flips out whenever she's upset about something simply because she has no idea that other people have feelings, too. Assholes are people who know your boundaries and violate them anyway.

So the answer to the question above is that anyone who is ever unkind or abusive toward you as a result of not accepting you for who you are, warts and all... is an asshole.

You can, of course, give people a couple of chances just to make sure. After all, even assholes can see reason and (theoretically) drop their mind games, at least in the movies and in most teen romance novels. However, anyone who you don't feel you can count on or trust with all that you are and dream of being is, as far as you're concerned, and asshole. Even if he or she is wonderful for someone else.

Wait a minute, though. If what I'm saying is true, it means that I'm saying many if not most of the people you've ever loved in your whole life, since you were a happy little infant on Granny's knee, was an asshole. That can't be right! Surely it's something about you that makes everyone treat you like crap.

Here's a little thought experiment to help demonstrate what you are doing to make people abuse you. Think of all the people you've encountered in the last three days. Everyone. That's your spouse, your kids, the guy at the toll booth on the way to work, the lady who renewed your library books, everyone.

Now add up how many of those people were abusive toward you. Be honest here. "He was friendly to the guy in front of me in line, but didn't even look at me," doesn't count as abusive behaviour. Count up how many people in the last three days were abusive toward you. Was it every single human being you interacted with?

Of course it wasn't. I bet it was only the interesting people that abused you. The people who you wanted to like you.

The reason so many of the relationships you've had in your life have been with assholes is that you have only been interested in connecting with those that match your style of energy game. The asshole in you connects with the asshole in them, the sparks fly and things get really exciting. The two of you unite against the world! Up yours, world!

Real love is painful, right? Like a tonne of bricks and explosions of fireworks and the sweet agony of passion.

Wrong. Real love is sometimes quite boring, actually. It doesn't make our day-to-day problems and challenges go away. It doesn't remove our flaws. Real love just gives us the safety and energy to go ahead and tackle those problems with courage and tenacity.

So, there are basically two kinds of relationships we get ourselves into: boring relationships with people we love, trust, and allow and accept, including their flaws...

... and exciting, passionate, risky, roller-coaster relationships... with assholes.

Got it? Assholes are exciting and occasionally (or often) abusive. Other people are trustworthy and occasionally (or often) boring. Fill your life with the latter. Let the assholes entertain you, but nothing more. And accept yourself, including all your flaws.

Then you won't be an asshole, either.