Why do they need you to fail them?

Something quite intriguing and yet so predictable happened to me last week.  A few months ago, I was contacted by a lady who lives in Australia and who inquired about my relationship counseling services.  In the weeks that followed, we had several informal phone conversations relating to domains she needed to improve in her life.  Early September, she called me to say, “Nicolas, I am ready!  I am selling my house and my business here in Adelaide, and I am moving to California.  And I have promised myself that I will be in Las Vegas for my birthday mid-November, so I can work with you for three days.  You can trust me on that!”  As soon as she had pronounced the “P-word” and the “T-word,” I instantly knew that she would never deliver.  I am always highly cautious of folks who use “promise” and “trust” with candidness.  But more importantly I knew that she would twist things around to clear herself of her inability to keep this promise she had made.  And this is exactly what happened a few days ago.  She accused me of having utilized in my most recent article a thought that she had shared with me weeks ago during one of our conversations.  She invoked this reason to hurl flows of insults at me, justifying why she now could not trust me and therefore not work with me anymore.

Why did I remain totally cool, calm and collect in the face of such ridiculousness?  I was fully aware that it had absolutely nothing to do with me.  She had promised herself something that she was unable to keep.  To preserve the integrity of her ego, she had elected to chastise me and eliminate me from her life.  She literally made me fail her.  She twisted things around by stipulating that I was the one who could not be trusted.  She instrumentalized this ordeal from start to finish with one goal in mind: to make me the bad and untrustworthy person to conceal her shortfalls. 

::: Is anger a refusal to be wrong?

What kind of individual uses something that is completely anecdotal to create a situation that is filled with anger, drama and turmoil, so he or she can push an agenda that arbitrarily excludes others?  It does not make any sense to me.  Isn’t it so much easier to be truthful from the very get-go, so relationships and interactions can be salvaged, do not have to be affected by such negativity, and energies can be preserved to create greater?  Well, how many people do you know are truly ready to admit that they are wrong?  This is the core of the issue.  Instead of revealing that she was wrong, this lady from Adelaide chose to build a case against me, as a way to sweep her lack of credibility under the carpet while transferring the entirety of the blame on me.  Have you ever been confronted to similar situations?  Have you ever been the recipient of someone else’s sudden disgust because of his or her utter refusal to be wrong?  Sadly, in this type of circumstances, everything goes until you choose to endorse a blame for which you have never been responsible.  This is your only alternative to put an end to the craziness.  I even apologized to her for whichever misunderstanding my actions had created.  But that was not enough.  Had she accepted my apology, she would have been forced to come clean about her inability to keep her promise, and this she could not do.  So her only choice was to continue until I chose to withdraw, which I ultimately did.

For your own sake, it is very important to observe what people’s intrinsic motives are when they are mean, revengeful, resentful and obnoxious with you.  You cannot limit yourself and observe the superficial layer only, because it is most likely to appear totally lunatic.  To determine the core reason behind the anger is what matters.  However be aware that your unwillingness to identify the true nature of someone’s anger will force you to react in ways that match the anger that is directed towards you, consequently making you as ridiculous and pathetic as its instigator.  Therefore you must remain neutral to the flow of negative energy that is sent your way.  Then you have clarity and successfully pinpoint what is really going on, while realizing that the cause of the drama has strictly nothing to do with you.  Once you know that, you can go on with your life with a large smile on your face, instead of continuing to beat yourself up because of someone else’s personal insecurities and frustrations.   

How many people have you met so far in your life who could not obtain from you what they had decided they were entitled to receive in the first place?  They thought that they would be able to take from you and control and manipulate you at their discretion, before realizing that their enterprise was destined to fail.  In an attempt to hide the utter ridiculousness of their demeanor and choice, they used anger as the only way they knew to retaliate.  However were they retaliating against you or, in a non-cognitive way, were they rather reacting to their immense stupidity?  To understand the latter is absolutely crucial.  It is also critical to acknowledge that those men and women who are angry at you often times admire you.  But they refuse to admit it.  They know that they will never be able to equal your talents and abilities, so they think that they must systematically try to drag you down to their level.  They utilize you as their punching bag to spew the flows of all those frustrations that they have suppressed for ages.

::: Can you be in a relationship with someone who sets you up to fail? 

Are you aware that there are many men and women out there who are in relationships with people who continually set them up to fail?  Isn’t it absolutely insane?  Would you like to open your eyes, and observe all the dynamics that exist around you, including the ones that you have created in regard to your own relations?  That may be worth the shot.  Why would they need to set you up for failure, anyway?  Well, here is a fact:  when you shine or when you are happy, it does not necessarily go well with others.  I believe that happiness should be contagious, not misery.  I love to see people who are happy.  I think that it is very inspiring.  Sadly, most individuals actually resent the fact that you are happy or that you are successful in whichever area of your life.  Your success clashes with their total inability to create anything positive in their own lives.  You are a walking and breathing insult to the pathetic existences that they have elected to create.  Once again, you are not responsible.  So will you stop making other’s deliberate nastiness your problem and finally realize that you are not the source of the issue?

Wouldn’t it be so productive if folks who are experiencing problems creating a life that is fully satisfying to them chose to understand what the foundations of your happiness and/or success are, so they could apply some of those precepts to their own existence?  But let’s face it, in our Western societies you do not have the right to shine.  It is considered abject in regard to those who are less happy or less “lucky” than you.  How many times have you been vilified for being joyful, and why?  Were you vilified by someone who was matching your level of happiness, or by someone who could not stand to see another individual shine?  Now, why are there men and women who are unhappy and unfulfilled?  In most cases they have chosen it, therefore their choice is not your responsibility. 

It is important to recognize that there are many individuals out there who do not have your best interest at heart.  Should you try to know why they need you to fail?  The roots of most people’s personal insecurities are much more complex than the infamous, “My parents used to abuse me when I was a child, so today I hate the entire world!”  Isn’t that a terrific justification?  If a friend tells you, “You’re so fat, you’ll never land a decent man!” why don’t you take a minute to assess the dynamic of this particular friendship?  You will certainly realize that your interlocutor is talking about herself and not about you!  Unfortunately, how many times have you chosen to give so much importance to what others had to say (supposedly) about you, and ended up believing it so strongly that it took years to undo the consequences?  How many times have you embraced the nasty comments of your partner because of the trust that you had placed in him and in the significance of your relationship?  Someone always accuses you of what he or she is, just like this lady from Adelaide.

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There are many men and women in this world who have only one goal in life, and it does not have anything to do with bringing expansion to their lives.  It does not have anything to do with empowering others either.  Their number one goal is to control.  They do so by being covertly mean, obnoxious and vicious.  They are very successful at it because they find people who choose to be controlled.  Are you ready to identify who they are?  Are you ready to be ripped to shreds as soon as you have discovered their true selves?  At the end of the day, you will be delighted to have them out of your life!