Relationships 2026

“I want to be in a relationship where you telling me you love me is just a ceremonious validation of what you already show me.” Steve Maraboli 

This week’s conversation is around relationships and at times, all relationships can be tricky.  We have several relationships: romantic, friends, family, work, business and so on.  Each one can be different and is dependent on the type of relationship.  A service relationship with a solicitor or your doctor, is not only about trust – it also requires a level of competency as well.

Relationships can also be complicated, especially when family’s fracture or you want and/or crave a relationship that is not reciprocated.  They can be difficult to manage, especially when others in your circle do not hold all the information about the fallout or behaviour.  People make assumptions on the relationship that they hold with the other party, not what you have been in.  No one knows your “truth” unless you tell them, and will they believe your version?

This happened to me many years ago prior to becoming a parent myself.  I was babysitting my boss’s children whilst most of the staff at my work went to a local Bachelors & Spinsters ball.  Something happened and they came home early, in which he did some horrible things both in front of me and his elder daughter.  I left in the early hours of the morning, prior to the staff returning from the event.

I was home and still trying to process what I had witnessed when the neighbour (and workmate) arrived home.  The boss’s wife had driven him home and when he asked why I hadn’t stayed, she told him what had happened.  He came to my place, and I clearly remember him saying “If I had told him, he wouldn’t believe me as …….is a good bloke”.

This event clearly changed how I viewed this person and opened my eyes into his character.  I had a few more months of working under this man until our tenure was up and we were transferred.  This was my first experience of “controlling behaviour” as an adult and it still sits in my mind (and body) some thirty-five years later.  

Up until that moment in time, the wife had been hiding the abuse and did so for many years.  Thankfully I have heard on the grapevine that she did manage to leave.

Control is a subject that comes up in my professional space and there is so many different types of abuse; financial, social, physical and sexual, emotional and verbal.  It can happen in any relationship, even from children to parents.  Unfortunately, family violence is not only present in my professional space, but also even with family and friends.

Relationships can be beautiful, but can also be damaging.