You are not an excuse – making machine. God, I wish someone had told me this sooner because for the last 22 years, I’ve been an excuse – making machine. When people would wrong me, treat me bad I would make the excuses for them. If a guy played me, lied to me or if a friend cut me out of their life I would just make an excuse for them in the lines of “He/She is going through a lot now”, “The job is stressing him/her out”, “I know he cares, he’s just too scared to show it”. Damn, I really am a writer. Always making stuff up, explaining, elaborating, making everything poetic. I need to put an end to this and so do you. Yes, you.
Making excuses for someone’s behavior is stupid, selfish and harmful all at the same time. This is especially noticeable in relationships so I will take them as examples to explain my point better. Let’s start with why this is harmful behavior. If you constantly make excuses for someone, it means that you are constantly ignoring all of the red flags in a relationship and you will end up hurt in the end. We all ignore red flags because we want to believe that the person we met is great but what we are doing is not. You need to be objective. If you feel like someone is ghosting you, ignoring you and only calling you when they are bored or horny then don’t make an excuse for them. They are not busy, they don’t have a lot on their plate, the little attention they give you isn’t anything special – see them for who they are. Not interested in you.
Now, why making excuses for others is stupid. Because it just is. You are actually giving a free pass to someone who is obviously telling you lies, neglecting you, playing with your feelings. You are literally making it easy for her/him to hurt you and that’s just stupid. It’s hard when you like someone, or even when you’re in love with someone, to admit that the person doesn’t want you. It’s hard to stop inventing fairytales about the person we like and admit they are not who we believe them to be. I honestly think that people fall in love more with the people they imagine in their heads than the real people standing in front of them. I think that the best way to stop making excuses for someone is to stop reading too much into the situation. You got dressed up, ready to go and meet him/her for a night out and they cancel with some lame excuse such as my head hurts or suddenly they have a family emergency. I’m not saying stuff like this has to be false but if it’s happening repetitively then it’s probably lies. You need to accept they are not being honest, don’t answer their messages and just try to let go before you fall in too deep.
And my favorite one. Making excuses for others is selfish. You probably think I am not really normal to write this since making excuses for other’s is literally handing someone an excuse so they would continue doing their thing, you are actually doing them a favor but that’s just what we see on the surface. The underlying issue of it is that you can’t accept the truth because it would hurt you so you make those excuses for him/her in order to make yourself feel better and to feel loved by someone. Just to feel that someone actually cares. This is harmful behavior and to be honest, I am guilty of this. Often, when I would feel alone or when I would get attached to someone I would become a victim of this type of behavior and it’s incredibly difficult to break this cycle. We all have the need to have someone around and then it’s just hard to accept that the person we thought was around well… isn’t. Probably never was. The time you spend making excuses for someone, spend doing something that will make you feel better. Turn off the movie in your head, stop replaying everything that happened, stop asking questions you will not get an answer to and go and run, workout, meditate, read a book, get blackout drunk (but give your phone to someone first). Do something other than digging your own grave.
If you feel like I just stabbed you and started twisting the knife inside of you, don’t worry I feel the same because all of this that I’m writing I need to start applying to myself so maybe, possibly I will be strong enough to take better care of myself. No matter how weird it sounds, sometimes taking care of oneself is the hardest thing to do so we indulge in behaviors as making excuses for others, becoming extremely depended on other people, getting attached to quickly to others, neglecting our own needs to constantly cater to others so that they would like us etc. I could go on forever but we’ll leave those subjects for other posts. Just stay strong and work on loving yourself more.
Sending love and positive vibes,
Luna
I heard you Luna!
The ultimate moral is that we teach others how to treat us. We do not have to be mean in our response to them, but, we also do not have to accept their S—. Life is too short to share with toxic people, when there are so many good, honest people around. I am sure we have all seen ourselves in your post today. Allan
Luna I know that you are beautiful! Stunning post!
I love 1 of July. This is always new way to better. From tomorrow I will have more free time. 1 hour Internet every day, 1 post every week, less comments.
I hear you too, but I shouldn’t take it too seriously. You’re really just imaginative and apply your lively imagination on the actions of others to make it understandable to yourself, to make it give meaning. It’s a gift. It shows you got empathy and care for people. But that shouldn’t make you abstain from expecting them own up to their own actions of course, that’s a separate matter.
This is a lesson we have to keep teaching ourselves daily. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve spotted this behavior in myself in relation to a specific person, cut that behavior out, and then realized weeks, months, or years later that I’m repeating it with another person. In the end, it always feels the same. It’s painful to realize that you’re constantly making excuses for someone just to keep them in your life, but it’s also really liberating to recognize the reality and make some changes.