Ask a Therapist - Communicating Your Needs

If we're going to find a way to get into a new healthy relationship, we wanna be sure what the lessons are that we've learned from that past relationship. That way you can sort of establish those relationship needs that you have neutrally and positively as it relates to this future relationship. (upbeat music) Hi, I am Ryan and I'm a therapist with Headspace. Welcome back to "Ask a Therapist." Our next question comes to us from Asia who has a question about relationships. The question is, "I just got out at a very controlling and manipulative relationship. Sometimes I feel upset with myself for not realizing it sooner or for allowing myself to be controlled. Now that I'm out, I'm loving my freedom, but I'm also unsure of what boundaries to set to prevent this from happening again. How can I establish healthy boundaries in future romantic relationships to heal from my past experience and prevent being controlled or manipulated again?" So Asia, thank you so much for this question. I can tell how important this topic is to you considering that you're wanting to get into a new relationship despite this very difficult relationship that you've come through in the past. And I'm glad to hear you're enjoying your freedom. If we're going to find a way to get into a new healthy relationship, we wanna be sure what the lessons are that we've learned from that past relationship. And I would ask you, what boundaries would you have wanted to set earlier on in that relationship when things did start to get more controlling or manipulative? Because I'm assuming, it wasn't that way from the beginning. I'm also assuming you didn't want to get into a controlling and manipulative relationship. So if that's the case, we want to acknowledge, well, if I had noticed X, I would've said Y. If I had noticed he was being more confrontational or manipulative, I would've wanted to say this. And then from that identification is, okay, well then these are the things that we would want to have you establish early on in any next relationship. And even if you don't want to start a new relationship by sharing every manipulative and controlling experience you had from the previous one, just being able to kind of test the waters with, "Well, I've been in a relationship like this before and that was really hard, so it's important to me that I be treated this way." That way, you can sort of establish those relationship needs that you have neutrally and positively as it relates to this future relationship you're trying to build, as opposed to it feeling like, "Oh, I'm carrying this burden from this old relationship, but I don't know how I'll ever get over it." So we're really trying to emphasize that growth opportunity and lesson that you're learning to be able to build a new relationship that you're excited about. So to summarize: What are the lessons...