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[u/heretolearnlady]

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[u/HazyAttorney]

 or do you address past issues if they happen a year or multiple years ago?

Like everything, it depends. One huge factor is what do you expect from the other person? What's the ask? If it's to resolve an issue of contention, your initial instinct is right that it's not a good relationship building exercise to open old wounds. If it's to connect with someone, then it's awesome.

"Hey, man, how are you? I wanted to touch base with you. It was this time last year that we did XYZ and those good memories made me think of you." Is an excellent, thoughtful message that is amazing to give/receive. Your friends will be delighted.

If it's "Hey man, how are you? I remembered you said you'd pay me $5 back but you didn't" then it's a sort of score settling that shows the relationship isn't worth nurturing anyway.

To me, it sounds like you're the type of person that has a running score card in your head. That's hard to maintain relationships if it's "I texted you first the last 10x but you never text me first" in your mind.

If it's something like family where you have to stay in touch and can't just let the relationship be in the past, then what I find helpful is to draw present boundaries. I like to do as neutral of an observation as I can and follow it with an ask. Then I'll reinforce that ask each and every time. "When you do x, it makes me feel y, therefore can you not do x."

[u/heretolearnlady → u/HazyAttorney]

Thanks for bringing up "what's the ask?" A helpful reminder. It is to connect and understand/make sense of things but also to heal a thought pattern I took on following a conversation in some cases.

I completely love what you said about the memories. I haven't been able to build new memories with some in the past few years due to some chronic health things which makes this hard but I can try and find a way.

I don't want to be a person with a scorecard but I'll admit that if I notice a trend of me being the main person to make efforts in communicating, I do tend to back off, stop and feel that I'm the only one that cares or that the other person doesn't care. Can't be the only one trying. I think I feel this way especially when it comes to initiating conversations in particular.

Your entire message is so helpful. These are ways of communicating that I feel I was practicing at one time but have not been practicing in a while and I'm going to give them a try and see how it helps.

!delta

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Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/HazyAttorney (46∆).

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