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"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." — Carl Jung
There was a time when I stayed in the wrong relationship and the wrong job without even realizing it. It took me years to understand why I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.
People always told me it’s fate.
You cannot have a good relationship and a thriving career at the same time.
Either one or the other. And there was a time I actually believed it, because I experienced this phenomenon myself, in both directions.
The relationship ended after almost five years exactly when I finally started making money and getting recognition. And I also quit the job when I fell in love. Two of my ex-girlfriends broke up with me when they found a new job.
Many friends told me about the same experience and they also started to expect that outcome when they finally found a job or a partner. It almost turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy by thinking about having success in a job and love at the same time.
The myth seemed to be true.
Either that, or there must be something else we missed all the time.
I don’t believe in myths but I believe that there is almost always a reason for everything that happens in our life. We need to pay more attention.
After years of observing, thinking and reading I recognized the pattern that caused this fate-like situation.
And fortunately it’s not about a higher power playing an either-or game with us.
It’s about security.
When I finally had something, I saw everything
When I was unemployed back then, around the age of 22, I had a girlfriend.
We loved each other, moved together and tried to live our lives. But it was a tough time for me because after university I wasn’t able to find a stable job, only temporary solutions.
It sucked. But at least I had my girlfriend.
Who actually often talked to me like crap. She criticized me every single day. Same as my mother did. But I can tell you that I never once thought about breaking up with her.
When people asked me about our relationship I said we were happy, and I meant it.
She was the only person I could stick to and in my eyes she was perfect.
Then after two years of searching for jobs and trying to get into programs, I finally ended up in an international company. From the first day I sat in a room with academic people and worked for clients in Switzerland.
I got a computer, had my own desk in the office, people were nice to me and I started making real money. I also got a lot of appreciation from clients and colleagues.
I felt much better in my skin.
A few months in, I bought my first iPhone. My girlfriend criticized that too and said I was stupid for finally buying something for myself.
Time went on and I started to notice more when she judged me for something. When I wanted to watch an old movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger she said I was dumb. She criticized how I cleaned the apartment. When I wanted to tell her about my day she said she wasn’t interested at all.
Over time I had this feeling that I didn’t even want to go home anymore.
And I asked myself: what happened to her? Why did she change?
But the truth is that she didn’t change at all.
I changed.
Or more precisely, my circumstances changed.
She was the same person as when we first met. She didn’t criticize me more after I got a job. I finally had enough security in another part of my life to notice what had been there all along.
Which is interesting because it would mean I was blind in the first years of our relationship and didn’t see those problems.
I was blind, yes, but because that relationship meant survival for me. I lacked a good relationship with my parents, had no supportive network and no money either.
That level of insecurity narrowed my world. When one thing was keeping me emotionally stable, I became much more willing to tolerate everything that came with it.
It’s like asking yourself how to live a more fulfilled life. It’s a privileged question. People who work for survival every day don’t ask themselves whether their job fulfills them or makes them happy.
They work to make it to the next day.
And even if it sounds unfair, it was the same for me at the beginning of that relationship. I didn’t question those problems because losing the relationship felt too risky at that point in my life.
And none of this happened consciously. I wasn’t sitting there thinking that I needed her for stability or that I couldn’t afford to leave. I genuinely thought I was happy and that our relationship was good.
Sometimes we don’t stay because something is good. We stay because losing it feels too expensive.
This time it was the job
When I was single in 2019 and started working for a company I shouldn’t have worked for, the same thing happened.
At that job I felt miserable every day. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t endure it, but I was under-challenged, bored, worked with people I didn’t like, on tasks I didn’t care about.
It was an e-commerce company whose purpose was to sell stuff to people, which I couldn’t identify with at all. But at that time I only looked at the bright side.
Then a few months in, I met my ex-girlfriend there. We fell for each other fast and turned quite quickly into a relationship. Once we had been together for a few months, I started complaining and searching for a new job.
That idea came out of nowhere. I suddenly had a long list of things I hated about that job that I hadn’t named before.
After one year and nine months I quit. But I’m telling you I wouldn’t have quit as quickly if I hadn’t met her. That was the same process I had experienced before, just flipped.
The first time, a job gave me enough stability to question my relationship.
This time, a relationship gave me enough stability to question my job.
What insecurity actually does to you
Looking back, I know insecurity narrowed my world.
When we are insecure, we can only afford to focus on what keeps us stable. Everything else becomes less important.
The moment a second stable pillar shows up in our life, like a new job, a new relationship, a better network, we suddenly have more room to question the things we tolerated before.
We start seeing things differently. Not necessarily because they got worse. Because we finally have enough security to look.
And the more security you have, the easier it becomes to consider alternatives.
Being single is not as scary when you suddenly have cool people around you in the office and a life outside your relationship. Quitting a job doesn’t feel as scary when you have a loving relationship waiting for you at home.
It’s not entitlement. You simply know that leaving became an option.
What to watch out for
This is the part I actually wanted to share with you, so you won’t end up surprised in that weird situation.
Make decisions slowly when you don’t have enough stability in your life. If your relationship is the only stable thing right now, be careful about big commitments like moving together or having a kid. People often do these steps because they want to keep their only stable pillar in their life, not because they really want it.
If you suddenly see problems that weren’t there before, take a step back. When you land a new job or enter a new relationship and suddenly start complaining about the other area of your life, it could be a sign. Those problems might have always been there. Take your time to think about it before you make changes out of impulse.
Don’t automatically assume that something suddenly became worse. Maybe your partner didn’t change. Maybe your job didn’t change. Sometimes the biggest change is that you now have enough security to admit what you don’t like. That doesn’t automatically mean you should leave. It means you finally have the space to ask yourself whether you actually want what you have.
I almost got a dog after my last breakup. I love dogs. I really want one. But I was reflecting on it and I knew I only wanted it right then because I felt miserable. That was my survival instinct, so I didn’t get the dog.
I still want one. But I want to get one because I want a dog, not because I need something to make an unstable period of my life feel stable.
Maybe you read my last piece about the rejections I got recently. I’m single and not fully happy in my job either. This would be exactly the moment where my survival instinct could push me into bad decisions. I could jump into a relationship with someone I don’t like just to feel loved a bit.
That would be wrong and fortunately I’m aware of it.
Insecurity can make us blind.
Once the pressure decreases and we have more stable pillars, like a job, a relationship, a strong network, financial security, then we start becoming more aware of the things we don’t actually like.
It’s not necessarily that those things became worse. Sometimes we simply stopped ignoring what was always there.
And sometimes we don’t stay because something is good for us, but because losing it feels too expensive.
That’s why I think the more stable pillars we build in our lives, the less desperately we need any single one of them.
And then we can finally ask ourselves a much better question before we make a commitment:
Do I actually want this, or do I just need it?
Because there is a huge difference.
The good news is that you can have the good job and the wonderful relationship at the same time. But you need to choose them because you actually want them, not because you desperately need something to hold on to.
The myth for me is busted.
Thank you for reading.
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I enjoyed reading it. I especially liked how well Carl Jungs quote tied in with the story