New relationship, same story: disagreement, boredom, disconnection.
So many couples fall into same pattern over and over again. It might seem for you that there is no way out when both of you are stuck in the smog of mutual blame and resentment.
But, before you start packing your bags and considering break up, there are 5 processes that might be undermining your relationship. Check if they are present in your life.
1. Disconnection
Have you ever felt connected to someone?
What kind of feeling that was?
Did you felt listened to, appreciated, cared for?
Or bored, irrelevant, ignored?
When you connect with somebody you are always psychology present and you give all your attention to the other person. Feeling connect means then being present, but in a very special way: with openness and curiosity.
When you connect with someone you have no agenda, there is no hostility in you, neither you are stuck inside your head.
How often have you gifted your partner with such undivided attention?
I know what you might answer now: that you wanted to that, but he’s never at home/ he’s always busy/ he doesn’t listen.
When your partner withdrawn from you, you
retaliate with coldness and withdrawal yourself. And the other way around. This way vicious circle begins, making smog of resentment between you thinker and thinker.
2. Reactivity
You’re coming home from work and see your partner sitting on the sofa watching TV. You’re tired, irritated and seeing him just doing nothing makes you immediately mad. Without giving it much thought, you criticize him: Why you never do anything? It wouldn’t kill you to help me around the house sometimes. You’re so lazy. He gets furious immediately as well: You’re such a bitch you now. I just came back from work too!”
Being reactive means acting without thinking, without openness and without awareness. Every time you let your emotions get best of you – you’re running on autopilot and so is your partner.
Think how easy it is so say too much during a fight. Then you’re overwhelmed by thoughts like: he doesn’t care, he never do anything, he’s always trying to hurt me…
And the second you get these thoughts take control – you’re like a puppet on the strings of your mind. You lose sight of your partner and you might not even notice when judgment and criticism take over.
Maintaining an attitude of openness and love is essential for every relationship. But it’s especially difficult when negative emotions come into play.
3. Avoidance
Do you know anybody who likes feeling bad?
I don’t. Humans are made in a way to avoid painful experiences at all cost. Our repertoire of avoiding difficult feelings is truly impressive! Did you know that almost any behavior can serve us avoidance tactic?
We can try to distract ourselves by watching TV or scrolling facebook.
We can overeat or, on the other hand – we can exercise to get rid of for example stress.
We can drink alcohol or sleep a lot.
And we can stay in our comfort, trying to avoid any challenging situations that might cross our path. Unfortunately this raises problems – if you wish for your relationship to grow and thrive you’d have to enter a number of challenging situations. Solving arguments, expressing fears and confessing inconvenient truth are just a few examples of challenging situations that happen in every relationship.
Way to often in our comfort zone (or maybe stagnant zone?) and decide to hide the truth, remain silent about out true feelings and blame instead of say sorry.
If there’s a lot of avoidance in your relationship – there will be no place to grow.
4. Inside the mind
Our minds talk CONSTANTLY. You might not be fully aware of this on daily basis, but we are like fish swimming in the sea of our thoughts. Give it a try, and sit in complete silence for a few minutes. Try to not think about anything.
How long did you manage to do it for? 5 sec? 30 sec? It’s rarely longer than that!
That wouldn’t be a problem if minds would tell us useful stuff, but considering thousands years of evolution, they are especially good at finding… problems.
If you leave your mind unattended it’s likely it will take you for a journey to all of those moments in the past when your partner disappointed you… when he lied or didn’t keep his promise. When he hurt you somehow.
And what we tend to do, when mind is screening again movie entitled: “He always xyz…”?
We sit and watch.
We are spending a lot of time just digging into the past or worrying about the future. We’re buying whatever our mind is selling. But ask yourself: Did anything good ever come from that?
5. Neglecting values
Almost every person who wishes to work on her relationship have in mind changing her partner. Very rarely we ask ourselves what kind of partners WE want to be?
What values are important to you, when It comes to being a wife/ girlfriend?
What I often hear people say is: loving, kind, supportive, sensual, fun..
And here are some things that never show up: bitchy, moody, lying, manipulative…
When everything goes right, we usually stick to our values, but the second things start to go left…. Well, then it’s a completely different story. How is it with you?
Did you find yourself in the above descriptions?
Get rid of all guilt and resentment from your relationship and learn to stop fights before they even happen.
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