Every intimate relationship will experience its fair share of conflict. No matter how similar you and your partner may be, you still come from different backgrounds, cultures, and mindsets – not to mention two different sets of life experiences.
Conflict in intimate relationships is a fact of life. It’s how you handle them that determine whether they’ll rip you apart or superglue you together. Here’s how:
So many couples who have lost each other regret their parting for many years, particularly when they might have been able to stay together.
They struggle with what they could have done differently had they known they were in serious trouble. By the time they realized they were on a collision course, they could not stop the negative spiral.
Most all relationships that begin with common dreams and abundant love end with those positives still intact, but buried under layers of unresolved heartbreaks.
Had those disconnects been seen and understood earlier, the once-cherishing partners within them could often have turned things around.
Learning the three most common ways relationships fail can help devoted partners keep their relationship alive.
Threat #1: Negative Interactions That Outnumber Positive Ones
When your relationship began, you most likely felt treasured by your partner, praised for your assets, and readily forgiven for your faults. Some “not-so-compatible” areas may have existed, but you chose to give them less attention.
Over time, those non-attended-to negative interactions may have changed the percentages of good connections to bad ones. Now you are having more difficulty both erasing them and also holding on to the positives you once took for granted.
The good parts of your relationship may still be there, but the damage is taking its toll and you can feel each other’s lowered frustration tolerance and increased quickness to anger.
If you cannot transform your negative patterns and grow beyond your current limitations, your lack of action will keep feeding energy into the bad interactions and starve out the good ones.
Threat #2: Suppressing Your Needs For The Sake Of A Relationship
To keep your relationship secure, you’ve probably had to sacrifice some of your own needs at times in order to give your partner what he or she wanted from you.
You may have felt a little martyred some of the time, or even gave up some of your own self-respect, but in the moment, it seemed the right thing to do. You felt that your partner not only recognized your willingness to sacrifice, but would readily have done the same for you.
Somehow, over time, you began to feel that you were giving more than you were getting back. Your sacrifices now appear to be more expected and your paybacks are not adequately compensating you for your efforts. Your partner not only doesn’t give you more of what you want, he or she doesn’t even recognize that you’ve been silently bargaining.
If you allow this imbalance to continue, you will eventually feel like you’re being taken for granted and lose trust in your partner’s willingness to reciprocate.
Threat #3: Trust-Breaking Incidents
Most new couples do not address their non-negotiable bottom lines up front. They either trust that their partners have the same values and ethics, or believe that they would never hurt them by doing something they have agreed would be unacceptable.
You probably began the same way. Then, as your relationship matured, you discovered new things about each other that altered your initial perceptions. Some of those revelations were delightful surprises that deepened your trust and love. Others may have caused concern, like past behaviors that your current relationship could not survive.
As you grew to know what your partner could or could not tolerate, you may have begun withholding some potentially relationship-destroying thoughts, telling yourself that you would never act upon them.
Couples who cannot share their secret thoughts or behaviors risk the loss of their intimacy. Their bond weakens, and they are more likely to act without considering the outcome.
Getting Your Relationship Back On Track, Starting Now
Averting further damage and getting back on course involves three steps, regardless of the problem:
- Acknowledging the problem and committing to fixing it as a team
- Intentionally stopping any behaviors that are perpetuating the problem
- Harnessing the positive energy in your relationship (it’s still there, even if it sometimes doesn’t feel like it)
Must read: 3 signs that your relationship could be headed for trouble and how to avert it
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