By Tanya Bunich
Photo courtesy of assbach via Flickr
As we enter a relationship our partner soon becomes our everything. The one we count on for emotional support, we make him our best friend and expect that he will be the net that is always there to catch us when we fall. WOW!! Sounds amazing, right? I’m in!!!
Then one day, we wake up to reality and our prince charming, our everything, fails us for one reason or another. Either he didn’t understand what we needed or he was too busy at work or just didn’t care.
Naturally, we get upset and the next person we see, we start babbling…can you believe he didn’t care that ….and that marks the beginning of relationship problems.
Communication
We stop talking to our spouses and start talking to our friends and co workers. We have a disagreement and instead of really working through it (which is hard work)with our spouse and understanding why he did or said that, we have now gained support of a friend(which is much easier) to back us up and now we are even more upset with him, than when we started. By doing this we allow for intimacy to slowly leak out of the relationship. In my opinion this is the biggest mistake couples make and I am guilty of it myself, I have seen firsthand how this can destroy a relationship.
Forgiveness
Ok, so… we have a fight. We eventually make up and move on. What does that really mean? Have we erased the fight? I believe that we forgive but rarely forget. Maybe the small insignificant disagreements get forgotten, but never the big ones. After three kids and a few businesses, my memory is not the greatest, but something miraculous happens and I can recall all the tiffs! Mistake number two is that we mean to, but never REALLY forgive.
Taking Each Other For Granted
After those first few blissful months, we slowly start expecting the things we appreciated. Like the morning coffee that was made when we got up, it somehow becomes the expectation. I try (and rarely succeed) to find a way, to keep appreciating the everyday small things that I have grown to take for granted. This is mistake number three.
If we can communicate with our spouses, truly forgive and not take the small things he does for granted our relationships would be much stronger and happier.
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