Staying together can be hard sometimes. Maybe you’re going through a rough patch, or trying to stay together for the kids or the life you made together. When you feel like you want to be anywhere but here, with your partner, here’s what you can do.
How Staying Together Can Be Challenging
Every couple goes through difficult moments. No one couple has a perfect relationship. All couples have challenges, misunderstandings, hurt feelings, angry events and more. This is a natural and normal life. The problem for most couples though is that we get hung up in the difficult parts and can’t see our way through.
When something hard happens and we feel disconnected, unloved, or disrespected, we can sometimes believe that our partner doesn’t care for us, or worse, doesn’t love us. This is a terrible feeling of rejection, and if you are in a relationship, you have experienced this moment. Everyone has, if they’ve lived with another person that they’re close to.
What Are the Differences Between Couples Staying Together and Couples Who Split?
So, how do some couples learn to navigate this while others separate? Why is it that at the first signs of “this is not good” some people head for the hills? And how is it that in some relationships people stay put even when they feel terrible?
All of us want to be loved and feel love. When we feel connected with another it’s the best. When that connection gets broken we feel terrible. I think for some of us when the connection gets tested we feel so terrible and alone we can’t imagine fixing it. It feels unfixable. And if something feels so broken that all we can do is see the wreckage, well what is there to stay for? Of course we have to leave.
But even after leaving there is still the longing to re-connect. Maybe we try it again and then when there is another upset we go through the same cut off and misery. So let’s change that. What would it be like if you knew that the terrible part would not last? What would it feel like for you to endure the terrible feelings but know they will end?
How Awareness and Empathy Can Help Bring You Out of Hurt and Back to Your Relationship
If you are reading this, then at this moment it’s just a thought. If you experience these thoughts while you are in pain you are gaining awareness about yourself. Awareness can lead you to another choice, something new and that can lead to a new habit that is healthy all the way around.
I know that’s a lot, but it’s doable. If we want to build something with our partner we have to find a way to connect with them in ways that doesn’t involve the stuff that makes us disconnect. We have to find what we love, like, admire, appreciate, are grateful for and get connected to that in order to survive a difficult moment.
Remember to Focus on Your Loved One, Not the Pain
If we connect to something else, the pain, the reason we hurt, the anger, the disappointment we will stay in those feelings. We will not feel anything else, and those feelings make us feel terrible. I am not suggesting that we brush them aside. No, there are a lot of ways you can get some repair and heal from your wounds. But right now I am talking about getting good at another skill, connecting to your partner in a helpful way, even if you are temporarily unhappy.
You see when we make an enemy of the one who loves us; they feel that energy coming from you. They feel unloved and blamed for making you feel unhappy. Now what does that get you? Have you ever gotten what you have wanted by telling your mate how terrible they made you feel? It doesn’t work. You don’t have to change your personality or become different in order to try something new. It just has to make sense. And if you try and connect with the one who loves you guess what might happen? You could feel connected again, and isn’t that what we all long for?
Help with Staying Together in Your Relationship
Read a Book About Feeling Connected, Making Staying Together Easier
Can’t make it on Monday? If you’d like some help with staying together, consider reading Linda’s book, Safe. Happy. Loved. Simple Skills for Your Relationship. It has tips that just might help you communicate better, build more empathy, and ultimately help you and your loved one stay together longer. Give it a read.
Get Couples Counseling
Come in for couples counseling. Couples counseling can help you and your loved one get the most out of your relationship. It'll equip you with coping strategies and tools for communication that can help you argue less and love more.