We’re Different From Our Partners, and That’s Okay

When two people fall in love, they usually find many, many things that bind them together. A new couple can feel elevated with the ideas that another person sees things the way they do and feels the same way too. These are the experiences that tell us our partnership is the right one.

But after being with our special person for a while we begin to notice how they don’t really get us sometimes. We see how we think about something yet our beloved will think an entirely different thought as if they are speaking another language. This is quite normal as couples move from the “we are just alike stage” to “we used to be alike and now we are different.”

I was talking to a friend the other day about a trip I was going to take. It’s an exotic one with a different friend to a place that she wants to go and I said I would go along. It’s a lot of money, more money than I have ever spent on a trip. I have the money, but something inside me says, “Wow, you are spending a lot of money.”

This is part of the package of old messages that I received when I was a little girl. We were not poor, but my mother’s comfort at spending money was always on the frugal side. Day old bread is perfectly fine. Shopping at the 99 cent store is good. Hand me downs from cousins and sisters are was just our norm. I did not grow up poor. But the messages I received about spending money were “don’t spend it, ever.”

We all have habits in our life. You know, those are the things we do almost automatically. Like our routine when we get up in the morning, or when we sit down to enjoy a meal, or when we get ready for work. These are our habits, the way we do something. It’s the way we organize the daily activities of life.

We all pretty much know how to do them for ourselves. Yet even when we are in a relationship, we are still individuals as we continue to engage in our own routines and habits. But what if we were to do some things with the intention of doing them for the person we love.

Learning how to handle conflict in a relationship is tough, because it forces us to challenge our instincts.

When people get their feelings hurt, most of us don’t want to go near the person who hurt them. This holds true in families, with co-workers and in relationships. It’s just easier to back away when something painful happens. It’s just the way many humans are wired.

As a couples specialist I know that even with the person we love, for some of us it’s instinctive to pull away when things get messy. I work with people who love each other who just want to know what to do when they fight. They usually wonder if they could do the fighting part better so they don’t have to stay wounded and apart for so long.

As a relationship guide, I spend a lot of time simplifying the most important elements that make a good relationship. The more I teach, the more concise it gets. And I think I have it boiled down to just three parts, three important ingredients to help your relationship thrive.

While they are few in number, the steps might be considered challenging as they require a lot of thought, patience, and trust. The thought part is you thinking about the parts and actually deciding to make yourself do the work. The patience is not expecting to get things right all at once, to be able to allow yourself to develop new positive behaviors in the time it takes. The trust is so you will believe in yourself when you doubt your progress and remind yourself that you can indeed do this.

I was listening to a friend of mine talk about her family situation the other day. She was saying that when her grandson’s mother got sick, she and the mother’s best friend took care of the boy. Now that the mother is well the boy is going back to live with her. But the mother’s recovery was slow and the people parenting the child grew attached. So when the convalescence was over, and the child was about to rejoin his mother the other two temporary care-givers struggled with their own sense of loss.

My friend kept saying that everything is working out really well because all the adults involved kept asking the same question, “What is the best for the boy?” She said every time she asked herself the question she knew exactly what to do.

What if we applied this approach…to our relationships?

I’m often asked things like, “Help! My husband stops talking to me when we fight. What do I do?” or “My wife stops talking to me when I’ve done something wrong. How can I get her to open back up?”

When couples fight or argue or have a disagreement it’s not uncommon for one person in the relationship to stop talking. This happens among many couples so if you are experiencing this in your relationship know that you are not alone.

Almost everyone asks, “Do I matter?”

It’s a universal need for all of us to matter. We have a deep longing to know that we are important. This craving beats the loudest in our relationships with other people.

People find it pretty easy to fall in love and feel close to another person, but when one or both of you get your feelings hurt, or feel misunderstood or unloved, it might take a long time to feel close again.

People always start out strong, loving deeply their “right” person. Think back to the beginning of your relationship and remember how much you felt and fell for yours. It was pretty wonderful, right?

So why after being together for a while do you sometimes feel so hurt that you can’t even talk to your beloved, maybe for hours at a time? Maybe you feel so misunderstood that you stay hurt for days. Now that can be really painful.

No two people in a relationship are the same. We find connections with our partner and yet we are wildly different from them. We are attracted to their difference and their similarities in the beginning of a relationship, but down the road we might find that the way they do things, different than we do them, might just bug us a bit.

Self Exploration Articles

We’re Different From Our Partners, and That’s Okay

How Our Old Ways Stay With Us

Build Beautiful Relationship Habits with Your Mate

How to Handle Conflict for a Happy, Healthy Marriage

3 Relationship Rules to Live By

Putting Your Relationship First

Help! My Wife / Husband Stops Talking to Me

Do I Matter? Feeling Ignored in a Relationship

Why Loving is Hard When We Hurt

How Can We Feel Loved Despite Our Differences?