I was working with a couple recently and had a chance to reflect on how often I see a similar situation like the one they are going through. I am talking about couples who seem on the brink of ending their relationship and miraculously finding their way back to each other.
It’s so remarkable how some couples can rebound after something really terrible and yet I see this happen again and again and again. In these cases, I believe these individuals want to be with their mates more than they want to leave them.
Couples Endure Adversity By Wanting to Be Together
This doesn’t sound like much, but if you knew the circumstances that these couples were dealing with you might think they could never get together after what happened. And that’s what is so amazing about loving another person.
People on the outside never really know what it feels like on the inside of each person in a couple. They might see some of the difficulty, but they don’t sit with the longing for the other and the hope that if things could just improve everything will be OK. These are the feelings people struggle with.
Hope, Perseverance, and Willingness to Change Can Save Relationships and Keep Them Strong
It’s the desire to be coupled with our person that really runs us either towards the other or ends the relationship cold. It’s the hope that this will work that keeps us coming back or the belief that no matter what happens the relationship will never work out.
Many of us give up. We give up because we can’t find the belief that it could improve. We can’t hang on to what was because we just don’t think we can get it back. In many cases people move on. And if you move on that is the right decision for you to make. Staying is another decision, and I am often in awe for those couples who come out of wreckage and make another go at it, as if they think this time it really could be good.
And in these relationships, I am thinking about, it is good. It is different and the people are changed. In each of these couples both individuals have realized that they were doing things that weren’t relationship-enhancing. Each person understood that they had to do something different to help the relationship thrive. Each person did not turn to the other and make them wrong, they looked at themselves and decided to make a change.
Love and Understanding Make Relationships Work
And that’s the real power of love. Living through a crash and burn cycle with someone who was supposed to love you and figuring out it might not be just them that’s ruining the relationship. Understanding that making a relationship work, and become something wonderful really takes an understanding of what each of us bring into the relationship. Am I a good mate to my partner? Am I loving the person I love?
If you wonder these things about yourself, good. Be your best self with the one you love. Don’t wait to show your partner your loving self. You are in love with your mate. Be it. That’s what I am witnessing, and it is so beautiful.
Need a Little Help Finding Your Way with Your Partner?
Read a Book About Relationships
Get a helping hand with finding your way as a couple by reading Linda’s book, Safe. Happy. Loved. Simple Skills for Your Relationship. It can help you communicate better, feel closer, and better weather the trials that relationships face, so that you and your loved one can keep feeling close and loved. 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.