According to studies written by relationship counselors, communication is responsible for more than half of the failed relationships that have been observed and documented.
This is not news to anyone who has experienced a relationship that has lasted more than 30 days. What may be interesting is the variety of issues that cause relationships to fail.
I've been on both sides of a broken relationship over my years of living and working as a counselor. Once as a child of a functioning but broken home and once as the spouse who left the relationship.
What I learned from each perspective I have written into a battery of counseling tips and conversations that serve to support couples. The saying, "Knowledge is power," rings true when it comes to relationship rescue. If you have 5 minutes to spare to focus on your relationship skills, you can learn to make your relationship lighter. By lighter I mean, the heaviness that many relationships carry is based on baggage being carried by the partners. Most often the partners carry this baggage silently.
The primary issue that impacts the relationship is not the baggage or the presenting issues that cause or contribute to the failure of the relationship. What tends to feed the decline is the silent suffering combined with a subconscious belief that the other partner should be aware of this baggage, even though neither of them has given anything more than a hint of what is being carried.
Making your relationship lighter may be an alien term or merely a distracting thought with a funny name. Take 5 minutes to open your mind to some new possibilities that may be hidden in your relationship.
John Maxwell, author of "Relationships 101," says, "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." When it comes to relationships, most often the male and the female partner fail to communicate this fundamental message.
Looking deeper into ways of strengthening your relationship beyond the physical level of living together, means each partner must be deeply committed to the other partner. This includes taking the risk of assuming the other partner is carrying baggage silently.
This is not a license to pry or aggressively intrude into the other partner's privacy, because privacy is always vital in a relationship. Communication is not expecting your partner to disclose every details of their day. Communication travels to emotional locations untouched by words alone.
What helps to understand the balance that is needed begins by looking into the mirror and searching for a way of getting a handle on one's own baggage. It often occurs in the partnering of individuals that while opposites attract, these opposites also share experiences.
It is documented that children who grown up in a home where a spouse has been abused will mostly find themselves in an abusive relationship as adults. Recognizing the reality of the presence of this baggage in one's self forms the basis of the subconscious desire for the other partner's understanding in the form of silent knowing.
Additionally, this type of baggage also provides a basis for deeper understanding of the partner's own behavior as well as any communicational barriers that have been observed to exist.
The healing and preventative process must begin with a message and an understanding that baggage, both known and unknown, exists in the relationship. Both partners must also recognize that communication is a major player in both the success of their relationship, while lack of communication can be the primary reason for any potential for the failure of the relationship.
"Relationships of trust depend on our willingness to look not only to our own interests, but also the interest of others."
Ms. Online Dating
Click here to visit Ms. Online Dating's inactive blog to get answers for your relationship questions
No comments:
Post a Comment