Mending a Difficult Relationship
Little girls are led to believe that someday their prince will come. Reality rarely backs that dream up and many people end up in broken relationships. If you’d like to try healing a difficult relationship rather than become a divorce statistic, there is hope. Repairing broken trust or lack of feelings won’t necessarily be an easy task, but it will be one with worthwhile results if you truly desire it.
Begin by deciding if the relationship is salvageable or not. It’s time to do some serious soul searching. Do you want the relationship to work or are you prepared to let it go? How does the other person feel about it? Is there a common desire to heal the relationship? It is important for both of you to decide the relationship is worth saving and worth working on.
Sometimes the problems or difficulties in a relationship aren’t serious. There may be some minor irritations such as squeezing the toothpaste wrong or putting the toilet paper on the roll the wrong way. These shouldn’t be things which will sink a relationship. However, there are things which seem to be a deal breaker in the relationship department.
Infidelity is one of the biggest problems couples face. One person’s trust has been broken and the hurt can run very deep. In many cases the trust may be irrevocably destroyed. No matter how much the injured party may love the other, learning to trust won’t come easy. In some cases the person who was cheated on won’t be able to get past the infidelity and the relationship will end.
Marriage counseling may be the only recourse to heal a difficult relationship torn apart by infidelity. Both partners will need to be actively involved in the healing process if it is to work. Don’t expect the relationship to be repaired quickly as the process will require you to be painfully honest with one another. It will take time to work through the hurt and find a solution to bring you back together.
For less severe problems, it helps to let go of expectations about how your partner should act. Forget the pie-in-the-sky prince charming or perfect woman dreams. You’re both human and have your own peculiarities, which may be part of the problem.
Decide not to make matters worse. In other words, once you know what you do that causes your partner concern, do your best not to push their emotional buttons. Be the better person by avoiding the blame game and admitting your own fault in the problems of the relationship.
Take time to listen to what your partner is saying. Make communication an important part of your day. Listen not only to what is being said, by also to what is not being said. A marriage counselor can help you learn to communicate and even ‘fight’ productive ways which will enable you to both heal.
Finally, realize when you’ve both done everything you can to heal a difficult relationship. There may come a point where it’s time to call it quits. Accept your part of the responsibility for the break-up and then part as amicably as possible. If children are involved, you’ll want to ensure they don’t believe they are responsible for the break-up and that even if you’re no longer together, you still love them very much.
No one wants to experience difficulties in a relationship, but it may happen. Healing a difficult relationship is possible but it probably won’t be easy. The result, if you choose to work at repairing what’s broken, can be an even stronger relationship.
