“A team is only as strong as its weakest member”. Comparing relationships to a team effort… I believe that the person putting in the least amount of effort in a relationship is the one that actually controls it.
Falling out of love with the person you have chosen to marry or engage in a long term relationship with; takes just as much of an effort as it does to fall in love.
When a person gives up trying to communicate/share with one’s partner it becomes a conscious and subconscious decision to stop. Avoiding conversations, bickering, complaining, fighting, expressing frustration, and generally disliking the other person becomes… displaced energy; energy that should be expended towards making the relationship work.
Communication is the key to having a successful relationship with another person. We know how to communicate appropriately, but yet we fail to discover new and innovative ways to communicate with the ones we are supposed to be in love with. Failure to communicate appropriately is what manifests the hatred towards ones partner; ultimately causing the marriage to end in divorce.
Telling our partners what we want is a necessity, as a collective women and men not only think differently but also have distinctive needs as per our gender. My needs and that of my spouses were conflictive, for example; after a long day at work I need to talk my day through, where as my partner would not be in a communicative mood. In fact he completely shut down verbally and would not engage in re-hashing his day. I chose to take that as a lack of caring; that somehow he had no interest in sharing with me.
Where we failed in this situation in particular, is that I never stopped to ask him if it bothered him that I bombarded him with my work talk, and nor did he tell me why he wouldn’t share about his. It turns out we could have easily solved that many years ago, if he and I would have just taken the time to ask one another how we preferred as individuals to handle the end of our days with one another.
Resentment is a hard emotion to deal with. It gets in the very fabric of who we are and it latches there for an eternity! Resentment is caused from not having the knowledge or understanding that is needed to deal with a situation; we then fill in the missing pieces or thoughts with our own. Most people tend to fill in the blanks with the thoughts we fear most. If my spouse doesn’t tell me I look beautiful, I assume he doesn’t think I am. I in turn resent him for not acknowledging my beauty. In the end he probably did think I was beautiful but just assumed I knew. Lack of communication on his part? Or did he not know that I am insecure at times and need that reassurance? Either way resentment is the end result caused by just not communicating.
Never knowing what our partner is thinking or feeling can be overwhelming and at times even torturous. It is our job to inquire often as to what our partners want, don’t want, need and don’t need. It then is our responsibility to respect those needs/ wants and conscientiously attempt to fulfill them. Learning how to communicate should be the first step, finding out the boundaries in which you can speak freely, and then sharing with compassion the matters that bother you. The way you choose to deliver the message of discontentment is more important than the message itself. Presented in a manner that is loving and supportive will garner a greater chance of change then to throw negative connotations towards your partner.
Life is stressful, working, taking care of a home, children , sports, homework, laundry, bills and all the other responsibilities we have as adults can be taxing on a couple. It is extremely important that we feel balanced with our emotional state with respect to love. It does take an effort to find that balance, but the end result may be exactly what you wanted and needed; garnering you the motivation to continue to love and adore your spouse.
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