Why Aren’t My Relationships Working?
I’m so glad you asked the question: Why aren’t my relationships working? In many great works of writing love is a romantic “feeling”. What if “love was a verb!?!” What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that when we turn love into and action that is proactive in our relationships and we own our own behavior, we will get a different response. Sometimes that response it positive! If you keep doing the same behavior over and over expecting your partner to change, who do you have control over? Why don’t you change your behavior. It really is the only behavior that you have control over.
Love being a verb also means being responsible for your own emotions. No one can “make” you do anything, or “make” feel anything with out your permission. You get to choose how you feel. You say “nun-uh, my friend, mother, partner, husband, wife (or fill in your blank), make me feel angry”. No they don’t, they just do a behavior and you decide how you are going to feel about it. Someone can call you a name but unless you believe it, you have a choice on how you want to feel about what they said.
Hollywood, culture & society have programed us to believe that we are not responsible for our feelings, rather that we are controlled by our feelings. But this is not the reality. If our feelings control our actions then it is because we give our power away.
Another reason that our relationships don’t work is if we have a difference of opinion or even of values. If one partner has a problem with something and the other one doesn’t, THERE IS A PROBLEM IN THE RELATIONSHIP. An example of this is if one partner thinks it’s ok to go out alone with members of the opposite sex and the other partner does not. This isn’t about right or wrong, it’s about coming to an understanding and working with your partner on the problem. The above example can have many factors that come into play including denial, low self-esteem, to name a few but to tell yourself there is not a problem in the above scenario, is to really be living in denial.
A relationship is a partnership and as the saying goes, it takes two to tango. When we learn to individuate from our partner and practice love as a verb by being proactive and taking emotional responsibility for ourselves, relationships can start to work!
If you would like individual counseling to learn the tools and skills that are mentioned in this blog as well as other tools on how to change your own behavior, thinking and feeling, give me a call today at my San Diego office to set up an appointment now! 619-687-9013