Is your partner saying they want your relationship to work, and yet their behaviours suggest the reverse. Now you find yourself on red alert, constantly ready for trouble.
If this is happening to you, your natural response will be to mistrust your partners intentions, and react as if they are trying to hurt you on purpose.
As difficult as this may sound your partner maybe be stuck and in need of your help. Helping someone who seems to be choosing to hurt you, goes against everything you have been taught.
The rules for creating successful relationships are not the same as how we deal with people in the rest of our lives.
For example if someone does something wrong we punish them so they won’t do it again and that is the pattern we have all been taught that gets results… but does it?
In relationships punishment never works. That’s because you are making an assumption that you know what your partner is thinking and you understand why they are behaving in a way that hurts you.
Very often people that are down, depressed, or fearful have no idea why they are reacting or behaving the way they are. So if they don’t know what’s going on with them then you have no chance of understanding them either, so making them wrong or judging them is totally unfair and will get you nowhere.
Just because you can’t see a broken limb or an open wound it does not mean they are not suffering and are as confused as you are with them. So when they are placed under pressure either real or created by themselves, they will react or complain seemingly unreasonably.
Just like the person with a broken limb would complain.
It is very likely that if two people are reacting negatively to each other and have been for sometime then the chance is they are both to a greater or lesser degree in the same distorted place both stuck on red alert looking for problems.
- If this is where you are, one of you has to get sane first and help your partner get back to the true version of them.
Punishment never works so understand that your partner is complaining, because they are in pain. Rather than punishing them and making things worse, help them with the love you say you have for them.
Harley Street Expert | Founder & High Performance Coach
With two decades of experience helping couples out of crisis, Stephen the founder of The Marriage Breakthrough Program, uses his proven system for rescuing and rebuilding relationships on the edge of divorce. A trusted advisor to CEOs, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders globally, his work blends emotional intelligence with strategic clarity. Known for navigating highly complex relationship challenges, Stephen helps individuals and couples find clarity and direction when everything is at stake.
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