I’m sure you will agree that if a couple wants to rebuild their relationship fear is not the best emotional state to start that growth.
Couples that have been in trouble for a while usually have two people in fear trying to fix their relationship wondering why whatever they do never works.
Understanding you is a critical part of understanding your relationship and how it works. I know when couples enter into work with me that I have to quickly help the individuals understand how they have been trying to feel good in the relationship and why it is has been counterproductive.
For example: A person who is so focused on security never gets it because they are unaware of what they have to do to create it both for themselves and in the relationship. The result is they feel less secure by making it a focus, which ironically helps them to focus on it more.
If this person tries to fix a relationship with this model of behaviour they will be so focused on what’s wrong they become resourceless, both to themselves and their relationship.
So let’s look at this in action with two examples for one for male and one for female.
If this person was a man and he saw security in money, he might value the money and use it to help him love and please his partner. His partner could reject this form of love because what she really wants is security through emotional intelligence of understanding her and her core needs.
If this person was a woman looking for security she could be so focused her emotional security she would focus on getting strong to cope with a relationship that was hurting her. But to get strong she would engage a masculine version of her that enables a disconnection of her true authentic feminine self. She needs the feminine self to be able to connect with him intimately and so their sex life dies.
These are two examples of fairly typical responses couples display to each other and these will never help the couple build trust and build growth back into the relationship.
My job is to help the individuals understand how they can create the necessary internal resources by themselves so they become safer in their own world. This makes them less dependent on their partner and more confident. This approach dramatically reduces their fears and enables them to enter into the relationship strong and authentic.
Out of fear and now trusting themselves they can both now communicate honestly about how they can be successful with each other.
Combine this with more understanding of how relationships work and their roles in the relationship enables both people to become successful with each other.
This builds trust and focuses them on contributing to the relationships needs and this frees them to design a future together.
So unless you are amazing you can’t expect an amazing relationship. It all starts with you.