The Challenge: Keep Your Relationship Vibrant and Growing

You Want to Be Close

People often feel angry, sad or confused because they believe a life partner is treating them badly, but what I’ve seen is that they have let accumulated small resentments build walls between them, when all they really want is to be close to each other.

Sometimes when on the surface your relationship with your life partner seems to be serene, you know in your heart there is something difficult, deep or challenging you want to say, but you’re afraid to rock the boat by saying it. You fear that either you or your partner will not feel heard, seen or understood by each other.

You’re Uncomfortable Talking About Problems

You may believe that never arguing with each other will make your relationship strong. What usually happens though, is because you’re both human, you have different needs and wants. If you pretend your needs and wants don’t exist and don’t ask your partner to consider them, you feel disappointed and angry.

You may think that you must give up some part of yourself to be in a relationship or that you have to give up the relationship in order to be yourself. But what I’ve seen is when we give up trying to please our partners at all costs, we have a lot more room to be ourselves.

When you avoid the difficult conversations about your feelings and hide them instead of risking an argument, the pressure of those hidden feelings builds up. It leads you to conclude that the relationship is not right for you, and you sometimes think your only option is to leave.

You Do Have to Do Some Work

The fantasy is that if a relationship is right, you won’t have to work at it. The truth is that even though there is work involved in keeping a relationship healthy, most people agree it’s worth a little investment of energy for the payoff of having an incredible sense of connection to their partner.