When you fall in love, it starts out amazing, but the question is, why does this love fade? Most people have been in a situation where they have a lover or a partner that has come to them and they are everything they are looking for. They are full of love, compassion, intellect and are attractive both in and out. Things are not perfect of course, and disagreements happen, but most of all, there is a great relationship that brings forth love and understanding.
Honeymoon Stage
When couples first start dating, there is little conflict and communication is strong. There are times where there is nothing but fun, sex and shared interests. Being together makes them feel happy and excited and they cannot imagine their life without the other person. They talk about their past and their future and they feel that they understand each other on every level. When problems come, they are addressed and fixed and the relationship grows. Most feel that they are understood and loved. Then this starts to change.
This is part of the excitement and pleasure that most couples feel in the beginning. This usually lasts about 30 months and can bring on changes. This is when things start to change, and they want to start to explore other things and find different directions. This is the time the honeymoon stage ends.
When people get closer to each other, they begin to feel things from their past creeping up such as attachment issues. People are not usually aware that they have these issues and that they are intense in the relationship.
Conflict Stage
This is the stage in the relationship where things begin to happen, first, there are emotional difficulties, second, people have a hard time accepting criticism and third, the communication begins to lack. No matter how hard we try, this is a stage in life that we are not used to, and this can be part of our defenses from when we were children.
Everyone comes into a new relationship with past wounds and these make them vulnerable and subject to being hurt. They become attached to people and find that when they were children that these people left them or hurt them. We carry these wounds and we forget about them until we get into a different intimate relationship with someone.
When this happens, healing and understanding has to come. These become issues that are emotional issues where couples sometimes begin to blame each other for these feelings. When these feelings become triggered by what our partner does, this can make the relationship hard to understand and can bring about problems in the relationship. This will lead to conflict.
Most relationships become uncomfortable when criticisms begin to come, and this brings hurt and frustration. Partners will blame each other and will not communicate. There will be negative behaviors and defensiveness between the parties.
When developing to recognize these feelings, it is a time where they have to be able to acknowledge there is a problem and have open communication. Being able to acknowledge that there are these issues is the first stage of healing and learning to be able to communicate at a deeper level. When things are misunderstood by the partner, it can bring up real emotions and there has to be affection and intimacy.
If there is a lack of relationship skills, tension will take over and people will become touchy and will fight and have major issues. There will be disappointments and loss and people will not be able to have the intimacy needed. This will not be understood by the partner and they will feel hopeless and that things are changing. This can become a verbal battle and where couples tend to withdraw from one another.
Intimacy
One good thing is that even though we blame our conflict on each other, when we learn to understand the triggers and what is causing the conflict, we can work through it. We can take events from our past and see how they are playing a role in our relationship. When we can admit that we are defensive and admit that we have problems, we create a feeling of space and trust that can bring expectations.
Distress Suggestions:
- Admit there are problems and get therapy.
- If your partner doesn’t want to go to therapy, motive them to look deep inside and develop themselves.
- If they refuse to change, talk to your therapist.
- Have calming practices such as being aware and not overthinking things.
- Try yoga.
- Learn to control what you are thinking and not to overreact.
- Admit when you are having feelings of blame.
- Admit when you are worried or struggling.
- Be open to communication.
- Communicate all the time with your partner.
- Be compassionate about how your partner is feeling.
