Relationships
Relationships can often be quite problematic for people. I am talking about relationships in general. People are often at a loss as to why a particular person always responds to them in a certain way or interacts with them on a particular level. I will discuss that aspect more in-depth in a separate article, COMMUNICATION. There are many different types of relationships and they all come with their own characteristics and related problems. However, the closer a relationship is, the higher is the likelihood of issues arising. Most people find relationships with certain members of their family, be it their parents, siblings or children quite difficult. I will definitely devote a couple of articles to discuss each of those relationships separately. For great many people however, one of the most challenging relationships is intimate relationships.
Intimate relationships
Intimate relationships are challenging for most of us, because they make us emotionally quite vulnerable. The reason for this is, that the attachment we form with our partner is the closest in nature to what is between a child and a parent. This means that all our buttons are being pressed and if we have any issues, insecurities, feelings of inadequacy etc they are all likely to come to the surface without us even being aware of it. This is the reason, why suddenly, a completely sensible, rational, seemingly solid, resourceful, independent, easy-going person that you may know as a friend, turns into this ‘needy, insecure, irrational, obsessive person’ that you don’t recognise. The problem is that even when people are aware that they have issues, they don’t know how to deal with it.
A logical approach would be discussing them gradually with one’s partner but that usually doesn’t happen, as we are scared to make ourselves vulnerable in fear of putting our partner off, losing our cool, being rejected and ultimately abandoned. Unfortunately, not saying anything is not going to make our issues go away, it continues affecting the way we interact with our partner and it creates dynamics that can often become quite destructive to our relationship. There are four main components to a relationship; it is you and your issues, your partner and his baggage, what you both create together and external factors such as circumstances, other people etc. It is therefore absolutely paramount to categorise matters into the right compartments so as to deal with them in the most constructive way and hence to increase the quality and the longevity of the relationship. Let’s say you have issues with insecurity and as a result have a tendency to become jealous.
There are four scenarios, in the first case, you recognise that and acknowledge it to your partner and ask him for support, whilst taking ownership and responsibility for your problem and working on changing that it. Second scenario: you are aware of the problem, don’t share it with your partner and choose to suffer in silence and as a result grow more mistrustful and resentful and either those feelings come out and you will end up having frequent arguments with your partner or you don’t express them and instead become passive aggressive and create difficulties in your relationship that way. Scenario three: you don’t share your problem with your partner but you take ownership of it and deal with it and in time are hopefully able to overcome your issue. Fourth scenario: you are not aware of your problem at all and blame your partner for your jealousy and that creates very similar to scenario two. Obviously that was just an example and you could replace jealousy with any other issues.
I suppose the general and main message I am conveying here is that the better you are in tune and honest with yourself, the more accurately you can assess your relationships and place what is yours, what is the other person’s, what it is that the two parties are creating together and what are the external factors. You will appreciate that this subject like all the other ones is quite comprehensive and this is just a snippet to give you a little insight.
