Are you ignoring these common relationship problems that start to eat away your relationship and damage your bonding with your partner one day at a time?
Pay attention!
Relationship problems are a fact of life and every couple goes through them.
After the honeymoon phase is over, the problems begin. This doesn’t mean you have to give up though.
Take a close look at your relationship. Where do you spend most of your time? Are you caught up with the children or focusing on work?
One of the most common problems I see in my practice with couples is their inability to manage conflict.
Dr. John Gottman, the founder of the Gottman Institute, is a premier researcher on relationships. It’s not surprising that he found all couples have conflict.
What’s important is that you repair after the conflict and learn to manage the conflict. He found that 69 percent of problems in a relationship are unsolvable.
What does this mean? You need to understand the problem before you can solve it. There is nothing worse than feeling like your partner doesn’t understand you. This is when you begin to feel emotionally isolated in the relationship.
If you don’t work on understanding, this can be the beginning to the end.
With that, here are 5 common relationship problems you’ll experience as a couple and how to solve them.
1. Negative sentiment override
When couples are stuck in the negative sentiment override, they don’t notice the positive 50 percent of the time.
The negative sentiment override doesn’t set in overnight. This can take years to set in. But, once it sets in it’s not easy to repair.
What does this mean?
It means that you need to work on building a more positive relationship. Work on understanding your partner and don’t be so critical of one another.
Read 9 Surprisingly Simple Secrets To Build A Happy and Emotionally Committed Relationship
2. Flooding
I see this a lot in couples. This is when you are having a conflict with your partner and your heart rate gets to be 100 BPM or more. If you are athletic it’s 85 BPM or more.
Diffuse Physiological Arousal (DPA) enters the bloodstream and you go into fight or flight. This is a very uncomfortable feeling.
What you need to do is take a break from one another. You take your heart rate and you tell your partner you are flooded by physically separating from one another.
This means you can’t see or hear one another. You don’t even want to think about one another. If you do, this will keep you flooded.
It takes a minimum of 20 minutes to get your heart rate back down. Sometimes, for men, it can take longer. So, the break needs to be a minimum of 20 minutes, but no longer than 24 hours.
3. Not accepting your partner’s influence
When you are in a relationship, it’s easy to get into a groove. You have a family and a job to manage. It might be hard for you to put on the pause button. But, if you don’t your partner will start to feel as if they don’t exist or matter.
Make sure to schedule a time for one another. This is a time for the two of you to discuss what’s going on in your life so you can hear your partner out and accept influence from your partner.
Being in a healthy relationship means trying out what your partner has planned and having an open mind. This is not a time to be critical.
Read 7 Common Relationship Problems And Simple Ways To Fix Them
4. Not having enough fun together
In the beginning, fun was just built into the relationship. But, after a while fun gets further down on the list.
You have a new job, children, and a house to take care of. You stop making the relationship a priority and focus on other things. This means you need to schedule a time for fun like you did in the beginning.
Fun is the glue in a relationship. It is what will keep you together.
5. Letting outside stressors affect your relationship
This is when it is important to talk to your partner and for your partner to really listen to you. You can’t always control what is happening outside the relationship. But, if you have a good foundation in your relationship, then it won’t drive a wedge between the two of you.
In order to do this, you need to have trust in the relationship. This means that when you talk about what is stressing you out, your partner should not judge you or try to solve the problem. Your partner should listen and be supportive.
Read 12 Common Habits In Healthy Relationships Every Couple Swears By
In order to have healthy relationships that last, it’s best to get help for your problems and issues as early as you can.
Couples therapy can teach you to relate to your partner in a new way and give you a new perspective on the relationship.
I have been trained to use The Gottman Method for couples, which comes with over four decades of research. It starts with an assessment, this gives me a lot of information about the relationship. It would take many sessions to find out this information if I didn’t use it.
All relationships go through seasons and couples therapy can help you understand what those seasons mean and grow from them.
Written By Lianne Avila
Originally Appeared On Your Tango
