Holding yourself accountable for your part in your relationship is crucial for a joyful connection with your partner.
If you are not doing this then you are likely blaming your partner, causing conflict, and stepping into an emotional place that can only feel weak and powerless.
Read on to find out why:
Couples that are in crisis have typically been engaging in disempowering behaviours for some time. This can have been going on for months, or even years. Eventually, they begin to hold their spouse responsible for the state of their relationship and wait for them to change their behaviour in order to make things better.
However, what they are doing here is they have given up their own responsibility, handing the responsibility over to their partner, which, over time, leads to disappointment and criticism of their partner and ultimately resentment that they are not doing what they believe they should.
Additionally, they no longer take ownership of their own emotions. They may start to concentrate just on themselves and wait for things to change outside of them without them actually making the effort themselves. This is a victim mentality and is very disempowering, it can lead to feelings of helplessness and they can get to a point where they are desperate for their partner to change without them realising that they can make changes themselves.
All the while, they are also unaware of their partners' feelings as they are feeling so negative towards them that empathy is difficult. This also affects the empathy of their partner, widening the gap between them even more.
In this situation, nothing is moving them forward. The couple is stuck.
Recognizing that you are accountable for yourself and your actions is the first step to a happy and healthy relationship.
The next:
You must actively participate in becoming aware of your own actions, reactions and behaviours.
When I bring up this topic with couples in crisis, I frequently hear an outcry from one or both partners who claim they are doing everything they can to keep the marriage together but are misunderstood, underappreciated, and it's all their partner's fault. They continue to act according to the patterns of behaviour that led them to the issue in the first place.
The issue is that nobody in this place knows how to act differently. They frequently appear perplexed or simple unaware of how to make things better.
They are confused by the actions of their companion. They are concerned that their words are being misinterpreted. confused that their partner is misinterpreting their intentions.
There may be a fear of being rejected. fear of making a mistake. Fearful of not being understood, fearful of change, afraid about not being worthy, fearful of being unloved.
From here, the future appears grim, and many people think that leaving is the only choice because they assume the relationship was bad from the beginning.
But maybe that is not the case. Maybe they just lost their way and small misunderstandings or oversights have led to feelings of insignificance or rejection without that being how the other person felt at all.
Why not find out if your relationship has a future? By future, I mean a future that is everything you imagined and perhaps even more. You stand to gain a great deal and have little to lose.
If you have read this and recognised your relationship, yourself or your partner then please do connect with me with a view to us working together on your relationship.
Please click here to book a complimentary consultation online.
All the best,
Jane