It’s easy to find on the internet and social media lots of tips and articles that explain what love is, how to understand if you love or you’ve ever loved your partner, what might be influencing the way we love. Various sources offer suggestions as of when it’s ok to date someone or it’s not, when you should leave a relationship or when to stay, what are the signals of a “working” or a “not working” relationship, green flags, red flags… the list carries on.
Of course, all these tips, ideas and theories are useful and contribute to more awareness around this important subject, however, the risk is to compartmentalize relationships and love as if there was a clear formula that could give us the exact solution in relation to what to do or not to do in certain situations. Something like: IF something/someone does this… THEN here is what you should do. Problem solved.
Unfortunately, when we talk about love, relationships, feelings, the reality is very different, formulas are hardly applicable because most of the time we found ourselves dealing with challenging situations that are unique to us and our partner and therefore can’t be solved without taking into consideration everyone within the relationship and their uniqueness.
We all know the feeling of finding someone we are attracted to, the spark, romance, physical attraction, the curiosity to know more about each other, can’t stop thinking about that person. Why with time things change? We start noticing different sides of each other. As well as the things that we like and attracted us in the first place, there are other aspects that can be annoying and irritating. Disagreements become more frequent, the bubble bursts …why?
When routine and responsibilities, children, financial worries, work, an elderly parent to look after, stress of various origin are absorbing our energies, it’s only natural to lose focus, take things for granted and neglect those we love the most.
Indeed, romance is an important part of our lives. Finding someone special that we love and loves us back can be wonderful and rewarding but it’s fair to keep in mind that relationships can also bring difficult times when we might feel sad, lonely, angry, disappointed, cheated, confused to the point that we question if it’s still worth to fight for it at all.
Going through highs and lows can be difficult to handle. Sometimes it might feel like separation is the only option, other times peoples might want to make things work but don’t know how.
Couples Therapy can offer support to initiate difficult discussions and often facilitates communication between partners that are willing to work together to find a common ground and perhaps new ways to be in the relationship.
It’s not a magic formula but learning to “work together” taking responsibility and being both accountable for the current situation and for the how you would like things to change, seems an option worth to try, particularly when couples want to understand better each other and to create a deeper and more meaningful connection.
You can find more information on my website, page Therapy with me, Couples Therapy.
Feel free to contact me if this resonates with you and would like to discuss further – mctherapylondon@gmail.com
