In a Troubled Relationship?

There are two good things about saying your relationship is in trouble: by admitting you’re in a troubled relationship you’re being realistic, and two the relationship isn’t over yet so there is time to fix it.  When I say “fix a relationship”, what I really mean is to make the relationship better than it was before it began to crash and burn.  All relationships have their highs and lows, but in order to have a successful relationship you have to be able to survive the nose dives.  If you’re willing to put a little effort into your relationship I can help you.

Let’s pretend for a minute that at some point in your relationship the two of you were very happy.  Wait a second, of course you were!  Otherwise there would be no relationship!  Something happened along the way to make things worse, go sour, go to hell and that’s how you got to where you are today.  The great thing about being in a troubled relationship is that you’re still in a relationship, and can fix it!  Yay!

Both men and women are known to emotionally or physically “check out” of a relationship.  I’m going to start off by asking you to relax, and take a minute to evaluate your relationship.  Make a list of pros and cons, and yes you do have to put the pros on the list!  No negative Nancy today!  List the things that you do/don’t like about your current relationship, then go back to the beginning and compare the two.  Hopefully, you’ve found something that can be worked on.

One of the things I hear a lot from couples is that they fight too much, he said/she said.  It’s a great topic really, grab a bowl of popcorn then sit back and watch!  My advice to both of you is to stop the arguing!  Lay down some ground rules such as no interrupting, and no yelling.  Amazingly, these two rules work very well and very quickly. 

Communication is important in any relationship.  If things are strained as it is, talking about the problem is going to relieve a lot of stress.  It’s important to remember to bring up positive things as well when communicating with your partner.  Yes, I said partner not arch nemesis.  Try saying something such as, “It really bothers me that you do (fill in here)… but I’m glad that you’ve been trying (inserting something nice) lately I can tell it’s been making a difference.”

Setting goals may help your relationship as well, but both partners need to be on board to do this.  After evaluating your relationship both partners need to set goals for themselves for the short term/long term, and as a couple (which means you decide this together) sit down and establish some goals for the short term/long term.  It’s not going to help either person’s life if the finished results of the goals list looks like the shopping list of Paris Hilton.  Hopefully the list includes items such as: spend more time with kids, date nights weekly (or monthly, depending on how much you hate each other at the time of the list), go bowling, start doing things as a team (i.e. eating better), a small vacation somewhere…etc.

I don’t own a magic wand, I wish I did.  But thanks to trial and error of my own, and my friends, I think I’ve been able to put together something that can help you.  We’ve all been in a troubled relationship at one time or another and what defines us is our ability to come out of it.  Most of the people I’ve talked to about relationships in crisis enjoy this website: http://www.themagicofmakingupstore.info.  I hope that it can do for you what I’ve seen it do for others.

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I originally wrote this article and submitted it on other sites under my pen name of H.W. Storm