Why relationships go wrong

Why relationships go wrong

Posted on November 20, 2013

Relationships can be the most rewarding and most frustrating areas of our lives.

Very few of us have been shown how to have a good relationship. It is not surprising, then, that sooner or later problems surface.

Even though your intentions are good, you often lack the knowledge and insight into what has happened and how you have got into such a stuck place.

If you have been experiencing difficulties in your relationship for some time, and trying what you know to improve things, it can be easy to begin to feel hopeless, and helpless.

While most people find it easy to see how their partner is contributing to the problems, it’s not so easy to see how you are.

Most of us begin a relationship hoping that all our emotional needs will be met by our partner. It’s the stuff dreams are made of. That’s our natural narcissism.

This is inevitably followed by disappointment, as we discover this is not and will not be the case. Our relationship shows us through pain what we need to develop in ourselves first and foremost before we can truly love our partner.

From my study of Relationships over many years, I have discovered that there seem to be 4 key factors that form the core of why our relationships can go awry

1. Your relationship with yourself.

Interestingly, your relationship with your partner has more to do with your relationship with yourself than anything else. That doesn’t mean how self centred or selfish you are. It refers to your level of self esteem, solid sense of self, or differentiation.

How do you know if you have a good relationship with yourself, or are psychologically mature?

You have a clear and solid sense of yourself (you change your beliefs from within, not by coercion)
You are responsible for yourself, your life, and your emotions (you are not a victim)
You know your boundaries and you don’t let your partner violate them and control you in any way
You are aware of, and let go of, any controlling, manipulating or coercion of your partner.
You let go of expecting your partner to meet all your emotional needs ( your narcissism)
You know what you need and can take care of your own needs
You know what you want in your relationship.
You know what you will and won’t tolerate in your relationship.
You hold dear and take a stand for what you want
You are aware of your emotions and take responsibility for them
You don’t argue or over-react.
You are willing to tolerate discomfort for growth

The better the relationship you can develop with yourself, the more you can love your partner, and the more passionate and desiring you are of him/her. This is desire out of fullness, rather than out of need.

And in your relationship:

You love and respect your partner as different from you
You openly share how you think and feel (even if he/she doesn’t validate you)
You listen and want to understand your partner
You want to share your life with your partner
You see your partner for who he/she is.
You desire your partner sexually out of fullness, rather than need
You feel free to be yourself with your partner

Most people have not developed a good relationship with themselves.

The more insecure you are in yourself, the more you are going to want to either control your partner (which naturally causes conflict), or let your partner control you (which causes resentment, or “getting back”).

This is the single biggest factor in relationship, intimacy and sexual problems.

So a large part of making your relationship happy, vibrant and intimate is being able to recognize either when you are being controlling, (and decide to let go of that behaviour), or when you are allowing yourself to be controlled against your wishes, (and decide to stand up for yourself).

A most common occasion that we exert control over our partner is in our communication. You might like to check, which of the following ways has your communication been controlling lately?

Pressure to change – tell partner that he/she is wrong/how to behave or my way is the right way
Attacks, put downs, criticisms
Annihilate, unsettle, undermine, deliberately confuse
Frighten with displays of anger and rage
Blame and complain
Ask for something and expect to get
Manipulate through guilt
Rescue, fix, sooth
Judge
Be dismissive
Give with strings attached
Be arrogant and contemptuous
Be pushy
Use threats

Or the more subtle ones:

Withdraw
Shut down
Reject
Be precious, over-react
Be stubborn
Procrastinate

To have the best relationship you can have with yourself, you can ask yourself:

Am I prepared to stop my controlling ways?
What ways am I being controlled by my partner? Is he/she prepared to stop them?
How do I “get my partner back” for his/her controlling me?
To what extent am I looking after my own needs?
What would I like to be different in our relationship?
Am I closing down sexually? If so, why?

2. Your Personality Type

Understanding your personality type in more depth can give you a huge insight into how you are contributing to the problems you are experiencing.

I have found the Enneagram with its 9 types offers both a brief and in-depth insight into your strengths and also your limitations. Also, how you are either trying to control your partner, or allowing yourself to be controlled, as well as a personal growth path for overcoming your limitations, and reaching your fullest potential as an individual. You can also start to understand your partner in a whole new way.

To learn more about each of the 9 personality types, check out the free article “How do I contribute to our problems”

If you’d like to understand more about both your personality and your partner’s and how they interact, and how you can bring out the best in each other, we have designed some special sessions either in-house or by phone of Skype.

3. Knowing and managing your emotions and Communication.

All poor communication is created because very few people really know what’s going on inside them emotionally.

This lack of awareness unwittingly leads you to acting out defensive patterns on your partner and others. So it can be hugely helpful to become more aware of, and manage well, your emotions, sharing them with your partner when appropriate.

We have developed a simple process which can have you managing your inner states and communicating well with your partner with just a little practice.

Give us a ring and make an appointment if you would like help with your communication. We have 70 Relationship Psychologists across Australia. One near you.

4. The Masculine/Feminine difference.

It’s the subject of more jokes than any other topic. It is true that, in many ways, the male and female brain are wired differently, and we can be thankful of that because the magnetic attraction you feel for each other gives your relationship juice and vibrancy, along with bringing a breadth to your relationship.

Actually, we all have some masculine and feminine in us, but most people find that, in essence, they are predominately one or the other.

Here are some of the differences:

The Masculine:	The Feminine
Pushes and guides	Invites and attracts
Has direction in the world	Is at home in life, love & sensual pleasure
Protects and provides	Nurtures
Under stress, can become detached	Under stress, can become more emotional
Gives less when he receives more	Gives more when she receives less
Won’t let the score become uneven	Will give more than she gets
Contracted awareness : focus on self	Expansive awareness : responsive to others
Blames others first	Blames themselves first
Needs time to mull over thoughts	Needs a listening ear to share feelings
Will punish if criticized	Will induce guilt
Withdraws, grumbles and shuts down when stressed	Becomes overwhelmed, over-reacts and exhausted when stressed
Needs appreciation, trust and acceptance	Needs respect, care and understanding

An essential part of making your relationship work well is to honour, value and understand the inherent differences and gifts we each can bring to the relationship, rather than judge and devalue them.

It is a smart man who appreciates the beauty, love and rich emotional life his wife brings into his life, and a wise woman who appreciates the strength, direction and protection her man so willingly gives her.

Why put in the effort in your relationship?

Through your continued efforts in working through your relationship problems and conflicts, you grow your own psychological maturity.

If both of you can do this, you can develop a relationship with your partner of true equality, mutual respect, equal energy exchange and input, and equal willingness to grow, where renewed romance, intimacy and playful sexuality abound.

Couples who have achieved this kind of relationship overwhelmingly feel that it was well worth the ride to get there.

The fact that you have taken the time to understand and address your relationship issues, and along with a willingness to try new things, means that you have a high chance of successfully re-creating your relationship anew, and often one that is better than you have ever had before.

It is our privilege to help you in your process.

If you would like help in assessing your relationship and what might be causing your relationship difficulties, please call us or check search our psychologists from the right hand bar. Relationships are our specialty and we would love to help you.

Julie Hart

How do you contribute to your relationship problems?

Posted on November 20, 2013

Your Enneagram Profile

If you really want to look in depth at why the two of you have the unique relationship and problems that you have, look no further than the Enneagram.

One of the most helpful ways to discover yourself and just as importantly, how you contribute to your relationship problems, is to look at your Enneagram profile.

What is the Enneagram?

The modern Enneagram is based on ancient Eastern wisdom combined with modern Psychological thought. There are 9 Personality types each with different patterns of thinking, feeling and acting. Each style has its own natural gifts, limitations, and blind spots.

When you know your Enneagram number, you can then be aware of the unconscious assumptions that drive the way you see yourself, do your work, and relate in your relationships.

And you can also understand why your partner seems to act in the bizarre, inconsiderate, intrusive, self-interested, seductive or charming ways that he or she does.

Once you know how he or she see things from the inside out, you can see why they do the things they do which makes perfect sense to them.

There are no types that are better than any other. Each is effective in their own way, but from a very different point of view.

Ones want to make things right.
Twos need to be of help.
Threes are driven to succeed.
Fours yearn to be special.
Fives want to be left alone to think.
Sixes seek safety and support.
Sevens are connoisseurs of life’s pleasures.
Eights are driven to dominate others.
Nines don’t want to make waves.

Ones. The Perfectionist

You are reliable, fair and honest. You earn love by being perfect and worry about getting it right. You seem right to be measuring up to the highest standards. Your thinking centre’s around what you “should” be doing. It feels honourable to dedicate yourself to doing good. You can’t help noticing when standards slip. You feel compelled to fix it. You very conscientiously monitor your own self actions. In self defence, you can feel morally superior by finding fault with others.

Ones in a relationship can contribute by being critical, judgemental, inflexible, argumentative, having too high standards, being uncompromising and overly serious.

Ones are helped by partners who accept differences of opinion, who soften the One Right Way thinking, and who bring pleasure to a relationship.

Twos. The Giver

You are loving, warm and generous. You are always focusing on other people, their wants, needs and potentials. You spend your life pleasing and supporting others and managing their lives. Your own needs are not important, you give to others and hope that they will care about you when you are in need. Other’s needs broadcast so loudly, that you find yourself moulding to please. Wanting approval, an association forms in which you become indispensable. You feel proud that you are so helpful.

Twos in a relationship can contribute by being overly accommodating, possessive, martyr-like, manipulative, insincere and hysterical.

Twos are helped by partners who are not seduced by your adaption, who love you separately from what you give, and who can see you through the crisis of having to stand alone and discover your own needs.

Threes. The Performer

You are energetic, industrious and practical. You win love through your achievement and your image. It is very important to be high profile and high powered at work. You are sensitive to status. You want to be first, to lead, and to be seen. You like to impress people. Work is the area of interest; your feelings are suspended while the job gets done. You believe people in love should look happy and productive, love shouldn’t be overwhelming or sad.

Threes in a relationship can contribute by being self centred, vain, superficial, overly competitive, deceptive and defensive.

Threes are helped by partners who love them for who they are rather than what they produce, or the image they project to the world.

Fours. The Romantic

You are perceptive, expressive and individualistic. You feel a lifelong searching for a heart connection. You know all about attraction, hate, high drama and pain. You like an elegant lifestyle and to dress distinctively and uniquely. You often feel you are searching for love at a distance, then can feel disappointed when love is near at hand. We had it once. Where did it go? Emotional highs and lows are part of your life. You can feel deprived when you see others enjoy the happiness that you long for.

Fours in a relationship can contribute by being temperamental, self absorbed, emotionally needy, snobbish, depressed, and self indulgent.

Fours are helped by partners who can see the good in the here and now and who can stand fast during the intense emotional tides.

Fives. The Observer.

You are objective, calm and insightful. Your home is your castle where you like to withdraw to. You need low visibility, controlled contact with people, and uninterrupted private time. Your mind is your best companion and is also a refuge that is totally safe from invasion. Your needs are few as are your expectations of others. You detach from love and stay well away from any charged emotions in yourself or others.

Fives in a relationship can contribute by being contentious, arrogant, stingy, withdrawn, stubborn, withholding and alienated.

Fives are helped by partners who can make self disclosure safe, who can point out over-intellectualization and who respect your need for privacy time and space.

Sixes. The Trooper.

You are alert, witty and loyal. You question love and a rosy future. You are afraid to believe in love and be betrayed. You tend to be always wary, to question authority and to look for what others “really mean”. Your habit is to sceptical and cautious, and to look for hidden intentions. You are primed for opposition and doubtful of others support. When you’re flooded by apprehension, you go into thinking mode rather than doing. You can grow by regaining faith in people and learning to trust.

Sixes in a relationship can contribute by being anxious, paranoid, rigid, testy, suspicious, hypervigilant and cruel.

Sixes are helped by partners who offer reassurance, who remain steadfast when the future looks doubtful, and who are consistently fair in their dealings.

Sevens. The Epicure.

You are enthusiastic, fun-loving and spontaneous. Your life is an adventure and you are optimistic about it. Your world is full of options and ideas and plans to make the future bright. Everything’s alright when you’re looking ahead to a good time. Life’s OK when the energy starts to run.

Your life is like a banquet of experience, stuffing the weekly schedule and filling the mind with plans. Disappointments barely surface, suddenly there’s a whole new idea. You feel buoyed by a sense of personal worth and follow your interests. You don’t need to touch on the painful aspects of life.

Sevens in a relationship can contribute by being self centred, impulsive, rebellious, manic, restless, distractible and unreliable.

Sevens are helped by partners who encourage you to stay rather than move on to the next project and who can encourage you to touch on and deal with your pain.

Eights. The Boss.

You are energetic, brave and direct. You express your love through protection of your loved ones and respect for others is earned by power. You set the rules. A battle mentality is your normal mode. You know what you stand for, you know who stands against you, and you protect your position. You have a full bore approach to life. The energy switch is either on or off. When life is interesting, the energy comes on. You’re fully into it and you want to be in there first. You don’t often notice that others get stood on or forgotten.

Eights in a relationship can contribute by being insensitive, domineering, overly aggressive, combative, uncompromising and self centred.

Eights are helped by partners who stick to their own version of the truth, who hold ground under fire and who encourage you to allow the gentler and more sensitive parts of you to emerge.

Nines. The Mediator.

You are accepting, gentle and receptive. You tend to merge with your partner, losing your boundaries. You are so easy going, you forget your own priorities. You can take on another’s life as your own. There can be lots of energy for your partner’s agendas. You don’t feel you can say “No” to others but will get stubborn rather than get openly angry. You can relate to all sides of an argument, so it’s easy to forget your own agenda. It is so difficult to make decisions when you can see the benefits of all the options. You get sidetracked to incidental chores rather than do what’s important.

Nines in a relationship can contribute by being apathetic, stubborn, unassertive, spaced out, forgetful and overly accommodating.

Nines can be helped by partners who encourage you to have separate goals and to choose for yourself, and also support you to see your goals through to completion.

This is just a very small taste of what the Enneagram can show you about yourself, your partner and the dynamics in your relationship. If you would like to learn more about yourselves and each other, and why you have the unique relationship and problems you have, call us.

Julie Hart

Keys to being Psychologically Healthy (and therefore having healthy relationships)

Posted on November 20, 2013

For many of us growing up with parents who did their best, but didn’t know about psychological good health, we ourselves grow up to be an adult doing our best too, but don’t really know what psychological good health really looks like.

What does psychological health look like?

So here’s some an overview of what someone who is psychologically healthy is doing in their lives. These attributes are essential for us all to keep ourselves healthy and happy:

You experience and express a wide range of feelings deeply, both pleasant and unpleasant, and in the moment, rather than block them or deaden the impact of them.

You expect entitlements to appropriate experiences of pleasure and mastery, as well as the environmental input necessary to achieve these objectives. You expect you can master your life and achieve what is good for you. You have confidence that your real self can expect positive responses from others.

Self activation and self assertion. You are able to identify your own unique individuality, wishes, dreams, and goals, and to be assertive in expressing them autonomously. It also includes taking the necessary steps to make these dreams a reality and supporting and defending them when they are under attack.

1. Acknowledgement of self esteem. This allows you to identify and acknowledge that you have effectively coped with a problem or crisis in a positive and creative way, and can remind yourself that you are a worthwhile individual with many skills and abilities.

The ability to soothe painful feelings. When things go wrong, and you are hurt, you can know how to minimise and soothe painful feelings and, as well, put things into perspective.

The ability to make and stick to commitments, both in career and in relationships when it is clear that it is in your best interests.

Creativity. The ability to replace old, familiar patterns of living and problem solving with new and equally or more successful ones.

Intimacy. The capacity to express your real self fully and honestly in a close relationship with another with minimal anxiety about abandonment or engulfment.

The ability to be alone. You can be alone without feeling abandoned. This allows you to manage yourself and your feelings through periods when there is no special person in your life, as well as organise your life around worthwhile activities. It also includes not having to fill up your lives with meaningless sexual activity or dead end relationships to avoid being lonely.

The continuity of the self. The capacity to recognise and acknowledge that you have a deeply felt solid core that persists through your life that is always there and never changing, despite what changes on the outside.

For most of us we find that we are good at some of these and perhaps underdeveloped in other areas.

If you would like any help in developing any of these areas in yourself, please don’t hesitate to call us as we can help you. Contact us for an individual or relationship counselling appointment today.

We have Psychologists in Sydney and in all capital and large regional cities in Australia. Call us on 1300830552.

How to keep your love alive: 6 Essential keys to keep your relationship rich

Posted on October 7, 2013

Staying in love over the long term is something that doesn’t always come naturally for most people. Here are my e6 ssentials for keeping the love alive:

1. Every night:

Make time for the two of you to talk for at least half an hour. This means what happened through the day for you, how you felt about it, and what you have been thinking.

2. Every day:

Find at least one thing you appreciate about your partner and tell him/her.(You look gorgeous, I like your shirt, That was a beautiful meal, I appreciate that you work so hard for us, I love the feel of your skin)

3. Every week:

Have a date night one night a week, just the two of you. Take turns to organize what you’ll do. If something else crops up on that night, swap your date night for another night, but don’t put it off. You show your partner that you value your relationship and are not taking him/her for granted by this small but consistent gesture.

4. Every month:

Check with each other about how your relationship is going.
Ask each other,” On a scale of 1 to 10, how are we going?” And then, the more important question, “What would make it a 10 for you?”
In this way you both keep up to date about the quality of your relationship, and have opportunities to take action to keep it alive and vibrant.

5. Every 3 months:

Go away, just the two of you, for a weekend, or preferably a long weekend, just to have fun. No-one else is invited. Take turns to organize it.

6. Every year:

Celebrate your anniversary (either wedding, or meeting each other, or moving in together) in a way that is meaningful to both of you, and recommit for another year. Talk about what you like to see happen in the next year.

The more you treasure and honor your partner and your relationship, the richer will be the rewards for all. These kinds of simple things done over time make a huge difference to the quality of your relationship.

If you would like further help with these or anything related to your relationship, please see a qualified and experienced relationship and marriage counsellor.

All the best in staying in love.
Warm regards
Julie

Why do Affairs Happen?

Posted on April 13, 2013

Last week I mentioned that there are 7 basic reasons why affairs happen.

The first three were the Door opening affair, which helps a partner leave and gives a level of safety straight into the next relationship; then the 3 legged stool, which can distract the focus from the real issues in the relationship, and then also the Revenge affair which is used to “get back” at a partner who has already had an affair, or has hurt you.

The 4th reason for an affair is the “Notice Me Affair”. This usually happens as a result of trying to communicate unhappiness in the relationship to your partner but feeling that you haven’t been heard. This can be either a sexual one night stand, or even an emotional affair, and is an attempt to communicate to your partner that things aren’t right for you when talking hasn’t worked. The partner is not looking to leave the relationship, but to wake up the partner.

The 5th kind of affair is the Avoidance affair. This occurs as a way to avoid intimacy and commitment in your relationship. Usually one affair follows another as a continuing way of avoiding being close and vulnerable with your partner. Or it can occur when you feel that you can’t deliver what your partner is asking for. For some, this can feel like a kind of addiction, as you know you shouldn’t be having affairs, but can’t seem to stop.

The 6th type of affair is the Experimental affair. This is usually just about sex. Often if a couple has not had any or many sexual partners before the relationship, and/or the sex has become very limited and routine, a partner will feel tempted to discover what sex would be like with another person. The person having the affair can feel like it is meaningless sex, but this is not usually how the partner will view it.

The 7th and last reason for an affair to happen is the Opportunistic one. Usually this is a sexual encounter that happens usually after drinking too much, where you find yourself together and often away from home, or given in to a seduction from a friend or acquaintance; or it could be an on-line contact where things have started seemingly harmlessly but have moved into something more erotic. This kind of affair can feed the ego, allowing you to feel good about yourself and attractive and sexy, but is usually the most quickly regretted.

No matter how and why they occur, affairs always have emotionally devastating effects on a couple’s relationship. With help from an experienced relationship counsellor, couples can learn about the reasons behind the affair and gradually repair their relationship, and with a commitment from each partner, can in time use this experience as a catalyst to create an even better relationship than they had before.

This takes time and commitment, but overwhelmingly, couples who have taken this path are extremely satisfied with their relationship at the end of the period, and have found it is in fact, work worth doing.

More next week

Warm regards

Julie Hart