Signs of a failing relationship include a lack of intimacy and trust, spending considerably less time together, constant arguments and fighting, not being able to meet each other’s emotional needs and for some people, even having thoughts about cheating on their partner.
How and why does this happen though? Why are your personal and even some of your professional relationships failing? What’s the key to unlocking happiness and contentment with the people who matter to you the most?
You’ve heard this before, but it’s communication. Let’s dive further into the reasons why the absence of effective communication is the number one cause of failing relationships.
INEFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION LEADS TO FAILED RELATIONSHIPS
In one of our other posts, we talked about one of the most valuable professional coaching tools (personality insights) and how they can lead to a more positive experience with your boss and work colleagues.
The same is true of failing relationships. When you truly understand different personalities, it makes you more appreciative and tolerant of other people.
Relationships Don’t Fail Because It’s Anyone’s Fault
It can be hard to feel like this statement is true, but 99% of the time the reason why relationships fail isn’t because people are at fault.
Often people get hung up on the idea of blaming one another when things start to go wrong and playing the ‘blame game’. This is a really negative frame of mind to get into and it doesn’t actually resolve anything.
Instead of trying to blame each other (or perhaps you’re sometimes guilty of pinning the blame solely onto one other person), instead you should take the time to try and understand the other persons emotional needs.
It can be hard when temperatures raise and frustration sets in, but the first thing you should try to do is take a step back, count to ten and focus on breathing.
Let It All Go
When you step back and breathe in the midst of a heated conversation, whether it’s via a text message or in person, you’ve already managed to take one of the most important first steps needed to mend things.
This allows you to break out of the emotional ties of the moment and choose how you feel rather than letting the circumstances dictate your feelings for you. It’s at this point, whilst you’re experiencing clarity, that you need to start focusing on what attracted you to your partner in the first place.
Remember the laughter, the romantic nights in and the warmth that you’ve both shared together. When this comes to mind, do you still feel agitated or are you feeling a sense of relaxation and calm come over you?
If it’s the latter, it proves that you probably don’t want things to be broken. If you’re seeking the happier times again, then it’s time to consider how you can get back there.
Rebuild The Bridge
Now that you’ve determined that you want things to be ‘OK’ again, there’s no better time than now to do what’s required to make them so. As we mentioned before, the key is communication.
It all starts with talking about how you feel without directly implying or blaming the other person. If you’re feeling upset, it’s completely fine to say that you’re feeling upset. If you’re feeling angry, it’s completely fine to say that you’re feeling angry.
After explaining how you feel, remind your partner how much they mean to you and try to support what you’re saying with plenty of reassuring language that reminds your partner that you still hold many positive feelings towards them and, ultimately, that you don’t want to feel like this. Explain that you don’t want them to feel negative either.
Ask them how they feel too. Explore your emotions together and remember. It’s completely acceptable for you both to feel how you currently feel, even if you don’t agree with one another.
Personality Insights
Through the use of professional coaching you can gain more insight into the different personality types and how they can sometimes ‘grate’ on one another. This is one of the main reasons why some relationships struggle from time to time whereas others don’t.
It’s entirely possible that you both possess opposing personalities. This is actually quite common, because in some instances opposites really do attract. This is fantastic because you can balance each other out, but it can also lead to a great deal of misunderstanding of one another at times, too.
Like minded personalities can sometimes grate on one another too! This is simply because the ‘harder to live with’ aspects of certain personality types can manifest at different times depending on work patterns, emotional well being and an enormous number of other factors.
When you understand what kind of personality ‘blueprint’ you both match, you then have a firm foundation for being able to reach a deeper place of understanding with one another. This is because rather than feeling frustrated with your partner, you’ll understand more about the reasons why they speak and act in certain ways at times.
When you understand the how and why behind their words and actions, rather than viewing their responses and habits emotionally you’ll instead be able to view them logically and rationally.
This will help to disarm you from responding emotionally. You’re actually likely to have a newfound respect and admiration for the person you love because you’ll view their differences as assets, and them yours in turn.
When you truly know and understand each other, differences help to create harmony and balance as opposed to friction, agitation and frustration.
FAILING RELATIONSHIPS DON’T NEED TO FAIL
Just because things might feel bad now, this doesn’t mean that you have to be in the midst of what you believe to be a failing relationship forever.
Your failing relationship probably isn’t failing at all. You probably just need to understand it a little more in order to be able to remedy the issues you’re both encountering.
Whether you’ve used professional coaching to remedy a failing relationship in the past or you’re currently stuck in the middle of a difficult situation, we’d love to hear about your real life experiences in this area and how you feel at the moment in the comments section.
It’s an absolute guarantee that others feel exactly like you, right now. Feel free to reach out for a free consultation anytime you want to talk about your feelings in greater detail with an impartial professional.