Couples who survive the break-in period continue to go through cycles of closeness and distance. Some conflicts are resolved, others are avoided, for a few keep cropping up from time to time. Arguments still occur, but the nature of these heated discussions should change over time. They become less bitter and less violent. There is less blaming and a greater feeling that both of you are in the same boat. if arguments don't become less frequent, less intense, and shorter, partners would do well to see what they are doing to keep emotionally high and listening absent.
Successful couples learn that the methods most commonly used in attempting to induce unilateral change - complaining, cajoling, sweet talking, nagging, inducing guilt, becoming angry, and using other forms of emotional manipulation - don't work very well. When empathy doesn't come easy, successful partners work at it - making themselves listen even when they would prefer to be heard. (You don't have to feel sympathetic to listen. Sometimes showing concern works from the outside in, the way smiling can put you in a good mood.)
Problems arise when patterns keep too many secrets, say yes when they don't mean it, or don't tell the truth about their feelings because they're afraid of arguments. The broken promises that result from being afraid to say no are too great a price to pay for avoiding honest argument. Learning to say no enables you to say yes and mean it. If you're wishing that your partner would realize this, ask yourself, why would someone lie to you?
Trust allows partners to relax vigilance. Being honest is central to establishing this trust, as is being open, listening to and acknowledging the hard things your partners says. Love that grows out of and feeds into self-respect is love for ourselves as we are, not for a partial and carefully selected portion. The person who hesitates to speak wonders if it's safe to broach certain embarrassing or controversial issues. The person who never opens up to you has already decided that it isn't safe to speak.
If we want the truth from our partners, we must make it safe for them to tell it.
Unfortunately, even with the best of intentions, many couples reach a point where they get bogged down in bitterness and can't hear each other at all. Pursuers get sick of pursuing and distancers get tired of all the pressure, until one or both of them pulls back so far that they reach what family therapist Phil Guerin calls an "island of invulnerability." Anger and animosity build to bitter resentment, and two people who once thrilled each other now give up on each other. Giving up on satisfaction in favor of security, retreating to the island of invulnerability, is cold comfort. But even loneliness sometimes feels better than constant conflict.
Mates bogged down in bitterness can take a step toward releasing themselves from ice castles of frozen hope by taking a hand look at those hopes. If you're willing to let go of blaming and look for a way back together, examine your expectations. Are your conflicts based on a desire for a partner who is fundamentally different from the one you married? if you're chronically irritated with your partner for being who she or he is, rather than about some particular behavior, then you are in the wrong relationship and it's never going to be very fulfilling. The only things worth fighting about the things that can be changed.
People come to intimate partnership with an interesting and self-contradictory pair of expectations. they expect their partners both to duplicate the good aspects of their own families and to make up for the bad. To make matters worse, these expectations are often directed toward a partner's limitations rather than his or her strengths.
Don't judge your partner by measuring him (or her) against your strengths, measure him by his strengths. Everybody wants to be appreciated for their contributions.
No one benefits when weaknesses or shortcoming becoming the principal focus of attention in a relationship."
.........
~The Lost Art of Listening ~ Michael P. Nichols
Mates bogged down in bitterness can take a step toward releasing themselves from ice castles of frozen hope by taking a hand look at those hopes. If you're willing to let go of blaming and look for a way back together, examine your expectations. Are your conflicts based on a desire for a partner who is fundamentally different from the one you married? if you're chronically irritated with your partner for being who she or he is, rather than about some particular behavior, then you are in the wrong relationship and it's never going to be very fulfilling. The only things worth fighting about the things that can be changed.
People come to intimate partnership with an interesting and self-contradictory pair of expectations. they expect their partners both to duplicate the good aspects of their own families and to make up for the bad. To make matters worse, these expectations are often directed toward a partner's limitations rather than his or her strengths.
Don't judge your partner by measuring him (or her) against your strengths, measure him by his strengths. Everybody wants to be appreciated for their contributions.
No one benefits when weaknesses or shortcoming becoming the principal focus of attention in a relationship."
.........
~The Lost Art of Listening ~ Michael P. Nichols
