Your relationship feels like it is dying. The magic has faded away. You are constantly fighting. The quality time you used to spend together is dwindling or non-existent. You feel like the two of you are drifting apart. There is a part of you that is wondering if you should end the relationship but you are unsure. Should I stay or should I go?
All healthy relationships have high and lows but many people will stay in a toxic relationship long after the sparks of passion have lost their luster. This concept is most puzzling in narcissistic relationships where an individual will stay in an abusive situation. Researchers, however, have uncovered a number of reasons why people stay in bad, low-quality relationships, ones that do not meet their needs.
We all want to be happy and many of us search for happiness in the things we do. We want to have satisfying romantic relationships, a successful career and a nice home. The pursuit of happiness, in fact, is the central focus of the self-help industry where it tries to inform and instruct people in the ways of experiencing a blissful existence. While most people actively pursue happiness, there are many who fear it. These individuals have a happiness phobia called ‘cherophobia’.
Are you happy in your relationship or just comfortable? This is a question that we all ponder as time goes on and the thrill and excitement we first felt when we met someone begins to dim. We all want to love and be loved. We grow up being told about the ‘happily ever after’ we will experience once we find Mr. Or Mrs. Right. Once we say “I do”, however, it often seems as if there is nothing more to strive for or to look forward to. We have achieved our objective. We have moved in together or gotten married and wonder, now what?
s to have strong boundaries when we are interacting with someone at the grocery store, or when we are dealing with an issue at the bank. Where challenges arise is when we are trying to maintain our boundaries with our close friends, romantic relationships and families.
You start a new relationship. As you evaluate events that have transpired between the two of you issues arise and a serious and potentially dreaded question comes to the surface, “Does he love me?”
Having and experiencing emotions is a normal part of our lives. When we are able to effectively manage our response to an emotional situation we are demonstrating good emotional regulation. When we lose our cool, we are what is called emotionally dysregulated.
If you find that you have fallen in love with an abuse or trauma survivor, understand right up front that healing is possible. Sometimes by understanding what your partner has been through can help you to better support them as they work through their tangled up and confused inner world.
What can you do once the passion is gone and you are ready for him or her to take their next step out of your house and out of your life? You might want to kick them out but getting your ex to vacate your premises may be trickier than you think.
Where do you go to meet the man of woman of your dreams? I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in looking for “the man of my dreams” at a bar. I have never been asked for my phone number at the supermarket, a concert or a trade show. What about online dating.