How to Get Over Changes In Your Relationship

The norms around romantic relationships have changed through the decades, and while there’s still some way to go in achieving a liberation from the constricting norms of tradition, there’s a general understanding that it isn’t essential to be stuck in a loveless marriage or long-term relationship and that you deserve better if this is the case – another shot at love. Whether you have been struggling in a declining relationship for years, or you’ve recently thought about calling time on a romance, here are some factors to contemplate on your journey to either repairing what’s damaged or accepting it’s time to move on.

Try Dialogue

It takes two to tango and any insecurity or dissatisfaction experienced on your side of the relationship is likely to find itself in some way mirrored in the experiences of your partner. In this case, opening up about your dissatisfaction in the spirit of inquiry and honesty might bring you in some way closer to your partner, allowing you both to voice buried concerns about the fate of your relationship.

Good communication is often something that gets lost in the intricacies of a long-term relationship or a marriage in which children and domestic and financial stress come to mask the true affection you once enjoyed with your partner. Entering into what is essentially a crisis talk about your relationship – going over some of the things that you feel are missing in your relationship – gives you and your partner a wonderful opportunity to either clear the air or jointly realize that it’s time to call time on your romance. Look at some sweet love quotes for him and tell them to your partner. He’ll really appreciate you expressing your feelings to him.

Consider Couples Counseling

Another form of dialogue can be guided by a relationship therapist who is familiar with some of the strains and stresses that long-term romantic relationships can encounter. You may wish to consider getting counseling together – or indeed apart – before making the decision to split from your partner, especially if they’re a spouse with whom you’ve raised children. It might feel like a last-chance saloon – and it probably is – but some couples do emerge from these meetings with a significant weight off their chest and pressure off their relationship.

This is not to say that couples counseling works all the time – it is reliant on the lengths to which you are willing to go over a repair area of your relationship which have been causing the pair of you pain. Maybe resentment has been festering inside your heart for years, or your sex life has been damaged. Getting these things out in the open can either save your relationship or make clear things are beyond repair. Coming to this conclusion in the presence of someone who’s been there and done that where breakups are concerned will give you the confidence that your decisions are the right ones.

Don’t Hold It Together for Your Children

It’s time to call time on the stigma against a ‘broken home’ that often prevents parents from splitting – there is a belief that divorce and separation can be damaging for a child’s upbringing without a consideration of the fact that living with feuding and unhappy parents can be far more upsetting for children young and old, who might feel happier if their parents are happily moving on. Holding it together for the children happens so often in society behind closed doors; be emotionally strong and pragmatic and don’t imprison yourself in this particular stigma.

Children adapt to separation over time, and you will have to provide them with support and a good deal of emotional understanding, but at the end of the day a romance that has been long unfounded and is causing you emotional stress on a daily basis will be creating an unhappy household in the long-run that could end in an explosive and unhealthy fashion, so don’t simply patch things together for the sake of children who you feel you’ll be betraying if you decide that it’s time you made the step away from your partner.

Try and Keep Things Amicable

Some relationships end in turmoil, stress, anger, bitterness, and hate. It can feel unavoidable as the intense feelings that were once so positive begin to turn sour, passing their sell-by date and ultimately becoming something toxic that you need to sever decisively from your life. However, if you’ve gone through the process of counseling or simple dialogue, and you’ve reached the mutual conclusion that your relationship is irrecoverable and your kids may be being damaged by it, you may be able to keep things between you amicable.

This has a number of benefits, including the possibility of not completely losing the emotional and financial support you once received from your partner – and vice versa. If you do have young children, you’ll need to meet with your ex-partner regularly to exchange custody, so doing this in an atmosphere of vitriol and hatred is to be avoided where possible. Further, if you have reached a point in your relationship where you both mourn its loss, and you both feel inside that something has died, you should be able to bring from that a mutual understanding and sympathy that in some way unites the pair of you in your decision, making for the most amicable and painless breakup possible.

Ensure Your Security Post Breakup

Once the decision has been made to end your relationship – and especially the case in divorces after a marriage in which you unite your finances and assets as a team – you’ll need to think about how to regain your financial independence as a single person. At a basic level, this means hiring a divorce attorney. Check out Fort McMurray Divorce Lawyers who specialize in such cases, can provide the services requires. A divorce attorney can help guide you both through the negotiations towards a settlement that allows you both to live and prosper in later life.

Once you have your lawyers working on your behalf, you’ll be able to start planning for your economic future, whether you end up retaining the house or deciding to move on to pastures new. You may need to reenter employment or sell your family’s house to downsize and cut living costs, and you will probably have to make a new budget, but once the strenuous divorce proceedings have played out, you’ll have a clear vision of where your life is headed and how you can make ends meet in a way that allows you to move on emotionally and financially.

Find Personal Joy with Others

A long-term relationship can be a comfortable situation and even if it’s turned sour over the last period of time, having a change in circumstance can be sudden and can make you perhaps feel lonely if you’ve been used to somebody there. You may have been for years used to the sounds, smells, habits, and conversations with your partner, and having them suddenly absent can be destabilizing and worrisome. The key to moving through this stage is to find comfort in the joy that others – whether family, friends or children – can bring in the dark times that follow a relationship breakdown.

The advice here is not to move on to another partner right away – you will probably not be in the emotional position to do this for some time – but to reestablish links with friends and family that may have worn thin as you spent more time within your family unit or your long-term relationship’s lifestyle. Being open to others, detailing your position to them so that they can show you empathy and help you overcome emotional battles, will mean your social life becomes one of both support and joy, showing you all the things life still has to offer you.

Take Advantage of Your New Independence

Divorce or the end of a long-term relationship can feel like the end of the world as you know it, especially if you had romanticized the ‘happily ever after’ notions of choosing to settle down with ‘the one’, but over time and as you begin to see more clearly the failings of the relationship that has ended, you’ll find those things that have been suppressed and muted in you that your relationship prevented you from doing. It might be a hobby, a passion, or a life-long interest. Whatever it may be, now’s the time to rediscover these.

Moreover, your new-found independence, especially if you have no children to tie you down to responsibilities, means you can go on a long holiday, or take up painting, or start an independent business, or frankly do anything that was not available to you while you were in the confines of a relationship that was stifling fundamental parts of you. Psychologically, finding and enhancing these brow-beaten characteristics can make you feel free and liberated in a way that you may have been missing for years – find them and act on them to bring old joys into your new life.

It’s clear that breakups and divorces are something that we dream of never having to put ourselves through – they are the unpleasant result of a failed relationship – but that failure should not be taken personally or be felt as a stigmatized part of you. If you truly feel the romance is dead then it’s time to move on with style, rediscovering parts of you that have lain dormant for years, and ultimately regaining true happiness that you have likely been starved of on your way to deciding to call time on your relationship.

Thanks to Eleonora