Tag Archives: Relationship

Strengthening Your Relationship

What would you define as an unhealthy relationship, or what makes a relationship unhealthy?

I don’t think there’s one way – or an easy way – to define an unhealthy relationship. There are all kinds of ways that a relationship can become unhealthy and I would say various levels of unhealthy exist within troubled or abusive relationships. I don’t think you should or could judge “physically abusive” and “unbalanced commitment” on the same scale, for instance. You also have to take into account that each individual relationship is unique and needs to be assessed individually.

I suppose a relationship that was unhealthy relationships could involve distrust, a lack of communication, disrespect, unhealthy decisions about drugs or alcohol that influenced how each partner interacted with one another, different opinions about what kind of relationship you were in or varying levels of availability or emotional awareness.

I also don’t think once a relationship is “unhealthy” that the label that has to stick with the relationship. You can develop patterns in a relationship that are unhealthy and if you’re aware of these things when they come about, you can potentially re-direct your relationship to a more positive path.

I think the most important thing is being present and aware so you can say “this isn’t something I want to continue doing with you – I want to do it better” and challenging that unhealthy narrative in your relationship. That’s not always possible, especially when it may be dangerous for one partner to do so. Some partners may not want to change their ways and may bring their significant other “down” by being unable to communicate or open up on the same level.

I would recommend relationship counseling as a sort of “step one” for anyone who is looking for healthier ways of communicating with their partner, especially if they are wavering on whether or not their relationship is unhealthy or becoming unhealthy. For domestic abuse or other issues of abuse I would recommend looking up resources in your area and finding someone to talk to who can further help you.

breaking up – amicably

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This is the best thing I’ve seen all day! I’m a huge believer that a relationship that ends is not a relationship that has failed. If you disagree with some fundamental aspect of your relationship and being a family, maybe the relationship has run its course and its time to find someone who you can connect with and grow with in the ways that you want and need to. It doesn’t mean that you need to be spiteful about it or that you have to stop loving one another. This couple (and song) rock.

And breaking up’s a mess
So please be there for us
You don’t have to choose 
Though it’ll be awkward, yes
Invite us to your parties
We will work it out
Don’t feel weird
We love all of you
After 5 whole years
By each other’s side
There are just somethings
No relationship can survive

friendships, boundaries.

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I soak up internet forums instead of reality TV. It’s my guilty pleasure. Some of them are the usual suspects – sex and sexuality, health forums, relationship quarrels. Sometimes I read into christian forums, sometimes BDSM forums, sometimes poly forums. Honestly it’s a great way to learn to think from new and different perspectives. A forum is generally a group of people who all think in a certain way. I don’t know if they start out that way, but it’s usually how it works. People want to talk about things and have people who feel similarly come and agree with them (or in some cases, actually help!) As an outside observer this can help you understand how different people think or tackle important issues.

One such issue is that of friendships in relationships. Let me recount a typical story, the one I hear most frequently, and one I’ve been asked about on here before.

Jill and Ryan have been dating for one year. Ryan has lots of female friends and likes to text them a lot, he also spends time with them when his girlfriend is not with him. This makes Jill anxious and she tells Ryan that she is uncomfortable. She thinks that the behavior is too flirtatious. It’s a constant source of problems in their relationship. He listens to her and says he’ll deal with it and it will be okay. Nothing changes and Jill is now more agitated. Why isn’t he listening to her? Why isn’t this a big deal? She is uncomfortable and Ryan is continuing to chat or flirt with these girls. Jill tells Ryan that he needs to stop talking to them because it makes her feel uncomfortable and it hasn’t gotten better. Ryan can’t do that because these girls are his friends. At this point in the story Ryan will either stop talking to his friends, or continue to fudge the truth or lie about his friendships causing further friction down the road.

Okay – what’s going on here? Let’s look at a few different perspectives.

1. Jill has serious trust issues. There is nothing wrong with Ryan having female friends – nor had any of his behavior been unsavory. His chatting and spending time with friends sent Jill into a bad place where she felt like she had to protect her relationship from a potential threat. In doing so she threatened their relationship by getting wound up and failing to trust him, and she forced an ultimatum on her partner forcing him to choose between him and his friends. Ultimately her refusal to see things from his perspective would collapse the framework of their relationship leaving them both unhappy.

2. Ryan reacted poorly to Jill’s completely legitimate fears. When you care about someone it can be easy to have worries like this. Instead of pretending they didn’t mean anything, Ryan should have listened to Jill and how she felt about his time spent outside of their relationship. He should have expressed to Jill what his friendships meant to him – maybe even trying to include Jill in some of the time that they spent together. He should not have lied to cover up his interactions with his friends, even if it seemed like he was doing the right thing. You cannot protect someone by hiding things from them – it will come out, and provide even more grief in the long run.

These are two things that I believe to be 100% true – and can quickly portray feelings from both sides of the picture. Jill may have let her mind run wild. Ryan was a jerk for not slowing his roll and listening. This might be because of different patterns of communicating. It might be because of socialization and our general fight/flight response to perceived dangerous. But these scenarios happen all the time.

How can we prevent trust issues or communication issues from torpedoing our relationships?

1. When something bothers you, try to figure out why it bothers you.

2. Your feelings are always legitimate, but so are your partners feelings.

3. Not everything always lines up perfectly. Sometimes relationships have friction. Fight it – don’t avoid it.

4. Don’t lie to your partner about how you feel or the things that you want or need.

5. Don’t pretend to feel something that you don’t feel to be “cool” but make sure you know where your feelings come from!

All of these ideas can be applied in sexual encounters as well. Off the top of my head? Planning a threesome! Why do you want one? Do you both want one for the same reason? Have you talked about it and do you feel secure?

leaving relationships, ethical non-monog, and gender

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“Whenever I hear a headline like, ‘Marriage Ruined by Cheating,’ or ‘An Open Marriage Fails—It Just Never Works,’ I’m tempted to point to a divorce somewhere else and declare, ‘Marriage Ruined by Monogamy.’” – Pamela Haag

ten reasons to leave a relationship

I was actually pleasantly surprised by this list. Sometimes they can reflect a more flippant attitude towards relationships. There wasn’t a single point here that I disagreed with.

you may call it cheating, but we don’t

An awesome article published on the NYT website. I feel like I must have shared this a million times over again, but it’s probably just because I keep seeing it everywhere.

The main thing that helped me get over the affair was realizing that attraction to other people isn’t necessarily a sign your marriage is bankrupt. In the course of being together forever, especially if you’re out in the world meeting new people, it happens. One of the challenges in a marriage, in addition to deciding whose job it is to do the dishes and how to balance the budget, is to figure out how to deal with lust or love for other people.

masculine/feminine and why it matters

An interesting excerpt:

Across the board, object gender influenced the participants’ judgments. For example, the word “key” is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish. German speakers in the study tended to describe keys as hard, heavy, jagged, metal, and useful. Spanish speakers, on the other hand, used words such as golden, intricate, little, lovely, and tiny when describing keys. The word “bridge” is feminine in German and masculine in Spanish. Sure enough, German speakers described bridges as beautiful, elegant, fragile, pretty, and slender, while Spanish speakers said they were big, dangerous, strong, sturdy, and towering.

meeting the (ex)

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My boyfriend spends a lot of time with his ex-girlfriend and he wants me to meet her this weekend. I really don’t want to meet some girl who used to fuck my boyfriend. Am I the weird one here? Should I meet her? Is it going to be weird? I don’t know what to say, he’s really excited. 

You’re being a little weird.

This girl did not fuck your boyfriend. This girl fucked John Smith, the person your boyfriend was before he met you. In fact, you should meet this woman and shake her hand for she can be partially credited to making your boyfriend into the person that you fell in love with. (Now it’s weird, right?) But it’s true. The people that your boyfriend dated and slept with before you have helped your boyfriend become the person that you fell in love with. Chances are he is much better emotional and physical lover now because of the people he has shared these experiences with. He was a different person then, and he’s a different person now. That person is the one that you’re sharing your life with.

You should be happy that he wants to introduce her to you. He is reaching out and wanting to share this important part of his life with you. The fact that he doesn’t find it awkward is good. It means that he feels comfortable enough with his relationship with both you and her that the two of you meeting is no big deal to him. You should cherish that, it’s kind of awesome. Much improved over “You shouldn’t meet any of my exes, they’ll tell you bad things about me” or “Oh, I dated lots of bitches” or “I severed all my ties of my past when I met you.” Life goes on. LIfe is not always perfectly healed bumps and bruises. He somehow managed to end a relationship and gain a friend. Maybe you can gain one too.

Is it weird? We’re told to think it is. But I’m over that. You two have something in common. Meet this person, another person that is important to your partner, someone he really wants you to get to know, and have an open heart about it.

If she turns out to be cray cray, as they say, you can deal with that later.