by Randi Gunther
Are you falling out of love?
Or worried you’ll never find true love?
Maybe it’s been impossible for you to be happy in your relationship or marriage because you just can’t seem to get along with your partner? Where there was once joy and laughter there’s hurt, anger or boredom?
If you relate, you’re not alone. Singles and couples everywhere seem to be having a very difficult time making love work.
Why are so many hearts breaking, couples divorcing, and singles struggling?
As a clinical psychologist and marriage counselor, I spend 60 hours a week answering these questions.
And I believe I’ve found the answer…
The 3 Ways Couples Set Themselves Up for a Break-Up or Destroy Their Love
Having spent the last five decades successfully helping couples in crisis, I’ve been able to recognize a pattern. I’ve experienced first-hand what works and what doesn’t when it comes to resuscitating a dying relationship. I’ve noticed a distinct pattern in why relationships fail in the first place.
And it’s usually one of these 3 reasons:
1. Focusing on Attraction Instead of Authenticity
People make critical mistakes at the beginning of a relationship that set them up for failure once the “Honeymoon” is over.
When you’re first falling in love, you tend to think your love is indestructible. But you may also be making some critical mistakes at this stage, simply because you’re blinded by the “chemistry” you feel with your partner.
The mistake so many singles make at the beginning of a relationship is trying to “attract” their partner, and that often means hiding the parts of themselves they are unsure about.
You aren’t able to embrace your whole self, and therefore, you fall in love with someone who doesn’t really know you—not the REAL you.
Another mistake is discounting what kind of relationship and lifestyle you want for yourself, and that includes dealbreakers.
Put both of these mistakes together, and you end up in a relationship that doesn’t really work for you or your partner once the “honeymoon” period is over.
2. Failing To Keep Things Fun, So Blame Sets In
People don’t know how to keep their relationship fresh and exciting, and settle into bad habits and boring routines.
Once boredom sets in, blame enters the picture. Without the vitality that enlivened and propelled the relationship early on, partners start growing unhappy and irritated.
Many relationships end because one or the other partner can’t let go of what the other one is doing wrong and what’s missing in the relationship. If you want to assure that your relationship will fail, blame, score-keeping and grudges are the way to go!
Couples often fall into a cycle of apathy and blame when their relationship starts to get distant. They think they know who’s to blame, but they don’t know how to turn things around. Nor do they have the motivation to do what it takes to rekindle intimacy.
This is why relationships often settle into soul-draining routine or destructive patterns that keep both partners disillusioned and deeply hurt. What was once fun and invigorating is now the complete opposite.
3. People Don’t Understand What Love Really Is.
The early rush of love is the sweetest of experiences. When we find it, the joy we feel convinces us that we will be happy forever. We can’t possibly imagine that our “soul mate” will ever disappoint us, and we do whatever it takes to preserve those glorious, excited feelings.
But in our effort to “make all the good feelings last,” we end up taking the very actions that guarantee love will end. We create expectations, we hide our deepest secrets, and we bite our tongues.
These actions create mistrust, jealousy and distance. They just set us up for disappointment, and prevent us from learning the skills that not only make love last, but allow us to transform into the best people we can be.
But there is a better way, and it involves being who you are, sharing your truth, and living to your fullest potential.
I call it creating a Heroic Love.
The Path to Lasting Love Means Creating a Heroic Love
True, lasting love can only come from partners who are willing to be heroic. They dare to be authentic, they commit fiercely to their love, and they embrace transformative change.
Like any hero’s journey, there will be challenges to overcome, demons to battle, and hearts to save. But, like a flower coming up through asphalt, love that is earned is all the more precious for the effort it took.
Heroic love isn’t boring, or taken for granted, or dishonest. It is the kind of love you commit to every day, both because you treasure it enormously, and because it is the agent of adventure, excitement and fulfillment in your life. Who you are, how you grow, becomes perfectly entwined with the heart of another. You are both stronger as individuals, and as a team.
It is the sweetest, and most beautiful, of rewards.
In my 40 years as a clinical psychologist and marriage counselor, I’ve helped people understand why their relationships start out euphoric only to crumble, and what skills they need for lasting love.
The greatest obstacles between you and the love you want is often right before your eyes, but hard to see on your own. My specialty is to help you look at your relationships with heroic honesty, so you can affect powerful change.
My husband and I practiced this every day for over 60 years, and nothing could be sweeter or more transformative. I know I can create radical change in you too, if you are willing to go on this exciting adventure.
Since I can’t possibly work one-on-one with every single person who would like my guidance and counseling, I’ve partnered with Flourish, so I can extend that help to whomever needs it, through my articles and programs.
When you subscribe to our FREE Relationship Advice Newsletter, you’ll get access to articles from an accomplished community of carefully selected experts, as well as from me, on how to avoid the mistakes that destroy your love, and what you can do to keep your relationship fresh, exciting and passionate for life.
In this FREE newsletter, you’ll learn:
- How to share all your messiest secrets, and do it in a way that won’t scare your partner away
- A way to repair any relationship that’s gone ”off the rails” and learn how to keep it strong and connected for decades
- Strategies to transform areas of conflict into opportunities for intimacy and fun
- How to become an expert in your partner’s inner world, and see each other in a whole new way
- What to do to create a feeling of treasured belonging in your relationship, today and every day after that
Simply enter your name and email address in the box, and you’ll get all this plus much, much more.
The advice contained in the articles I’ve written for Flourish will help you be able to attain one of life’s sweetest rewards: a love that grows in joy, adoration and devotion year after year, all through life’s inevitable ups and downs.
xoxo,
Dr. Randi
