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There’s trouble in Relationship-land and you’d like to hope it’ll just go away. After all, you guys have fought before and things always get better. You tell yourself, you just have to let it rest. Not talk everything to death. Not keep harping at each other.
It’ll blow over, you say.
Sadly, you may be right. It may be over. In relationship land, you might not get your “second chance”. Sometimes, one partner complains and the other one tunes him or her out. After a while, the vocal one gets tired of trying to get his partner to hear his issues. He may stop talking about what bothers him. The ignoring partner may even think there is no problem.
He’d be wrong.
It’s dangerous to ignore the one you love, even when it seems she’s just bitching. This is the way to make small issues blossom into big, ugly relationship-breaking problems. Trouble grows in the dark. What you don't look at can hurt you. The kicker is that you won’t even know what hit you. You’ll be tootling along, thinking things are good, and out-of-nowhere, she’ll tell you she’s leaving.
Or you might get to the place that you know things are strained some, but it’s not that bad, you tell yourself. After all, it's still good most of the time. For you. Then, there are some individuals who talk to their partners about problems, but they don’t really tell them how much it’s bothering them. Maybe there was one or two, brief conversations about the conflict. Then, having your partner tell you that he thinks you need a break from the relationship and he’s moving out for awhile, can be startling.
Relationship trouble can seem to go from zero to eighty in a very short time. But it was brewing under the surface for awhile. This is another one of those tend your own garden situations. If you want your relationship to prosper and grow strong, you need to actually hear what’s going on with your partner. You also need a clue about your own feelings. If you’re upset or don’t feel listened to and valued, you won’t keep loving your partner. It’s human nature. Someone else is likely to come along and stir your emotions. Suddenly, the grass on the other side of the fence looks a lot greener.
So, you need to talk about things that are bothering you. Really talk. And you need to listen when he talks. This is the only way to build a solid relationship.
Some couples work hard to avoid dealing with conflicts they don’t know how to resolve. Some party hard, build large friend networks or work all the time. Others invest more in their parenting—T ball, soccer, Girl Scouts, gymnastics—than in the relationship that forms the foundation for the family.
Don’t wait until it’s too late. It really could be over and it could happen much faster than you want to believe. While you may find it comforting to tell yourself that this relationship will last forever, you need to know that there’s a real possibility of it not. You and your partner need to function each day to show each other that you are both of the highest priority to one another.
Don’t take this for granted. It could be over before you know it.