Relationship Restore Advisors What am I going to do? My life has turned into a stressful nightmare. Will I ever get out?
Change-conflict-into-intimacy, it will never happen.
It may seem impossible, but it CAN happen with a commitment to face looking inward to what you feel and be willing to have challenging conversations with your partner.
Three Major Steps to Change-Conflict-Into-Intimacy
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Step One; Change-Conflict-into-Intimacy
What is Intimacy and How do We Get There
Intimacy is the level of connection that each partner in a relationship feels toward the other.There are many different ways that people connect and become attached. These areas can include physical attachment, emotional attachment, sexual compatibility, there an intellectual connection as well as spacial needs.
Relationships by nature are completed.Most couples do not want to feel they will be abandoned by the other, yet the majority of individuals do not want to their individuality and become lost in the relationship. More often then not partners have different perceptions about the same situation and have different needs they wish the other partner to meet.
Due to these differences conflict is inherent in relationships.These conflicts can chip away at loving feelings and turn into bickering and fighting.can erode the core of the relationship until finally, all the warm, loving passion is gone.
The intention of this page is to explore conflicts and give a step by step way the change of conflict into an emotional intimacy which then allows for warmly connected feelings of attachment to intensify and other forms of intimacy that can develop out of it.
Many people become afraid of emotional intimacy. Do you hear yourself thinking? I don’t my partner to know about this because he will judge me? Or if I do what I really want to do will my partner start to nag me about what I have not done. Do you ever notice yourself avoiding letting your partner know what you are thinking feeling or doing for fear the interaction over it will be too unpleasant to deal with?
Emotional Intimacy is actually letting another person into your world and making it safe for each to talk to the other in an open, honest manner. The first step in the making change-conflict-into-intimacy. Is really understanding and creating a safe environment in which you and your partner can really get to know each other.
The hardest part of this is how two people can do this as most of us are so frightened that others will get to know us they will run for the hills.
Also, those endearing qualities that brought us together, after a while have become annoying, and we want the other to be just like us.
As time goes on, couples become critical of the behavior of the other. They stop listening to each other. They project meaning into the other’s behavior which may not even be their partner’s intent. This environment which was once filled with fun and laughter is UNSAFE. No one wants to be told what to do or criticized. Most people’s self-esteem is not healthy enough to tolerate this environment and still maintain loving feelings toward their partner.
Step Two Change-Conflict-into-Intimacy
Making the Environment Safe
Each of these measures logically may seem very easy but emotionally can be tough especially because all of us bring much of our own issues into a relationship, which usually gets played out over and over.
To create a safe environment in which you and your partner can begin to know each other and feel free to talk to each other takes four tough parts.
The first part is remembering that a relationship is made up of two individuals who are different.
Each person has their biology including brain structure and brain chemistry, body weight, brain physical abilities as well as challenges. Each partner has their slight variations which can contribute to the difference in temperament, strengths, and challenges.
Psychologically, each partner has grown up in a family which has its problems and hopefully positive aspects.Social and emotional experiences as well are unique to the individual. Each partner has developed through their lives with their experiences including friends, teachers, as well as positive experiences and traumas.All of this and more has shaped each partner to become who they are and has contributed to their way of being in the world.
This is a lot to deal with. Most partners have wishes that their special person will attend to their needs. Often this is not possible, which can trigger early frustrations of unmet needs.
To make a safe environment allow each partner to be open with the other all of these differences need to be taken into account.
To create this safe environment, a couple will need to open their mind and their heart. It involves trying to understand the other person’s perspective rather than judging really.
Additionally, learning to value each person own perception rather than there being a right way and a wrong way to do things.Other parts of creating this environment include trying to have compassion rather than blame and to suspend some of the rules that each partner has held as the right way to do things.
THIS IS A TALL ORDER!However, if this environment can be achieved through time, it will set the scene for the deepest emotional intimacy to take place.
Step Three; Change-Conflict-into-Intimacy
Talking, Listening and trying to Understand Your Partner.Agree to Disagree\ Rather than Proclamations Have Conversations
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If you thought step two was hard to step three is even harder. It is important to remember that these types of changes take a long time. It is a journey not a getting to a fast destination.
From the time we are young children we long to be seen, heard, validated
To have an open conversation to change-conflict-into-intimacy, the discussion MUST allow for these elements:
1.One partner talks at a time.
2.Ask the partner to clarify any words that are vague.
3.Try not to get defensive, remember this is your partners point of view.
4.Allow the other partner to respond
5.Try not to interrupt and listen
6.If you can discuss your feeling without much charge especially anger than explaining how you feel.
7. If you find yourselves getting angry, defensive or starting to blame the other. See if you and your partner can stop the discussion
8.Give each other space and time for the emotional charge to defuse
10.When both of you are ready, try to continue the conversation.
When couples listen, see and validate the other the more they will open up to their partner. Warm and loving feelings come back. Physical affection begins to return as well as sexuality. Couples may start to communicate more of their sexual needs which can make for better sex. All of this restores the bonds, and although it takes time and effort, it is usually the work of a very healthy relationship.
You’re on your way home from a long day at work dreading walking in the What am I going to do? My life has turned into a stressful nightmare. Will I ever get out?
Door; exciting what will be the mood of impressive home? Will I be greeted with excitement or will some small comment turn into a giant conflict?
Change-conflict-into-intimacy, it will never happen.
It may seem impossible, but it CAN happen with a commitment to face looking inward to what you feel and be willing to have challenging conversations with your partner.