HOW TO TRULY LIVE

Why do people become unhappy with their partners?  That was a search term I found on my site.  There are so many reasons.  I will not address the obvious such as abuse or drug/alcohol involvement.   I have thoughts on the more common reasons that people become unhappy with their partners.

Married to young – Many times we become unhappy with our partners because we married to young. When we are young we have this fantasy of what marriage is going to be like.  We base it on our dating experience. If we are having sex with our partner, this often clouds are true feelings for our partner. There have been studies done that show that a chemical are released in our brain when we have sex and it makes us feel closer to who we are with.  So we are having sex and we are having all these feelings and we get married without a single thought about just how serious the commitment we made is. We were kids.  We did not think in terms of 30 years down the road.  Once the passion for sex wares off, we then have to see if we connect with our partners. Do they understand us?  Do we understand them?  Do we have the same interests, do we like to do the same things, and do we like the same types of subjects to talk about?  Often the answer is no.

If we were choosing a friend to hang out with, we would choose a friend that was similar to us in interests and activities so we could do fun things together.  We would not choose a friend that is totally opposite of us.  We would have no one to do things with.  It is the same in our marriage.  We find that we did not consider those things before marriage.  We were either in love with the idea of being married or the sex clouded our judgment.  Either way, we did not make a wise choice for the future, because we did not pick someone with similar interests and desires.

We don’t talk and we grow apart – Our lives and how we see things are constantly evolving. What we thought was right and good 5 years ago may seem wrong and foolish to us now. What was important to us then is now not important and other things have taken their place. Those things are important to us now.  We do not set aside time from the begging of the marriage to sit and talk about our relationship with our spouse, about what is going on with them, or what they are experiencing. The best piece of advice I ever heard was at my own wedding.  The priest told us to be sure to take just ½ hour a day to sit and talk about our day and how we are feeling and the thoughts that we have and where we want to go.  Just ½ hour a day can help keep you on the same page.  Once the kids came, that never happened.

What can happen to us over time is that conversations become about what we have to do, where we have to be, what bills to pay, what obstacles we are facing.  If there is chit-chat, it is superficial, like “you should have seen what Sally did at work today”.  I am not saying that there is anything wrong with chit-chat.  You should talk about all things. What I am saying is wrong, is that when we do get a chance to talk, it is ALL chit-chat and never about anything pertaining to our relationships or how we are growing in a certain direction of where we want to go with our lives.

After so many years of this, we simply have become two completely different and separate people.  We have no idea what is in their hearts and minds and what makes them tick, nor do they know anything about our deep down thoughts and desires.  We realize this and then we try to make up for 10 years of conversation by reading books, going to therapy, or whatever. In some cases we can get back on track.  In some cases the gap has become a chasm that cannot be breached.

Something was missing from the beginning – Some of us knew things were missing in the relationship from the very beginning. We couldn’t put our finger on it, it was just a feeling.  I call it “chemistry”.  It is that intangible element that cannot be described or named. It is this invisible energy that we can feel flowing between us and our partners.  It is the “magic” in the relationship.  We overlook that because the person has so many good qualities. They are great people and we think that we can be happy in spite of this thing we feel is missing.  Over time, that “chemistry” becomes of ever-increasing importance. Without it we can feel empty or stale in our relationships. We don’t fight and we basically get along because we did choose someone who was a good person.  But we feel that missing piece.  The size of that missing piece can grow over time. It makes you more discontent as the years go on.  The problem is if it was never there, it is rare that you can manufacture it.  We can try all the conventional marriage saving techniques and you may find it.  But I think it is rare.  It is similar to not liking a particular food. You can try to force yourself to like it, but odds are it will always lack something.  It does not make our partner bad. It is not their fault. It is no one’s fault. It simply is what it is.  The magic ingredient was never there.  There are other things beside the chemistry that can be missing, such as the things addressed above; common interests, common activities, common ideology and so on.

We become board – We have different takes on how life should be lived. One of us may want to search out excitement and passion and take risks and want new experiences. The other may love the comfort of how things are as is.  They see nothing wrong with the way things are now. They see it as the good stuff of being married. We see it as mundane and repetitive.  Sometimes we have trouble compromising those two very different desires.  Obviously it is the one who craves, excitement, passion and new things that is discontent, while the other remains very content.  This is a difficult situation for the one that wants the excitement. Life starts to feel like a prison. You start to feel trapped.  You want to find that excitement together, but we often experience it alone and it is not what we want. We want to share that stuff with someone.

We thought we could change them – Before we got married, we knew there were habits that our partner had that annoyed us or ways of doing things that we did not agree with. But we foolishly thought that once we got married we would be able to change those things about them.  The only one we can change is ourselves.  So these things we don’t like become a bigger wedge in the marriage than we ever thought they would become.  We made the mistake of not choosing someone who we love “as is”.  Someone we would never feel that we would have to change in order to be closer to them.  After so many attempts to change them have failed, we had this sudden realization that they will ALWAYS be that way and we are going to have to live with it. Depending on how important these things are to us, will decide if it is something we can get past or if it is something we will never get past.

Combinations – Many times there are elements of two or more of the things listed above, maybe even elements of all the things listed above. It is at that point we realize that perhaps there are people out there that our better suited for each of us.  These things seem too big and numerous to get past or fix. We feel we are trapped by our obligations and responsibilities.  We fear living the rest of our lives feeling this way.  We love our partners because of all we been through and we love them as friends, but we no longer feel “In love” with them.  We don’t feel that chemistry or connection.  We all want to feel that I think, and when it is missing, it is a very difficult thing to live with.  For some of us it permeates everything we do. It is always in the back of our minds. We feel lonely or that something is just not quite right. We feel discontent and as if our life is laid out for us by some unknown author and we are going to live this discontented life forever.  It is an extremely tough situation to be in.  We are not free to see if there is someone one that we are more compatible with.  So we live this sort of meaningless mundane life.  We hurt because of it and we are unhappy because of it.  We share as much or more of the fault for the situation we are in. We made a promise to this person before we ever considered any of the above situations, without knowing what the future would bring. We may have chosen and outstanding person, but we did not choose the most compatible person for us.  It is nothing they did wrong, or nothing they can do to right the situation.  It is simply a matter of being two different people.  Being two different people is no one’s fault. We are who we are, and we have no right to ask the other person to abandon who they are to make us happy.  If we do, then they will become unhappy because they are acting like someone else and nothing is really accomplished.

What to do?  I wish there was, but there is no universal answer.  It depends on our religious convictions, our convictions about owning up to our responsibilities and obligations.  It depends on how much pain we are in by living the life we live.  It depends on how great the person we are with is. We know they are outstanding individuals, but they simply are not compatible with us.  Again, no one’s fault.  Each couple has to decide what to do for themselves.  Will they just accept things the way they are and try to make the best of them? Will they try marriage counseling to see if some of these things can be overcome?  Will one of us set the other free?  Will it continue to foster resentment towards the other person?  There is no one answer to fit all situations.

If you are not married yet– my advice would be to hold off on sex as long as possible. Holding off lets you get to know the person without all those false feelings created by the chemicals released into our brains during sex that make us feel close to that person.  It gives you a chance to see if you have other common interests and have the same ideology and if you can talk and have fun and love being in each other’s presence without the sex.  You will find if you like the same activities and want similar things out of the marriage. The sex will slow, and it will lose its meaning in the grand scheme of things.  It won’t take precedence in the relationship down the road.  So if it is taking precedence in the relationship prior to marriage, then you could be setting yourself up for disappointment.

Love them “as is”.  Do not over look the negative and only look at the positive.  Normally this is not the advice I give. But in the case of marriage, you have to look at those things you don’t like about your partner and ask yourself how this will affect you over time. I understand you are in love and you think that the negative traits are a small price to pay, and that can be true. But if the negative traits are something that bother you in your core, they WILL over time, become harder and harder to deal with.  Know that your chances of changing the negative traits in your partner are very slim. Know that if you can do this, your partner might resent you for it, and nothing is really accomplished. This is because all circumstances are neutral. What we see as negative, they see as positive, or they see them as having no meaning at all. So they will see your need to change them as negative.

Make sure the “chemistry” is there.  If you feel like something is missing, but you just can’t put your finger on it, then this is a huge red flag.  If it is missing now, the size of the missing piece will only grow over time and become one of the biggest reasons you feel discontent, even if the person you marry is an excellent person.

In order for a marriage to stay fresh and grow deeper, you first have to make sure you pick someone who is a compatible as you can possibly find. You have to have the chemistry.  You have to make sure that you can accept the person “as is” especially taking into consideration the negatives.   You have to talk every day and see where the other is going in their beliefs, wants, and desires.  You have to work at the relationship every day.  Or one day you wake up and realize that you are two totally different people.  Neither of you are right or wrong for who you have become. It just simply “is”.  Then you will find that you are discontent and that you have a mess on your hands.

I am available to offer one on one advice at bitwine.com. Type in rphillips66 in the “search for and adviser” search bar and hit go.

~ by rphillips66 on June 4, 2011.

Posted in Relationships
Tags: Advice, Marriage, relationship