When it’s time to be concerned about your relationship

Our partnerships can be tricky to navigate and go through a lot of natural ups and downs. Here’s when you need to be concerned.

by: E.B. Johnson

Choosing to commit to someone is choosing to commit to a journey that has many twists and turns. Our relationships are filled with natural ups and downs, some of which bring us closer together — and some which pull us apart. While some of these hiccups are no cause for concern, others have to be addressed or we risk losing our partnerships altogether.

Have you and your partner hit a wall? Are you struggling to communicate or looking to fulfill your needs outside of your relationship? If you and your spouse have hit a wall, it’s time to show some concern and get proactive about bringing your relationship home. You can find your way back to one another, but it’s going to take some honesty and a big dose of humility.

Troubled waters are impossible to avoid.

Every long-term relationship goes through a range of ups and downs. Sharing our life with someone else is complicated. When we go through the good stuff, they are there to celebrate with us. When we go through the bad stuff, they’re right there to suffer with us. There are a range of moments we will experience together as a couple, and some of them require us to just put our heads down and make it through. In other moments, however, we have to stand up and put up a fight for our relationship.

Troubled waters are impossible to avoid in any relationship. Some waters, however, run more deep and treacherous than others. When infidelity, eroding communication, and a complete lack of intimacy become the norm — it’s time to seriously reassess where you’re at as a couple.

These signs (among several others) are a serious indication that you and your partner need to be concerned about where your relationship is heading. In order to get back on track, you’re going to have to open up and be honest. You’re also going to have to take some more responsibility for yourselves and your partnership. Love isn’t maintained through magic or serendipity. Long-term relationships last because both partners commit to finding their way back to one another.

When it’s time to be concerned about your relationship.

While certain little blips or disconnects in our relationships can be ignored from time-to-time (like a partner who’s stressed about a deadline) not all can. Sometimes, you have to stand up and take notice of the things that are going wrong so you can put them right. That takes honesty, though, and the courage to accept reality, yourself, and your partner as they are.

Intimacy failure

Intimacy can be a big health indicator when it comes to our relationships. Be it physical or emotional, intimacy keeps us working together and connected in deep and meaningful ways. When you and your partner stop being intimate, it can point to larger issues and a lack of trust and alignment. Are you looking for your needs to be fulfilled outside of the relationship? Have you shut down and locked your partner out from your heart and your bedroom? Something serious is off, and it has to be resolved with communication and honesty.

Disagreeing on big stuff

When it comes to our relationships, there are some inconsequential things we disagree on, and then there are some big things we must absolutely agree on. Have you and your partner started disagreeing on big things like having children, moving your household, or even commitment levels and career choices? These aren’t casual topics that can be left until later. They have to be addressed and resolved in order for the two of you to align your values, goals, and long-term objectives as individuals and as a couple.

Total silence

Communication is absolutely necessary in any relationship you hold, be that a platonic one or a romantic one. If you don’t communicate with one another, you can’t stay aligned and on the same page with your goals and your needs. We have to talk about the good things and the bad things. We have to work things out and confront uncomfortable feelings. Sometimes this means conflict, but even conflict can be healthy when used in the right. When you stop fighting, however, and go completely silent — you need to be concerned.

Evaporating future

Making plans as a couple should be a fun process, and it should be one we engage in regularly. True longevity is not found in personal similarities. It’s found in an alignment of needs and goals. We find this alignment by making plans with one another and figuring out our futures. If you and your partner or spouse have stopped making plans together — it’s time for you both to take a step back and recalibrate on the things that matter to you.

Social isolation

The social relationships we form can be an integral part of our happiness. Our partners aren’t enough when it comes to friends and loved ones. We benefit from more perspectives in our lives, and we benefit from friends that complement our interests and needs. Have you and your partner become socially isolated? Do they show no interest in your friends or family? Do you isolate one another from the world, or allow your relationships to be eroded by jealousy and insecurity? Either way, it’s cause for concern.

Inability to apologize

How does your partner respond when they’re called out for bad behavior? How do you respond when your partner expresses hurt feelings or anger towards you? Getting things wrong isn’t limited to our single lives. We’re all growing and learning, and we make just as many mistakes inside our relationships as we do outside of them. You both have to learn how to stand up and take responsibility for your mistakes, so you can grow together and learn from them. That means apologizing when you mess up.

Zero support

Support is so important for a romantic relationship to thrive. We have to support our partners and their needs and dreams, but we also have to support ourselves. Can you rely on your partner when you need help with something (big or small)? Or do you rely on them so much that you’ve lost touch with yourself? It’s a balancing act. We need to be there to balance out our partners (within reason) and we also need to be there for ourselves. Over relying on our partners is guaranteed to end in heartbreak.

Losing total trust

Have you and your partner lost total trust in one another? Do you feel insecure when it comes to telling them how you feel? Have you lost trust in them around your friends or family? This trust is a crucial part of our relationships. Without it, we can’t open up and we certainly can’t be vulnerable with one another. Slowly, we drift apart and before we know it we’re standing next to someone we both don’t know and resent at the same time.

How to find your way back to each other.

Are you concerned about your relationship? Are you losing faith in the life you’re building together? You and your partner can find your way back to one another, but it’s going to take time and a bit of introspection. Are you ready to take more responsibility for your own happiness? Are you ready to open up more than you ever have? You’ve got to give your all to get everything you want.

1. Clear your own way

Clearing the way is incredibly important when it comes to building a relationship that is healthy enough to thrive. In order to clear the way, we have to create an explicit vision of what we want from the future. We also have to touch base with our hangups and do the work to let them go so that we can see our relationships (and our partners) for what they truly are.

Before you deep-dive into anything with your partner, take some time thinking over what you really want from your life and your relationships. What do you want your partnership to look like in 10 years? How do you want to feel in it, and what person do you want standing beside you?

Question everything you want and question everything you expect. From that point, look inward at those deeper aspects of self that inform your perspective. Are there hurts from your past that you’re holding on to? Are they making you see cracks where there aren’t any? Are they causing you to hold on to grudges or resentment? All of these things have to be sorted through before you can build a stable connection worth holding on to.

2. Take responsibility

As we grow and change, one of the most challenging lessons we learn is that of personal responsibility. As children, we can look to our parents for blame, but as adults we alone are the influencing cause behind our success or failure. We are responsible for our happiness and our healing. We’re responsible for owning up to our mistakes and finding the courage to grow beyond them. Likewise, we’re responsible for owning up when we get things wrong in our relationships.

Take a look at your partnership and do it objectively. Imagine you’re looking at the relationship of a close friend or loved one. What do you see? Look beyond the shortcomings of your partner and your hurt feelings. Are there any mistakes that you need to own up to? Are there any improvements you can make

You also need to take responsibility for your own happiness with a relationship. Your partner can’t make you happy. They can certainly be a part of the puzzle, but they can’t provide that meaning to you by themselves. You need to find ways to make yourself happy, and you need to boost your self-esteem and the courage to stand on your own. Then, you can come together as equals — rather than looking at one another as saviors.

3. Communicate openly

If there is to be any hope of a reconciliation between you and your partner, you need to communicate openly with one another and often. You need to express your emotions, your expectations, what’s going wrong, and what’s going right. You need to get on the same page, and that’s only going to happen by explicitly talking to one another and making plans for the future. It’s a fundamental part of every stable partnership, and one you both must commit to cultivating before it’s too late.

Consider how you and your partner communicate with one another. What happens when one of you gets your feelings hurt, or things go wrong? Do you sit down and hash things out? Or do you run to your respective corners and shut down (until there’s a blowup)? We have to learn to communicate as mature adults. That means respectfully coming to one another and being frank and candid when things go wrong.

Find a safe time and place to sit down with your partner, and begin the series of conversations that will help get your relationship back on track. Share how you’re feeling, and share what you want from a relationship. Then allow your partner to do the same. Once everything is out on the table, you can both come together to compromise and make a plan that works. Piece together the parts of your expectations and needs that align, and see to the rest yourself.

4. Find your individualism

So many people lose their individual identity entirely when they get into a romantic relationship. This happens for a couple of reasons. In the new phases of a relationship, it’s easy to fall into clingy and obsessive habits with one another as the excitement and the butterflies set in. Insecurity and past trauma also plays a part too, though, and causes us to lose ourselves in a desperate attempt to make someone else love and validate us.

You cannot find love by conforming and losing yourself. You will not bring your partner closer by becoming isolated and a pale copy of the person they pretend to be. You need to be yourself. You both need to tap back into your natural states, so that you can re-center and recharge yourselves in the best possible ways.

Don’t look to your partner for validation, definition, or meaning. Get back into the habit of engaging yourself. Rebuild your social circles, pick up your passions again. Find your natural flow in the scheme of things and your own happiness in this world. Becoming individuals again will allow you to tap back into that excitement and joy that’s become missing over time. When you improve, your relationship improves as a whole.

5. Celebrate one another

As our relationships grow over time, we can become comfortable in them — but that comfort can go too far. Stability and wholeness in a relationship is good, but when we become too content, we can lose sight of our goals and one another. What was once exciting becomes mundane. What used to draw you in now garners no notice. To bring that excitement and that passion, you need to spice things up and start celebrating one another (and your lives together) again.

When was the last time you and your partner just stopped to be present with one another? When was the last time you spent more than an hour or two just having fun and being silly together? Life moves fast, and it can sweep us up and away from one another before we realize it. You need to engage your partner consciously and you need to give yourselves something to be excited about.

Set up a regular schedule in which the two of you can be on your own and engaged with one another. It might feel foreign at first, so fill the time with fun and activities that keep you laughing and talking. Spending time together once a month or a once a year isn’t going to cut it. Make time for one another every week. Fill that space with as much fun and excitement as you can and give yourselves something to look forward to. Little-by-little you’ll start to see the person you fell in love with again.

Putting it all together…

Has your relationship hit a wall? All partnerships go through ups and downs, but while some are a natural part of the process — some are worth showing a bit more concern. Difficulties in our relationships have to be faced, not avoided. Once we embrace them, we can work as a team and focus all our efforts on building a reality that works for everyone involved.

Clear your own way. Gain some crystal clear clarity on what you want from your life and your relationship, then exert some effort meeting your own needs. You shouldn’t rely on your partner for happiness. Cultivate some of your own and take responsibility for the things you get right and the things you get wrong. Communicate openly with one another and be upfront about how you’re feeling about your relationship (and why). Once you’ve expressed the shortfalls you think you need to be addressed, allow your partner to do the same. Once everything is out on the table, you can deal with it together. Find your deeper individuality and allow your true selves to find one another again. A relationship that’s fraught is challenging, but we can turn our concern into reconnection. Spend more time together and give yourselves something to get excited about, something to look forward to. Before you know it, you’ll find one another back on the same page.