Problems in Love Relationships - Part 2

We don't have anything in common anymore

You love each other and that's why you got together in the first place, but you don't really seem to have much in common anymore. You’re into philosophy and art. They're into sports. You like books and going for walks, and she always wants to go sailing. But you tell yourself that marriage is a sacrifice. A give and take. You’ve been told you should put aside your own interests to make the relationship work. You have to compromise, right? But when you give up what you love for the sake of the relationship, you end up resenting the person and conclude you don't have anything in common.

If you had these differences when you fell in love, chances are it's not about having nothing in common, but not having the connection and intimacy you once had.

Useful Questions:

* Has the amount of one-on-one time changed since you first met?

* Do you still share everything with your partner like you use to?

* What would happen if you did what you wanted, and they did what they wanted?

* How much time do you have to spend with your lover to feel you have a successful relationship? How did you arrive at that amount? What would it mean if you had separate interests?

* Do you see yourself and your partner as two separate people who choose to be together or do you feel some type of obligation?

* Do you believe “Love means to sacrifice.”? If so, why?

Problems in Love Relationships - Part 1

You don't love me like I love you

Problems can creep in when we start to have thoughts of “do I love him more than he loves me?” We start examining all the things we do for our lover. All the ways we express our love and how much time and energy we’re putting into the relationship. Then we try to figure out if our lover is giving an equal amount back. If we perceive a discrepancy in that balance sheet, we start to back away from the relationship. We don't want to love more than they love. We become fearful that if we love them more than they love us, we might be played for a fool.

Useful Questions:

* Focus on how you feel when YOU are loving. Does loving someone feel good regardless if it’s returned? Is your loving someone conditional on them loving you back? If so, why?

* Do you feel loved when your partner isn’t around? If not, why not? Do you accept yourself, appreciate your qualities?

* Are you doing things for your lover that you really don't want to do, but feel you need to, to keep their love? Are you doing things for them, expecting something in return? What are you expecting? And have you told them what that is?

* Have you talked to your partner about what things cause you to feel loved? (Don’t get caught up in “if they loved me, they’d know”, cause they don’t.)

How to Overcome Anxiety & Fear in Relationships? - Part 1

Fear of intimacy is the exact opposite of the close relationship you had with your best friend when you were a kid. You may be lucky enough to have a best friend now, but the depth and scope of those childhood friendships may seem unbeatable because you shared all your secrets. Fear of intimacy -- hiding behind emotional walls and barriers -- wasn't usually an issue. Overcoming fear of intimacy and anxiety wasn't even on the radar screen.

Fear of intimacy is definitely a grown up problem.

Fear of intimacy involves the reluctance to open up and reveal your true self, perhaps because you've been hurt in the past. Or, if you grew up in an emotionally and socially closed environment and never learned how to be vulnerable to either friends or lovers, you may have a hard time opening up now. This is fear of intimacy. We've all been betrayed and hurt by loved ones in big and small ways – a thousand tiny betrayals. Regardless of the pain was accidentally or deliberately caused, we’re naturally reluctant to open ourselves up again. Not wanting to get hurt can lead to an extreme fear of intimacy.

Personality characteristics such as introversion and extroversion can also contribute to fear of intimacy issues, and so can depression and anxiety.

Fear of intimacy is different than fear of commitment. You can be married and not know your partner emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually. In fact, loneliness in marriage is more difficult than being lonely as a single person or widow. Marital loneliness springs from fear of intimacy in one or both partners.

7 tips for a strong healthy love life

Your partnership isn't just a vehicle that brings happiness and contentment to your life (or bitterness and pain). It's a living, dynamic creature that changes, grows, and needs attention -- and you must nurture it. In all three stages of love, your love reveals who you really are, in all your glory and weakness.

All stages of love can help you accept your strengths and weaknesses. All stages of relationships also reveal your partner's strengths and weaknesses.

7 tips for a strong healthy love life during all stages of love:

1. Focus on the things you can control: your attitude, your behavior, your words, and your energy. If you want something to change in any stage of relationship, make it your own traits or actions – not your partner's.
2. Learn healthy ways to express your disappointment, anger, or frustration. Be honest and authentic, and kind and loving in all stages of relationships.
3. Remember the first stage of love! Recall your feelings of lust, attraction, and desire for your partner. Think about the traits that you were attracted to, and let those old feelings come to life again.
4. Appreciate your partner's good qualities; be grateful for the life you share. Gratitude can enhance all stages of relationships.
5. Focus on emotional intimacy in all three stages of love. Be vulnerable to have a healthy love life.
6. Own your feelings. Your partner can't "make" you feel stupid or worthless. If you feel unfulfilled or sad about your life, look at your own dreams and goals. Are you pursuing the life you were meant to live? Are you following your heart? Develop your personality, mind, and spirit. Figure out what will make you happy in this stage of love, and start creating the life you were meant to live.
7. Consider counseling in any stage of love. If you've lost that loving feeling, it could be an individual thing that you need to deal with or a couples' issue that you should tackle together. An objective point of view, from a therapist, pastor, or friend you trust, is incredibly helpful in all stages of relationships.

Three Stages of Love

Falling in love involves three stages of love: the initial feelings of lust or romantic love, physical attraction, and finally a deeper emotional attachment. Reaching the final stage of love isn't just about luck or unconditional acceptance. You can reach the final stage of love with these seven tips for a healthy love life. To be enjoyed, the three stages of love or stages of relationships need to be understood.

What Are the Three Stages of Love?

The three stages of love are the same for everyone: lust or romantic love, physical attraction, and emotional attachment. The stages of love or stages of relationships aren't necessarily separated by markers like anniversaries or events (such as getting married). Rather, the three stages of love blend together in one long stroke of love.

Not everyone reaches or stays in the final stage of love, which is when separation or divorce becomes an option.

Three Stages of Love

Lust or romantic love is the first stage of love. It's driven by testosterone and estrogen. Mating is the evolutionary purpose of this stage of love; it creates strong physical attraction and sets the stage for emotional attachment. In this stage of relationship, endorphins soak your brain and you're immersed in intense pleasurable sensations. Your lover is perfect, ideal, made for you. In this stage of love you feel exhilarated and even "high" (similar to the feeling you get after you eat really good chocolate or have a great workout). You feel infactuated in this stage of relationship.

Physical attraction and power struggles make up the second stage of love (the lovesick phase). You may lose your appetite, need less sleep, and daydream about your lover on the bus, during meetings, in the shower. In this stage of love, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin are racing through your body and brain. You're also trying to shape your lover into your ideal partner – which is where the power struggles come in. In this stage of relationship, you're becoming more realistic, and you two may fight about things like whether or not to buy organic food or listen to country music. The infatuation is wearing off, a strong emotional attachment begins to set in, and feelings of infactuation fade.

Emotional attachment or unconditional acceptance is the third stage of love. It involves commitment, partnership, and even children (a fear of intimacy prevents many from reaching this stage of love). In this stage of relationship, you're aware of both positive and negative traits in your partner, and you've decided you want to build a life together. Confrontation is most likely to occur in this stage of love (though if you're authentic and honest, it'll also happen in the second stage of love). You and your partner will either work towards a healthy, loving relationship or decide to call it quits.

The Young Couple in my Neighbourhood

There is a young couple that moved to my part of the street recently. In fact they came to my neighbourhood. I caught a glimpse of them just last week. They present an interesting spectacle.

When I caught a glimpse of them last week, I had all along been yearning to ‘see’ them (even from far). The curiosity to see what kind of people they are was initiated by what I had been hearing from the men and women in my neighbourhood. But the women talked more than the men. I guess they also embellished the stories they told one another.

There is one good thing I have learnt to do before believing anything I hear from these women. I always take everything they tell me (or hear from them) with a pinch of salt. And that has saved me many a time.

Before I tell you about this young couple, let me tell you something about the women in my neighbourhood.

First things first, these women are all old women. By old women I mean women who look old and have an average of three children each. These are women I cannot freely converse with. You might ask yourself how come, then, they tell me so many things about whichever and whatever.

Well, truthfully I just wonder how they find the energy and ‘morale’ to come to me after the lack of interest in their stories that I have been showing them. But they keep on coming to me. They open their mouths wide – they blurt, twaddle, twitter and rabbit all manner of things which are embedded in their hearts. After spewing what they believe to be something of interest to me, they bound homewards to prepare the evening meal for their raucous children and ever-irascible husbands.

The evenings are never peaceful in my neighbourhood. Immediately these irascible husbands arrived home from work, all hell breaks loose. Their houses become war zones. They pull and punch each other as strings of unprintable expletives hang heavily in the screams released.

Now I understand why these women are always talking about this young couple. These two young people are different from their old neighbours. Firstly, they don’t engage in unnecessary “wars and bandying” every evening like their ‘elderly’ neighbours.

Another thing, they don’t hide their admiration for each other. When the man comes home after work, he is met at the door by his loving wife. A strong kiss is planted on his massive lips (all this happens outside their house – while all the old women are huddled nearby, gossiping). This greatly irks them – for they remember not when they last experienced the same in their married lives.

Five minutes after this wonderful show of fondness and love, the young couple head to the bathroom together (there are two bathrooms at the centre of the compound shared by the tenants).

Incidentally these old women always sit near the bathroom for there is good shade there. When the young couple start bathing the old women feel like running away. The sounds of pleasure emanating from the bathroom are more than they can take. They can’t bring themselves to remember when they last shared the bathroom with their husbands (now aptly termed “harsh bands” by these ‘creative’ women).

At the end of the relaxing bath, the young people strut from the bathroom in style – with their hands around each other’s waist. The old women cannot stand this. Some of them noisily clear their throats, while others jeer, while the most moronic of them burst out in raucous laughs.

The young couple, in a stroke of genius defiance, stall for a bit, look into each other’s eyes and start kissing in front of the whole world. The old women go mad and before they can say anything the couple has already disappeared inside their room.

This is the interesting couple we have here in my neighbourhood.

As recently as yesterday, I heard some of the old women telling their friends that they had persuaded their husbands to look for alternative places of residence elsewhere, in a different estate, because the environment “in this estate is growing unconducive by the day” and that the children “will very soon become very ill because the air here brings with it the poisonous fumes of the factory that is five kilometres away”.

I laughed out loud when I head this and hoped that they had learned something from the “couple”: That life is not about war and strife; it is about peace, love and respect. I just hope they are reading this.

Intimacy Between Lovers - Part 2

Guarding against intimacy overload or too much intimacy:

• Take time for yourself is a huge way to prevent intimacy overload.
• Balance your needs with your family’s. Overcompensating in one area, such as emotional intimacy, leads to intimacy overload.
• Enjoy your own hobbies and interests. Avoid intimacy overload by staying in touch with yourself.
• Take time away from one another – “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.” Too much time together contributes to intimacy overload.
• Cultivate your own friendships, apart from your partner. This guards against too much intimacy.
• Know who you are as a person, separate from your partner. Losing yourself can be part of intimacy overload.
• Develop your own spiritual, personal, social, and professional selves. Again, not being in touch with who you are contributes to intimacy overload.

Bouncing back from intimacy overload

To recover from intimacy overload, mix autonomy and independence with interdependence and togetherness. When a healthy balance of connectedness and separateness exists, both partners feel happy with their relationship – and realistic expectations and mutual respect are evident. Intimacy overload eases up when each partner is free and yet still feels loved.

Intimacy Between Lovers - Part 1

Intimacy overload isn't discussed as much as lack of intimacy or fear of intimacy. Talking about your feelings, thoughts, and past experiences is part of a healthy relationship, according to many psychologists, counselors, and doctors. However an article in Psychology Today (“Back Off!”) reveals that there’s a limit to how much intimacy you can tolerate. Intimacy overload is possible.

How much intimacy is intimacy overload? Levels of tolerance vary from person to person, and couple to couple. Simply put, when you discuss your relationship too much, you may have intimacy overload.

Intimacy overload: too much intimacy is as unhealthy as lack of intimacy

If you’re dependent on your partner for constant affirmation, unconditional love, and total protection – then you may be expecting too much intimacy. This is intimacy overload. If you expect your partner to increase your self esteem, fulfill all your social needs, and share every emotion with you, it's too much intimacy or intimacy overload. Excessive expectations in intimate relationships involve unreasonable demands for time, affection, or energy...intimacy overload.

Intimacy overload involves blurred boundaries. Sometimes, there is no line between two people. Intimacy overload involves too many emotional demands, too much togetherness, and too much criticism. Feelings of suffocation and control become are impossible to ignore, and neither partner is happy. Too much intimacy can break a relationship.

What to do with intimacy overload?

When intimacy overload happens, it’s not “intimacy” anymore. It certainly isn't lack of intimacy! It may indicate a different problem such as insecurity, anxiety, or low self-esteem.

Responses to intimacy overload or too much intimacy may include retreat and withdrawal. Partners tune out, perhaps hiding in their work, hobbies, or friends. Intimacy overload can be as unhealthy to a relationship as fear of intimacy or lack of intimacy.

Overcoming Fear of Intimacy - Part 2

Overcoming fear of intimacy involves:

• Recognizing your habit of hiding behind a wall, whether it’s withdrawing silently or being overly effusive and talkative. You really want to overcome your fear of intimacy.
• Realizing that hiding doesn’t necessarily mean verbal silence. You can hide your real self and still be the centre of attention or leader of the pack.
• Noticing when you’re hiding, and consciously decide if you should continue (sometimes you don’t necessarily want to spill your guts – you need to discern when to open up). When you're trying to overcoming fear of intimacy, you need to choose when to open up.
• Telling your partner that you want to hide, and you feel uncomfortable talking about your thoughts. Overcoming fear of intimacy means sharing your discomfort and fear, especially with someone you love. Communication often makes negative feelings dissipate.
• Practicing sharing one thought at a time. Take baby steps with people you trust; soon, sharing your self will become a habit and you’ll be comfortable doing it often. You'll overcome your fear of intimacy one step at a time.
• Seeking help from a counselor if these steps don’t work for you. There are underlying issues that are making you fearful, and dealing with those directly may be the only way to overcome your fear of intimacy.

Overcoming fear of intimacy: there's no changing your partner

Other than encouraging openness and honesty, you can’t do anything to improve your partner’s fear of intimacy – just like you can’t expect to change their personality or habits. You can share how your partner’s lack of intimacy makes you feel (eg, “I feel scared when I don’t know how you feel when we fight.”), and express your wish for a closer relationship. The more you discuss fear of intimacy, the more your partner may open up. Overcoming fear of intimacy requires honesty on both sides.

You can’t force someone open up to you, but you can choose who to become involved with and how much of your self you give to them. Overcoming fear of intimacy can be done in established relationships, especially if outside help is sought.

Overcoming Fear of Intimacy - Part 1

Overcoming fear of intimacy means you need to learn to be yourself in your relationship. Simple in theory, difficult in practice. Intimacy in relationships involves sharing what you really think, believe, and feel. It's about opening up your heart and mind, and letting others do the same. It's risky, which is why fear of intimacy often develops.

Overcoming fear of intimacy can improve your relationships and deepen your life.

Intimacy is similar to authenticity, in that both involve revealing your true self. Fear of intimacy is common, and can be related to fear of commitment – but they’re not the same thing. You can be married or committed to your partner, but not emotionally intimate. You can be in love, but not connected. Overcoming fear of intimacy allows real emotional and physical connections.

Signs of possible fear of intimacy:

• Deliberate withholding of personal information is probably fear of intimacy.
• Withdrawing when others talk about their thoughts and feelings. Protecting yourself often reveals fear of intimacy.
• Critical of yourself or others is fear of intimacy.
• Feelings of anger or discomfort when others voice their thoughts and opinions show a fear of intimacy.
• Lack of affection with loved ones can indicate fear of intimacy.

Don’t forget that some people are simply less demonstrative about their feelings; this doesn't necessarily indicate a fear of intimacy. You can work on your self to become more intimate, if you’d like, but you can’t change your loved ones.