Relationship RealityOne of my aims in life is to break down any sense that we are alone, that our challenges are in any way unique or special. It’s all just stuff that gets in
way of us being our best, but just like gum on your shoe, it can be scraped off.
Every relationship you get into is going to move through three nicely predictable stages. Romance is first up, being of course absolute best bit. It’s like cherry on your cake, knowing you’ve met Mr. or Mrs. Right and loving everything about them. The next stage, unless you’re taking some delusional narcotics, is inevitable power struggle. This is time when we start to establish whose needs come first in relationship. Trust me, this is where it gets messy. Do you know that according to Barbara De Angelis there are four stages a relationship moves through as it hits this struggle? These are resistance, resentment, rejection and repression. The power struggle is a nasty, painful phase and potentially we squabble in way’s we’re not proud of.
The bad news is that using examples we grow up with best most of us ever reach is stage of repression. We look around and realize there are no better options, we love home we’ve built together, we’ve got mutual friends, and we’re more comfortable than we’ve ever been. We then settle for what we’ve got using tired refrain, “you just can’t have everything” and “Oh well, it’s really not that important”. Well at this point I think it’s really important to ask yourself who’s it you are referring to?
