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How does one get over negative feelings?
A question was posed to me by a friend having troubles in their relationship.
"How do I fall in love with them again?"
And I was at a loss. I tried to give logical answers. I tried to give suggestions. But truly I didn't have an answer. So now I'll lay it out for you to help with.
For ever and ever it's always been the same old story. Relationships start out great. That greatness lasts for a while and slowly starts to burn out. Until finally in the end one person hates the other. Then the innevitable happens. The words are said "I'll change, I promise". Now we all have heard these words or maybe even said them. But how often is it actually the truth? So maybe at this point you either A: get or give the benefit of the doubt, or B: show or are shown the door.
Option B is pretty self explanitory. So let's look at option A. One partner says to the other "I'll change, I promise" and they get that chance to prove it. Now honestly how scepticle are you that this person will change. And if you're the changer how honest are you REALLY being.
But lets say for a second that the person actually starts changing. Of course you're probably waiting for them to fail, and are not going to get your hopes up too high. But what do you do when they continue to change? What do you do when they don't give up. How do you get past those feelings of doubt and caution? Meanwhile the changer is waiting for you to accept them again. Waiting for you to love them again. How do you move on to the rest of the relationship? How do you (given you chose to continue) forgive them or yourself, for what brought you both to this point to begin with?
My inclination on this subject is simply this "If you truly love them then you need to forgive yourself and your partner and let the past be the past. Forgive but don't forget, so that if history begins to repeat itself you will both know how to prevent it."
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Want to answer more questions in the Relationships category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Love Life?
People dont change, situations change them. Your mate somehow makes you feel comfy doing what you do. If you change partners you either pick one that is just as permissive or not. People never forget the bad times. I still remember th time my mom embarrasses me in 6th grade. I still know i can get my boyfriend to do beer runs for me but my ex wont even hand me a magazine near him. So now I drink more.
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Fall in love? When you fall you usually get hurt. Change must be done together. Both people need to change together. Grow together until they are one unit, then they will not have doubt and caution. They will have security and passion. Trust and devotion. They will have true love. They have yet to discover what power they can create together. No one should be waiting for the other to change.
If your friend really wants to work this out it will not happen overnight. When it does happen, they will see the world in a whole new life.
I call it couples therapy. Have them go everywhere together. Keep in constant contact with one another if possible.
Tell each other everything, no lies, no secrets and absolutely no outside influences at all.NO visitors.(Except what time is needed at work and/or school)Have both people quit talking to anyone outside of who they absolutely need to in order to get through the day. This includes family.
Focus on just them for one hole year. If there are kids involved, then include them. Focus on bonding. Get to know one another again. Do not watch too much TV either. Crime drama is ok, they can watch CSI and THe discovery channel.
NO Soap OPERAS. Those stupid shows fog the brain.
I suggest unpluging the brain sucker and try a good book.
Play board games with each other.
Play 3 games of chess everyday. Suggest reading books on Tantric Sex and if they don't have any kids, focus on each other for a year. At least a year. Outside influences in the fragile stage of a relatioship can be deadly. The first stage will take at least a year to accomplish.
The keys to thier success are easy. Honesty with each other and themselves. Communication, anytime, anywhere, about anything. NO DRAMA If there are people in thier life that give them head aches, sever communications with them immediately. Those people will still be right there, doing the same thing in a year.
The truth is your friend will never get past the feelings of doubt and caution until you remove what caused them in the first place. In order to do that, they both need to detatch from the world around them and focus all thier collective energy to building a better stonger relationship. If they do this for one year and are still having problems, then maybe they should just move on with thier seperate lives.
You are a very caring friend for seeking further info on how to help.
Please visit me anytime!
Look forward to helping you anytime I can.
Tell Your friend I wish them the best of luck....
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I don't know how well I can answer this, but I saw that you didn't get any answers yet and I thought it was a pretty good question that would be worth my time to at least try to answer. I'll start with an example. My boyfriend tends to disappear in the middle of an online conversation. He'll stop talking, go idle, and not come back for 2 hours. I've gotten on his case about this of course, and even though I "know" that he's fine, I get annoyed. I've come to realize that it's not his behavior that annoys me, it's the effects of his behavior. It's not that he leaves, it's that I get bored, or I have something I want to say, or I think he's still there and I sit there talking to myself for ten minutes. I turned the problem from being his behavior into it being the way I felt about it. You can change your own feelings much easier than you can change someone else's habits. Everybody has their quirks. You can either take them or leave them. Love the person as a whole, don't pick and choose which characteristics to love and not to love. I think it's very wrong for people to say that they are going to change. It's a nice gesture, but it's not likely to happen. The even nicer, more realistic gesture is to accept the negative behavior and move on. It's not about forgiving, forgetting, preventing, or love, it's just about acceptance. Once you've accepted someone completely, the negative feelings will turn to neutral feelings. Everything is not and never will be perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect relationship or people that are perfect for each other. A good relationship is about finding someone that you can learn to put up with, more than anything. You can fall in love with someone again by getting over what made you fall out of love with them in the first place. It doesn't matter if they someday happen to change, try to change, or don't change. What matters is how YOU handle it. This way of thinking has gotten me through quite a few things that would have completely torn a lot of relationships apart. I hope that it makes sense to you and I hope that it helps you in some way. If not, I hope that you find the answers that you are looking for! Good luck.
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