Giordana Toccaceli Reveals Five Unhealthy Relationship Patterns
The thing that people forget about relationships with soulmates is that they too can be destroyed by unhealthy relationship patterns.
Just because the person you’re with is extremely compatible doesn’t mean that there’s no work required to maintain the connection that you have. Love is hard work, don’t let anyone tell you differently.
Let’s go over some of the negative patterns to watch out for, even in the healthiest relationships. Also figuring out some of the solutions to these issues.
Hopefully, we can guide you on the path to keeping your relationship full of love and companionship instead of withering away.
Five Common Unhealthy Relationship Patterns
As you start to settle in with someone and fall deeply in love, the following things could happen, and it’s important that you’re wary of them if you want to make things last.
- Dependence
Any relationship requires a degree of dependence in order to establish emotional bonds and trust. At the same time, there’s a difference between healthy and unhealthy dependence.
Being there for a person in times of need is a healthy form of dependence. Being together at all times is not.
When you start to create your lives in a way that doesn’t allow any space, you might be entering into unhealthy territory. It’s easy to shack up, isolate from friends, and live lives in total dependence for a while. It happens all the time without us noticing.
That being said, individual freedom and the ability to live your own life is extremely important. A relationship cannot be at its best if the two people involved aren’t able to breathe.
Make time for friends, independent activities, and space to explore your own, personal interests. When we stick too closely together, resentments form, and love begins to go stale.
- Unwillingness to Adjust
The fact that you’re in a relationship with someone says that there’s an underlying feeling of attraction and connection. That foundation exists, and that’s an excellent thing to work off of.
At the same time, it doesn’t mean that you are exactly the person you need to be for the relationship to flourish. The same goes for the other person involved.
A healthy balance of give-and-take needs to occur if you want to spend your life with this person. That means you might have to start taking better care of yourself as a rule. It might mean that you have to face your fears and go see a counselor in some cases.
You should be able to express your deep concerns to your partner and have them be receptive to your ideas. They should value the fact that you care enough to speak your truth and ask for change.
You should have the same attitude and try to respect their wishes.
- Imbalances of Power
Following our last point, some partners get overly demanding or controlling in relationships.
The dynamic might emerge naturally throughout your relationship, but that doesn’t mean that it’s healthy. The two of you should have equal senses of power in the relationship, and neither one should assume the role of decision-maker or determiner.
Whenever one person establishes total authority like that, the other person wilts and loses parts of their personality. They lose their ability to be free and happy. When that happens, the relationship loses whatever it was that established the connection in the first place.
- Loss of Romance
The initial surge of passion and romance is something to be cherished. It’s exciting, it motivates love, and it gives you butterflies. Those things are fantastic parts of being a human being, and they can be managed to last for a lifetime.
That said, the keyword in the last sentence is managed.
Passion won’t last forever and the rules of romance change as you dive deeper into a relationship. The way you communicate with each other will change as your lives start to get more connected.
You’ll talk about things like bills, cleaning, the future, logistics, and other essential things. That can’t be all you talk about, though. There has to be space to express your appreciation for one another.
That means going on dates, leaving cute little notes around the house, sending flowers, making time, whatever. What matters is that you hold the romance of the relationship in the front of your mind and never let it slip away to mundane chats about bills.
When you lose the fire, people start to drift apart.
- The Witch and the Clown
Two common archetypes in the world of relationships are “the witch” and “the clown.”
Media and culture have crafted these two ideas of gender roles in heterosexual relationships. The ideas can apply to all relationships, of course, but media pushes the male/female dynamic heavily, so the archetypes are geared in that way.
At a certain point, women are expected to become controlling and particular about things that men aren’t supposed to care about. As that happens, men begin to become unwittingly bored and lazy, only doing things that their wives tell them they should. Other than that, they’re drinking beer and watching sports.
While these are harmful stereotypes that diminish the spectrum of love and caring that happens in relationships, they do play a part in the way things pan out.
Media like this is entertaining, but it changes the way we think and act in the process. It’s important that you don’t start to think of each other as witches or clowns.
The slippery slope starts in the language you use when referring to each other. It pops up in the unwillingness to change your ideas to account for the other person’s desires, and your controlling or lackadaisical responses.
Regardless of the gender dynamics of your relationship, these roles can start to emerge and erode the love that was once fresh and adaptable.
How’s Your Relationship Doing?
It’s important to identify relationship patterns as they start to emerge. It can be tough, but we’re here to help.
Explore our site or our Instagram and set up a free consultation to discover how to bring love back into your life in a meaningful way.