A relationship journey
First there are butterflies in your stomach, heart beating, passionate nights, long talks, loveletters, countless e-mails, loving post-its, never-ending phone-calls … we feel like we have finally come home – we are in love! This exciting first period gradually disappears and very often it ends when we start to engage in becoming intimately acquainted with our partner.
From this point on we discover more and more of our partner’s unusual habits that unsettle us. On both sides misunderstandings, misconception and traumas arise. Very often we feel misunderstood and less loved. This is how frustrations accumulate and feelings of utter helplessness emerge.
At this point many couples split up, generally very confused about the way forward and sometimes make hasty decisions i.e. starting an affair rejecting friendships or spending more time at work etc. For many couples this period marks the end of their dreams and plans made with their ex-partner. All that is left is an empty void and memories both good and bad.
As our biography significantly influences which partner we choose, we get confronted with our own relationship-experiences and attitudes stemming from our personal history.
Break-ups at this stage are only a sign for differing the examination of oneself. In doing so we allow traumas from the past to repeat themselves in new relationships.
Yet it is exactly at this point when there is an opportunity and potential for a new start with the same partner.
The love is still there and both partners are still trying to relive the magic moments of the love that they felt for each other in the beginning. What is needed is a commitment to meet the joint challenges and to get fully into the process. Then something new and magical can develop – something called love. To be able to relive the experience of the love that we felt in the beginning are:
- positive experiences with our partner
- a role model to see that and how it works
- knowledge & strategies how to face and solve conflict
Love as the conscious answer for this special person.
Interestingly it is exactly through the conflicts that couples experience again and again that the dissolving of familiar patterns and healing-processes from traumas in the past are made possible.
Partners will learn to arrive in the here & now and to reach a new level of love together.
This level of love is characterized by curiosity, liveliness, eroticism – similar to the first romantic love, but now based on the feeling of deep connection and love.
This is the basis for a loving and happy relationship that emerges even stronger from periods of crisis.
It IS possible to live in a happy and fulfilling relationship!