If you are not happy in your relationship – Here's why.
To teach this topic properly, I will explain it with an illustration. But before that, I want to let you know that there are several uncountable reasons why you may not be happy in your current relationship, but the most fundamental reason why 95% mass of men and women out there are not happy in their relationships is their lack of understanding of the concept of “Rule Difference”.
Yes most of us come from different families with different backgrounds, upbringing and understanding of life but one fact remains that man is a social being and will always yearn to interact with other beings; be it in friendship, relationship or marriage. Now to interact without rancour in a relationship is almost impossible but when disagreements and quarrels become a recurring decimal, then it can only mean that there is a systemic flaw somewhere in the understanding of the concept of “rule difference” as I have stated earlier. But hei Smart, what do you really mean by “concept of rule difference”? You have not even defined It in clear terms. Well, now that you have brought this to my notice, I will explain it fully as comprehensively as possible with this simple illustration:
Mary comes from a family where the rule is “If you love and respect me, you should never raise your voice at me; Not matter how angry or pissed off you are. But if you must shout at me the respectable thing to do is to apologise and quietly walk out of the room so as not to let the argument escalate” whereas her fiancée, James, comes from a family where the rule for genuine love and respect is “If I'm respectful, then I'm truthful about all my feelings and all my emotions. No pretensions – good, bad or indifferent – and I express them with all my intensity in the moment. I should never pretend. And no matter how heated the argument is you should never walk out on me”. When these two start to argue which is bound to happen in any man-woman relationship, can you imagine the disaster that will be happening.
From this simple illustration, I hope you would have grasped an understanding of what I meant by “rule difference”.
For you to be happy in your relationship, you must first make a genuine active effort to try and understand your partner's rules about life. Just like in the case of Mary and James, if they don't make a keen and decisive effort to communicate each other's to themselves, then the relationship is obviously heading for the rocks. In your own case, your rule difference may be on the subject of sex, money, family planning, health etc. the list is inexhaustible; but the most important way to understand rule difference is through communication. One mistake that most couples make is to assume that the other person should understand their rules without them verbalizing it. And when they, as expected, do not understand, they start to blame each other for lack of understanding and this ultimately leads to unnecessary breakup of relationships that would have materialized into a very healthy long-term one.
Now that you know this basic truth, you should take the lead and transform your relationship into what you desire it to be.
P.S: As a final word of advice, when you are in a relationship, don't ever try to change your partner by out-rightly condemning his bad habits, else he/she will resist and persist. The easiest way to change people, maybe your partner, is to show them clearly in no uncertain terms that you understand them and is willing to augment their personal weakness (through your actions of course). The point you should note here is that you are indirectly pointing out to them that their bad habit is a weakness (and you are willing to help) without condemning them. SOURCE: http://stories.com.ng/2011/06/if-you-are-not-happy-in-your-relationship-%E2%80%93-heres-why/ |
