Here's your Monthly Digest packed full of amazing Imago Relationship Blog posts and Relationship Tips.
Discover the five habits for creating a long-lasting resilient relationship, explore how to manage difficult feelings for yourself and your relationship, discover the signs of an emotionally unavailable partner with guidelines to help, and create new year's resolutions that curb your light addictions from the pandemic.
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Let's face it - all relationships require the art of compromise if it is a long-term partnership.
We all know those people that seem to have a perfect relationship, and then suddenly, out of the blue, they are getting a divorce or breaking up.
No human being and no relationship is perfect, and what is perfection anyway? Everyone has a different perspective and answer.
But there are certain traits couples with longevity embrace that can increase your odds of staying together through the sweet and sour of life.
There are Five Habits to Build a Resilient Relationship.
Habit #1 -The Art of Compromise
If you are in a relationship with someone who constantly digs their heels in and refuses to see your point of view, it's a problem. Being stubborn is one thing. However, being unwilling to meet someone halfway is a recipe for disaster.
Practicing the art of compromise requires shutting up and listening, really listening. Try to put yourself in your partner's shoes and be empathetic.
How to manage difficult emotions may seem counterintuitive to many people. We humans don't like to be uncomfortable or in emotional pain. How many times have you been told or tell yourself the following:
"buck up."
"don't wallow."
"move on."
"don't feel sorry for yourself."
"think of how many others have it worse than you."
Plenty, I'm sure. The conventional wisdom of our culture is full of "think positive thoughts." The problem is that this wisdom doesn't chart the path we need to follow to that end.
The answer to managing difficult feelings, we have to feel them before moving on and regaining our optimism and good cheer. This isn't easy. What may become common parlance, "oh, it's a total 2020," meaning a downer, things couldn't get much worse, is indicative of what many of you are experiencing. We are still in the middle of an uncontrolled pandemic, climate change, and political conflict. How can you not feel sad, or worry, or despair some days?
Maybe your distress isn't about current times. Perhaps you struggle with a host of other uncomfortable feelings such as feeling unimportant, insecure, or anxious on an ongoing basis. For many people, the stress of what's going on in the world now exacerbates those feelings.
It takes time to get to know someone - that's what the dating period offers us all. You really can't rush things, either. Things need air and space to bloom. It's also important to know when to commit to the relationship or go your separate ways.
At the beginning of a relationship, there's so much promise and excitement. Our partner may have initially come in very strong, which opens up our dreams for the future. This can make it hard to tell ourselves the truth down the road if things are no longer going well. But a vote for yourself is one in which you are willing to see the truth - and ready to go through loss - to avoid a much bigger heartache later.
There are some signs to look out for to determine if your partner is NOT emotionally invested in the relationship. Such as:
You feel you need to make excuses for them.
You find yourself saying, "but they were so loving last week," and other repeated rationalizations.
You get mixed signals about how much they care.
You get mixed signals about how much time they want to spend with you. Or, they are often late when you do spend time together.
It's a New Year, and we are hopeful as we wait for our world to get back to normal. In 2020, the pandemic drastically changed our daily routines and isolated many of us from family, friends, co-workers, and more. So, we had to quickly learn new ways of coping and being in our lives. We might even feel a little uncomfortable with some of our choices made in 2020.
The good news is we are not alone. We may have learned new behaviors that weren't 100% healthy for our physical or mental health. But, we can take back control and make a change.
Can you relate to some of these pandemic addictions?
Did you begin to binge too much Netflix?
Did you spend too many hours playing video games?
Did you become more sedentary and stop exercising daily?
Did you eat more junk food vs. healthy and balanced meals?
Or, did you begin to have a daily cocktail or a glass of wine?
Everyone gets addicted to a substance or behavior at some time in their lives. With our daily lives before the pandemic, we already had temptations with email, social media, online shopping, texting, etc. Plus, all the usual ones like alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate/sugar, work, gambling, TV, and spending.
It can be challenging to break free from any addiction. But, we can take back control with these 12 Tips!
We hope you've enjoyed reading our Imago health and wellness blogs & tips this month. If you love quizzes, be sure to check out our Imago Relationships Quizzes!
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