Surviving Relationship Chaos

Happiness is the basis for our relationship with each other and with our children.

Ok sometimes. 🙂

It’s a choice that we choose every day or most days, or just some days. #truth

I remember my dad saying to me that marriage is not about love, it is a contract and love is a choice you make every day.

But not today dad, I don’t feel loved. I’m sad, angry, disappointed, maybe a little pissed off and I can’t be happy right now…

Relationships are not always easy, it takes effort and sometimes a whole lot of effort.

Occasionally with enough passion to create tears, yelling and incredible distress with a little chaos mixed in. I will never forget my mom throwing her plate on the floor and my dad laughing and saying “I can do that to” and throwing his. It is was a bad fight. As an adult, I’ve had my own too. When you feel so much anger that you feel an uncontrollable urge to throw something, because maybe “I’ll feel better if I throw this plate on the floor” like my mom or “bang my hand on this table right now!!”

Where did that come from? I just got possessed by hormones that are fighting back and saying YOU’RE NOT RIGHT ABOUT WHO I AM!

It’s a powerful surge of I’ve had enough. Or is it I’m not enough?

When my children asked me why adults argue, I had to explain that everyone is looking for their own personal happiness.

When we try to change someone else, it is because we think that by changing them, it will make us feel better.

But of course, that doesn’t work. The only one that can make you happy is you.

It doesn’t mean you can’t point out what’s bothering you and talk about the issues. Sometimes the truth you’ve been swallowing comes screaming out because you’ve suppressed those feelings for quite some time. I think emotionally sheltering is what causes dis-ease in the body. If you are not happy in a relationship, you need to let the other person know how you feel, agree to talk about it and make changes in how you are treating each other, or get out of it altogether.

Just don’t expect anyone to change who they are to make you feel better about yourself.

Holding onto unforgiveness is like dragging around a dead body that manifests more ways for you to be a victim in your present.

Eventually, you have to stop talking about it. Stop telling the story about what happened to you or what’s wrong with the other person and let forgiveness be your mantra, let the past be in the past.

When you don’t let go, you invite that emotional stress to overwhelm your body physically.

It is amazing how little some people understand about the mind/body connection. Just today, I heard Joel Osteen talking about a man who was a pianist that was riddled with arthritic pain and he couldn’t play anymore due to the pain. One day he heard about unforgiveness and what a toll it can take on you.

You will keep feeling the pain physically when you keep feeling the pain emotionally.

When he chose to forgive a long grudge with his parents, within a year the pain started going away. His body miraculously healed itself and was no longer plagued by pain, or was it that his mind was no longer plagued with unforgiveness?

In any relationship that dissolves, it is because neither person will alter their inner being to be something they are not.

That’s why we are arguing anyway right? You don’t like who I am or I don’t like who you are. Someone needs to be something different or we agree to disagree. I don’t think there is anything wrong with getting out in the open what is causing stress in the relationship. Isn’t that when change is taking place? BUT…are we arguing about who is right or what is right?

At some point, someone makes the decision: “I want to feel better and I choose love.”

I mean really what’s the point of always being in a bad mood, being mad just to be mad, or even worse spending the day depressed?

If we are going to make this relationship work and we are choosing love, then we have to choose to pay attention to what we are doing right, the rest will soften and eventually dissipate.

Why did you fall in love in the first place?

Do you really want them out of your life?

If imagining your lives separate is worse than the ongoing disagreement, then just get over it.

Make a choice to look within and around and decide “I want to feel better” and do something that will give you a little more peace. Take a walk, take a shower, (“cool off” if you will), just get on with a good life. I like to write or read or just sit in a corner in the dark and cry for a minute to get trapped emotion and hurt outside of me. Anything I can do to move in the direction of “a little bit better.”

Deep breathing has always worked for me because in focusing on your breath you are taking your focus away from what is displeasing, about whoever you are having a disagreement with.

The most powerful thing you can do is take your attention away.

Counting to 10 and deep breathing is an exercise I use with my very passionate 8-

year-old son Tristan. He is headstrong, knows what he wants and is out to get it. Although very sweet and charismatic, he is a leader and so it is always a challenge between doing what he thinks is best and what we as parents agree are his boundaries. For instance, playing the Wii for 24 hours straight is not happening. I have to remind him “how amazing of a Lego builder” he is. “No one is as talented at drawing robots.” I look for his sketchbook and talk about how “we can find parts to create a robot.” Anything to take his attention away from the stress of not getting what he wants.

The best way to soften a relationship under duress, is to give compliments for what you appreciate about that person.

Eventually whatever you are giving most of your energy to is who they will become for you. Not unlike children acting differently around different people. They are a match to the vibration of the person they are with.

Look for joy and you will find it, in everything…your spouse, your children, your co-workers, your boss, in everything that you give attention to, look for what pleases you and that’s what you will experience.

Peace and chicken grease.

(Ok not chicken grease but that’s what we said when we were kids! I hope you got a laugh out of that! 🙂

Big hug,

Laura