Why Your Relationship Sucks
“I feel like he doesn’t listen to me.”
“I feel like she doesn’t understand me.”
“I feel like they’re never there for me.”
“I feel like I have to do everything on my own.”
“We feel more like co-parents and roommates.”
Anytime I hear any of these statements, the underlying question is, “Why does my relationship suck?”
I hear the frustration in people’s voices and the fear in their eyes.
They’re sitting there wondering, “ Did I make the right choice? “
When couples reach out to me for couples counseling in San Jose, it’s usually because they’re feeling disconnected from their partner. A partnership that was once fulfilling, has become mundane. In the mundaneness, couples start to feel disconnected from one another, like they’re simply going through the motions.
They think there must be something wrong with them, or their relationship, and that something needs to be fixed.
The reality is nothing needs to be fixed.
Your relationship doesn’t suck because it’s broken and needs fixing. Your relationship sucks because you don’t know how to connect with each other. Living under patriarchy and other systems of supremacy and oppression, we haven’t developed the skill set on how to relate in the long term.
Film and Media’s Impact on Your Relationships
Thanks to Hollywood, Bollywood, and Disney, we also have a false perception of what relationships are supposed to look like. When looking at most movies, there’s two extremes that exist:
1. The Happily Ever After, where no one needs to do any work, somehow their relationship just magically works
2. The couple who fights a lot and ultimately splits up.
Then there’s the relationships that we witnessed as children. Most of the times those relationships followed a similar pattern as above:
1. Never arguing at all (which means sweeping things under the rug)
2. Fighting all the time (sometimes ending in divorce, sometimes ending in disgruntled and resentful partners always trying to get one up on the other).
Without many real-life models of healthy partnership, we’re conditioned to believe that relationships must look like one of these two extremes: the happily ever after fairy tale where nobody needs to work at anything and no body fights and everyone magically gets along, or the opposite side of the spectrum where partners can’t communicate, fight all the time, are resentful and disgruntled, and sometimes split up.
With examples such as these, it’s no wonder you run into challenges when it’s your turn to be in partnership.
After the Honeymoon Ends
Of course, the courtship phase always goes well (well, unless it doesn’t in which case, you saw the red flags, but you ignored them). Everyone is on their best behavior, you’re flying high, life is good.
Then you get married, and once the honeymoon phase ends, reality sets in.
Suddenly the person who used to dote on you, isn’t doting on you so much. You find yourself doing all the things around the house and feeling like they never help you out. Slowly, you start to find yourself feeling angry and resentful. At first in little ways, and then, those little ways add up. As all the anger and resentment grows, keeping it contained gets difficult.
Next thing you know, your partner leaves their cup next to the sink instead of washing it, and you’re losing you shit. You go completely berserk, yell at them, and tell them how much they’re never there for you and how much they suck (but not in those exact words). Now rather than being the doormat who silently resents everything you’re doing and how your partner never helps, you’ve become the fire breathing dragon whose wrath has been unleashed.
Of course, there’s yelling and screaming, you get into their face, they might yell back until eventually they walk away. Now you’re even more pissed because how dare they walk away while you’re still telling them how you feel.
Once it’s all over and you realize what you’ve done, you collapse into yourself and fall down the shame spiral.
“Oh, no, what have I done? That was really bad. I was such a bitch. They must be mad at me,” you begin to think.
To make up for it, you revert to being the doormat, doing and being all things for all people…until again there’s a slow build of the anger and resentment again.
Rinse. Repeat.
You’re Not Broken
It’s not that you’re broken, or your partner is broken, or that your marriage is broken. It’s not that your relationship or either of you suck. It’s that you haven’t been taught the tools to communicate.
In my intensive couples counseling I teach couples the tools to communicate and be in fulfilling a relationship. In just 4 months couples go from:
- the same no-win fight over and over again, to understanding exactly why they get into the same disagreement and what to do about it instead,
- feeling alienated and disconnected from each other, to understanding how to show up for each other and meet one another’s needs,
- being angry and resentful because they think their partner should be able to read their minds, to being able to ask for what they need in a way their partner can receive it.
And ultimately, each partner feels cherished again. The entire trajectory of your relationship can change in just 4 short months.
If you’re ready to stop going around and around in the same communication challenges over and over again, I can help.
If you reside in California, you can learn about my highly effective approach to couples therapy at https://www.therapywithshirani.com/.
If you do not reside in California, you can seek a couples therapist in your area, or sign up for my weekly newsletter where I share tips and insights on how to experience authentic connection, authentic communication, and authentic relationships over at www.shiranimpathak.com/connect.
Originally published at https://www.therapywithshirani.com on February 11, 2022.
Shirani M. Pathak teaches individuals, couples, and organizations how to experience amazing interpersonal relationships. Join her newsletter for weekly insights, podcast episodes, and other resources at www.shiranimpathak.com/connect.
