What Your Relationship Probably Looks Like

What Your Relationship Probably Looks Like

Or at least the cycle you go through.

In a relationship have you ever found yourself getting into the same cycle over and over? Okay, you’re not blind.

One person gets frustrated, the other gets silent. One person feels unheard and unloved, the other person feels they can never do enough to please the other. One person reaches out, the other pulls away. One person yells, the other yells louder. Time and space comes in between, perhaps even an apology. And at some point, one person tests to see if it’s safe. Then there’s some form of emotional reconnection, even if it’s a small one.

Over time, your cycle are happen so automatically that you don’t even realize they’re happening. That’s called being in a stuck state. You know what’s interesting? Did you know your relational cycle isn’t unique? Almost every couple goes through the same patterns.

A relationship is all about emotional disconnection and reconnection. When there is an emotional disconnect, sometimes a couple reconnects in five seconds. Sometimes it’s five minutes. Sometimes it’s five hours and sometimes five weeks.

So that’s the bad, but what does a healthy relationship look like? Healthy improvement in a relationship isn’t never getting into a fight or raising a voice. Not at all. In fact, feeling the freedom to express oneself can be a marker of emotional safety. —However, as a couple improves in communication is how quickly and closely they can emotionally connect after an emotional disconnect.

So first ask yourself, how quickly and securely do you feel connected to your partner after something a disconnect? Do you feel freedom to express your thoughts and feelings? Do you believe you’ll be seen and heard? Are you scared that if you fully listen to your partner you’ll feel like you can never do enough to please them? Do you repress what you’re saying to keep the peace?

A workable relationship isn’t a death by a thousand concessions. It’s establishing what the relationship cycle is so that when there is a disconnect, you can securely reconnect in half the time it took before. That’s what we do in couples therapy. We establish who emotionally pursues the other (which often leads to feeling like less of a priority) and who emotionally withdraws (which often leads to feeling like they can never do enough to please their partner).

To give you a better picture, here’s a shoddy snapshot of a typical cycle couples go through. As you can begin to identify how each of you interacts individually, then you can begin have empathy for your partner and start to tweak the relational cycle.

Here’s an example of a typical cycle in couples therapy.