Relationships - The Good and The Bad

By Irena Pergjika  

Love is one of the most basic and most desirable human emotions. Although love brings all sorts of challenges, excitement and boredom, affection and anger we all seek it fully aware that it might bring us unhappiness, but on the other hand, it might bring us the happiness we've been waiting for all of our lives. At the end of the day whatever it might hold, love gives our lives meaning and hope for a better tomorrow.

A lot of effort is required to build a relationship, but it doesn't stop there because you have to constantly maintain it. Let me give you an example: suppose you want buy a car that you really like and once you have the money you go ahead and buy it. Now you have your car and you love driving it around, but the little red light comes on and you need to change the oil, or you got a flat tire, what would you do? Change it or replace it of course! If you don't change that oil you're going to have more problems down the line and if you don't replace the tire you simply can't drive. Well, that's how relationships are; once you are in one, you must maintain it in order to" function" right. Let's take a deeper look into relationships: the failure and the success. 

Many relationships end, and many more marriages end in divorce. In fact according to the Nation Master, 1 out 100 couples will end in divorce in the United State of America every year. You're probably wondering how that can be. When a couple decides to get married they're in love, so why would they want to divorce? There are a couple of factors that can lead to a divorce, one of them being a lack of communication.

Effective communication is a key to a good and healthy relationship! How can one understand you if you don't communicate with them? C' mon now, we are not mind readers and you can't expect someone to know exactly how you feel, or what's wrong, without telling them. There are three keys to good communication: self-disclosure, giving and receiving feedback, and the most important of them all: LISTENING!

1. Self-disclosure- This is all about trusting your partner with information that you wouldn't reveal to anyone else. Doing so brings both partners closer and forms a stronger relationship and helps bolster feelings. Some people just assume that the partner would know such things about them but that's where the mistake is made; don't just assume your partner knows everything about you. People who assume this end up sharing less because they think the partner knows everything already.


2. Feedback- Give positive feedback and let your partner know that you understand and sympathize with them. Although sometimes you might not be happy with what you hear and you might disagree, it's very important to respect and understand your partner's feelings because that's how they feel, and although you might not like hearing it, it's the truth. Going off on them won't help either. That's why self-disclosure and feedback are very important because both will open the door to a better communication, while fostering a healthier relationship.


3. Listening- I cannot stress how important listening is in a relationship! Listening to someone speak doesn't necessarily mean that we are listening. Effectively listening to someone requires a lot of energy and patience to fully understand what one is saying. It is very important to respect what your partner has to say without judging, blaming or yelling across the room. By doing so, your partner will feel closer to you and will open up about more stuff which will build a stronger relationship.


4. Jealousy-Jealousy, as described in the book Core Concepts in Health," [is] the anger, [and] a painful response to a partner's real, imagined or likely involvement with a third party". Although many people believe that jealousy is a form of caring or love, it's actually quite the opposite as possession and insecurity arise. Extreme jealousy can destroy relationships, and in my experience, 2 out of 4 relationships will end because of it. This also has to do with the self-esteem of the partners. If the partner has low self-esteem, jealousy is most likely to arise. So before you go nuts and blame your partner of the "what if", think that she/he is with you because they want you! There's no reason for you to be jealous because they already chose YOU!


5. Unrealistic expectations-You must understand that your partner is their own person with their own likes and dislikes; yes, in fact, they have their own personality! Some expectations can be very unfair, unrealistic, and will eventually end up damaging your relationship as you'll end up blaming your partner for everything that goes wrong. One thing many people fail to understand is that people don't just change. Many don't seem to understand that sometimes their partners might not change at all. Our personality is who we are and we can't just change it whenever we want, so in a lot of cases some people don't want to change. We've developed our personality since our teenage years and we've been us for the past number of years, do you really think there's a chance of changing?

A little advice from me to you.

Gentlemen! Sometimes your partner will bring up an uncomfortable topic in which you might feel the need to retreat and leave; DON'T! Listen to what she has to say and respect the way she feels. Telling her to calm down will likely create the opposite response. Discuss with her what the problem is, and find a way to solve it so that both parties can be happy. My message here is: Understand and Sympathize.

Ladies! When you try to approach your partner with something that's bothering you, don't just go off on him yelling and/or blaming him for whatever is going on. Don't be critical! Take a moment to understand what the problem is, and find the most effective way to address it with your partner. Make him feel comfortable if you see he isn't. Come to a conclusion that will leave you both happy.

Psychology & Relationships

Relationships end for all kinds of reasons and the most common psychological complain is associated with depression. Staying in an unsatisfying relationship can change a person dramatically for the worse as one can become withdrawn which will eventually lead one to develop a mental disorder and emotional problems. A happy, cheerful person can start to display low self-esteem and eventually that will lead to depression as they're constantly criticized, and brought down by the other partner. There's also the physical abuse some partners put up with without the courage to walk away from the relationship. The best way to prevent yourself from this kind of situation happening take a step back when you notice a bad sign in relationship. 

Take a moment to understand what's going on in your relationship and whether or not it's fixable. If you do give your relationship a second chance and it turns out you shouldn't, WALK AWAY! There's no such thing as it won't happen again; If it happens once it will happen again. Don't allow yourself to go through the abuse, depression, other worse mental illness or have someone change the wonderful personality you have. A good example of emotional abuse would be my very good friend Elwira who about three years ago got out of a bad relationship. After being with her boyfriend of four years she found out he was cheating on her, after confronting him about it she forgave him. Once a cheater always a cheater right? After a few more months she found out he was cheating again! As heartbroken as she was, she ended the relationship; her life took a turn for the worse as she fell into depression. Puffy eyes, sleepless nights, and emotional exhaustion were keeping her from continuing her life normally. She went on sleeping medication because she couldn't sleep and when she did nightmares took over. Aside from the sleeping medication, Elwira, also started taking antidepressants desperate to get her life back. Life is a roller coaster, sometimes it can be very challenging and other times just wonderful. Find the one that makes you happy and never settle for less.

"We all get freaked out from time to time, but we keep trying because you have to figure, if the world's fattest twins can find love there's hope for all of us. Somewhere, out there, there's another little freak that'll love us, understand us, will kiss our three heads and make it all better.'