Feeling Stuck in Your Relationship Despite Your Efforts? |
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Often couples work hard to decrease arguments, increase affection to improve the overall emotional climate.
But often they are being too cautious, not fully honest, leading to feeling stuck and not moving forward.
The keys are addressing underlying needs and visions, and solving problems rather han sweeping under the rug.
You’ve been doing all the right things to improve your relationship: spending more time together and building shared interests, deliberately giving compliments and showing affection, maybe even completing several months of couples therapy. But when all is said and done, something is still missing: there is still low-level, chronic tension; you don’t feel as connected as you hoped you would. What’s going on?
I see many couples like this who say that, although they initially made progress, they are now frustrated: They feel they’ve hit a wall, are stalled, and not moving forward. Sometimes they’ve come on their own; sometimes they’ve been referred by their individual or couple therapist, who’s felt much the same way.
My response in either case is that if you’ve been doing the right things but it’s still not working, there may be one or more underlying problems sabotaging your efforts. Here are the five common culprits:
#1: You're walking on eggshells.
Working hard to make things better is obviously a primary goal, but often the “working” leads to being too cautious. Yes, you are better at putting the brakes on arguments or biting your tongues to stop the snips and snaps that used to make their emotional climate hellish—high fives all around. But while you each are on your best behavior—more sensitive and emotionally responsible—you're often, unfortunately, not fully honest. The price you pay for being more courteous is that you may never really get what you want and need.
While this may be appropriate in a work setting, it doesn’t work in your primary, intimate relationships. If you’re afraid to speak up for fear of making things worse, you’re essentially trading calm for desire. Because intimate connections are based on desire, you will eventually run out of motivational steam or, understandably, start keeping score, minutely noticing whether the other is also stepping up in the same way—all perfect environments for building resentment.
#2: You're not circling back.
Variation on the same theme, and again an understandable reaction. While you may make up after an argument or even after making a critical or sarcastic comment—again, all good—you never quite turn the corner and take the next important step—namely, resolving the driving problem, learning the moral of the argument or comment, and coming up with win-win compromises together. Why? Because you don’t want to start another argument, hurt the other’s feelings, and want to keep the emotional waters calm.
But these unresolved, swept-under-the-rug problems don’t go away. Instead, they become landmines you go out of your way to avoid, which can lead to more eggshell behavior or a pull-back, increasing emotional distance. And if you accidentally step on these landmines, and you eventually will, it only reinforces the dysfunctional cycle of caution and ignoring problems.
#3: You're not resolving longstanding wounds.
Maybe your partner had an affair many years ago. As a couple, you did a good job of “working through it,” but the wound never fully healed. The scab gets scraped off when the perfect combination of stress, resentment, and anger builds, fueling a cycle of caution, dishonesty, and withdrawal.
Why Relationships Matter
Take our Can You Spot Red Flags In A Relationship?
Find a therapist to strengthen relationships
#4: You've grown apart and are incompatible.
For some couples, it isn’t about old wounds, walking on eggshells, or failing to circle back, but something more elemental: You have simply outgrown each other. While there is still love and affection, you have naturally changed over time; your priorities, wants, and dreams have shifted. What you both initially needed and what bonded you together—common interests, children—are no longer the glue. Maybe you feel that time is running out, or your individual needs and vision of what it now means to be a couple have changed. But if you are cautious, these foundational issues are never discussed and only fester.
#5: There are undiagnosed or untreated individual problems.
Depression, anxiety, AD/HD, bipolar disorder, and addiction can sabotage even the best efforts to improve a relationship. They are like an undertow, constantly pulling your partner down and keeping them from being consistent or appreciating the gains they’ve made individually or as a couple. It’s time to address these underlying problems.
Feeling stuck is a symptom.
The themes here are clear: that feeling stuck is often not a matter of doing more or trying longer and harder, but of lifting the emotional floorboards to examine what is underneath. Change is certainly about deliberately being more sensitive and respectful, but if that is all you do, if you are not addressing individual problems, are not fully honest, and only patching things up, it will eventually collapse.
True change is both deliberately changing the climate by being more emotionally responsible and by being truly honest about what you need, what your vision is, and by putting problems to rest.
It’s about taking risks, not about treading water. The ultimate goal is not only to reduce the negative but also to build a relationship where you are more fully yourself. If the end result is only a watered-down version of you, and "us," you’ll eventually feel stuck.
Taibbi, R. (2017). Doing couple therapy, 2nd ed. New York: Guilford.
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