Doubts and Crises in the Relationship

Romantic relationships bring with them significant challenges for us as individuals, as families, as social beings and as parents. We arrive in a romantic relationship with our own emotional and relational baggage — our wounds, our attachment styles and love languages, our best and worst parts — and in the process of getting to know each other we inevitably “rub against” one another, awakening old and new pain. This process generates relationship crises and doubts that can be as painful as they are constructive and healthy, depending on how we face them and what tools we have.

So how do we know we are going through a crisis? Below are some signs you can examine to determine whether your relationship is going through one:

1. Emotional distance: Felt as isolation, lack of intimacy, a sense that the other person is not there for you and a feeling of disconnection. The result is that we feel alone, unsupported and emotionally disconnected from our partner.

 

2. Poor communication and/or poor conflict management: Experienced as a lack of safe space to express yourself and feel understood, or as an absence of space to connect and stay updated on our partner’s inner and outer life. As a result, we easily fall into endless, recurring arguments that seem to reach no productive solution — or we turn to constant criticism, contempt and other forms of emotional violence.

 

3. Incompatible life goals: We want things as individuals that do not fit the couple model we have set out or the other person’s wishes. This makes us feel we must choose between sacrificing ourselves for the relationship or sacrificing the relationship for personal wellbeing, making it hard to imagine a shared future and creating significant anxiety.

 

4. Breaches of agreements: Sexual, emotional, financial or other forms of infidelity, as well as lies or disloyal behaviour, fall into this category. The result is a seriously wounded trust.

 

5. Polarised and divergent parenting styles: Causing us to clash continually over how to raise and relate to our children.

 

6. Long-standing inequities or unresolved past issues: Which require a review of agreements so that we can feel safety and health in the bond again.

 

7. Poor management of difficulties external to the couple: Such as financial, physical or mental health, family or work problems. These can affect the couple, requiring readjustments in different areas and threatening the sense of security in the bond, as well as the level of commitment.

And how do we know how deep the crisis is? What we observe are stages in the life cycle of relationships that give us a sense of where we are and where we are heading:

Various studies show that 8 out of 10 couples who go through a crisis due to infidelity are able to overcome it, renew their commitment and agreements and even have a better relationship than before.

Rebuilding trust is not simple; it requires mutual work involving reflection, awareness and change. In therapeutic work we typically make a thorough diagnosis of the areas in which the couple is failing — beyond the infidelity itself — in order to repair both the causes and the symptoms of the relationship crisis.

Couples therapy is a speciality within psychotherapy. At Florecimiento Humano we have professionals trained in the Gottman Method, in sexology and couples therapy, in Systemic Family Therapy and other intervention methods.

We have more than 10 years of experience helping with decision-making, repair, conscious separation and changes in relationship status.

Remember that however painful a relationship crisis may be, it also represents an opportunity for transformation — opening the door to strengthening, healing, self-knowledge and alignment with your own values and needs.