I can confidently say that I live in a truly fulfilling relationship. I love my girlfriend, she loves me and we are both happy.
But that wasn’t always the case.
I remember it clearly. I remember the allegations, the tears, and the drama. That was about seven months ago. We thought that we had reached a point of no return. We were convinced that breaking up was the only option.
“Where did we go wrong?” we asked ourselves while we were wiping away our tears.
That’s no easy question to ask, especially when you shared your life for more than two years. But it was a question that we need to answer. After talking for hours, we finally decided to give our relationship another chance.
This time we wanted to try it without drama.
Drama…
That was our big issue. And from my own experience as a dating and relationship coach I know that this is one of the biggest issues for couples in today’s day and age.
We live in a society that worships drama, expects drama, and loves to create drama. What many of us don’t know is that drama destroys relationships.
The good news is that there are quite a few things you can do to prevent drama from eating your relationship.
Stop Identifying Yourself with TV Relationships
As human beings, we love drama.
That’s why we spend so much time reading dramatic books and watching Dramas on TV. And yes, it can be entertaining, but it can also be very destructive.
Just think about it for a moment.
You spend hours upon hours watching drama on television. It would be naïve to assume that your subconscious mind doesn’t process these images. Slowly but steadily you believe that this is how a relationship has to be.
At the beginning of the relationship everything is new. You have exciting conversations. You explore each other’s bodies. It’s like in the movies. After a couple of months you know each other in and out.
This is the time when real love starts to develop.
Unfortunately, this is also the time when most couples break up because they think that something must be wrong.
Question the Popular Culture
Popular culture lives and breathes narcissism.
That’s why you need to be extremely careful about what you feed your brain. The wrong information can lead to the wrong conclusion.
You wouldn’t be the first who can credit the end of a promising relationship to our narcissistic and celebrity-obsessed culture.
Just ask yourself how much time you spend on social media looking at your friends pictures. They seem to be so happy in their relationships. Every picture shows them smiling. What you don’t know is that they have their problems too. They are struggling. They just don’t show it on social media.
The only thing they show are the pictures of their bungee jump last October. The picture looks exciting. You are missing this excitement. You start to question your relationship.
How much time do you spend following celebrity couples? They look so happy, all the time. You don’t smile 24 hours a day and you know that you will never get the attention that these couples get. You start to question your relationship.
Don’t allow a misleading culture to destroy your relationship. It’s too precious.
Talk About Your Deepest Fears
What is drama and why do some people create it?
It can have many reasons.
Creating drama can make you feel important (did I mention that we live in a narcissistic culture?). Creating drama can also be a way of distracting yourself from your own life, your own problems and especially your fears.
In my experience, drama is an expression of fear.
It’s a way to distract ourselves and other people from what’s really going on. The best way to hide what’s behind our mask is to focus the attention away from us to a problem that doesn’t really exist.
I’ve seen it a million times and even though it hurts to admit it, I’ve done it myself in the past.
Before you create drama, I want you to ask yourself the following question:
“What am I afraid of right now?”
Let’s say you are afraid that your partner will cheat on you. What do most people do in this situation? They doubt that their partner is faithful and they immediately start to make accusations. And we both know that these accusations are made up out of thin air.
I’ve done that and there’s a high chance that you’ve done it too.
What’s the solution?
Talk about your deepest fears without getting dramatic. Have a rational and honest conversation with your partner. This allows you to talk about everything before your ego can attempt to destroy everything with drama.
Look Inside Yourself Before You Blame Your Partner
I already admitted that I have created drama in the past, but I’m also guilty of another thing.
I loved to blame my girlfriend for everything that was wrong in our relationship. And I’m not the only one who has this tendency. We human beings love to blame other people for our own mistakes. We love to pretend that we are holy while others are evil.
This is the easy way out.
It’s a shortcut that allows us to not confront our own fears and to not think about what we could have done differently. I hope you realize that this behavior is not particularly helpful.
In fact, it’s not only self-destructive because it doesn’t allow you to grow and to overcome personal weaknesses. It also has the potential to ruin your relationship.
A relationship consists of two people. Yes, two and not one. Whenever there’s an issue, there’s a high chance that both you and your partner are responsible for it. But as long as you blame each other, you both avoid responsibility.
That’s neither mature nor helpful.
The more you blame each other, the more hate, anger and drama you create. This path leads nowhere.
Instead, you need to look inside yourself before you blame your partner.
Ask yourself:
“What did I do wrong?”
“Am I also responsible for this mess?”
“What could I have done better?”
Asking yourself these questions allows you to think about your own faults and to feel empathy for your partner’s decisions and feelings. It’s not as easy as blaming each other, but it’s ten times more effective, at least when you want to rescue your relationship.
Bio:
Sebastian Harris is a dating and relationship coach with a Master of Science in Psychology. He loves to help people all over the world to attract the partner of their dreams. You can read more from Sebastian on this blog.