By Brynn Yates November 06, 2023

Finding real love is intoxicating and can be your only care in the world. Unfortunately, that extreme high can switch to an extreme low because when love flounders it can feel as if the world is ending. The beginning of building a stronger bond is realizing most frustrations and arguments are superficial. Once the initial euphoria of falling in love ends and a committed relationship becomes stable, we are still expecting our partners to make us feel fully alive and joyful. This childlike wonder is something the subconscious mind desires but is led by primitive and reactive areas of your brain.

While it can be hard to overcome, the ingrained biases of the past need to be left behind to begin cultivation of a new logical brain. A brain that sees a cause for every effect and an effect for every cause. In the act of becoming conscious of unregulated, intrusive thoughts the arguments will be reduced and civil interactions will take their place.

Challenges in Relationships

The focus of strengthening the bond in a partnership is to build a nourishing and nurturing place that you both hold sacred. It is difficult to keep maintenance on this sacred place and both sides must contribute but the result of that work is a place free of toxicity and trash. Through work your relationship can be a safe and sacred place whereas partners you wash away the outside world to share with open hearts, completely unguarded to rejuvenate each other. It can be hard to accept most people chose someone like their caregiver. Those similarities being most correlated to negative tendencies because our subconscious wants to heal the pains from our childhood that our parents have no control over once we grow up. Sounds bizarre but true healing can only come from someone who can bring you into that childlike state and make you feel whole. The intense emotional experience that is romantic love has been proven to have measurable biological reactions. These chemical effects are connected to the primal brain and when partners feel as though they have always known their partner it is due to the subconscious fusing childhood memories of your caregiver with that partner. Once this chemical high subsides the repressed behaviors begin to emerge. Typically, both sides become defensive and do not understand why the other has “change” suddenly. When the fact of the matter is no one has changed, the chemical intoxication has subsided and it’s time to do work to heal the childhood wounds that drew you together in the first place.

Improving Relationship Bonds

To build a better bond with our partner we must use our conscious brain in our interactions. Our partners are not our caregivers, the finality of things is not real, and most importantly leave yesterday where it is- learn from it and move on. It can be easy to retaliate when your partner is agitated. However, our trustworthy new brain will take a second realize it will not help and this aggression is not about you. Respond in an understanding or solution proving way. This causes your partner to soften because it’s not about you, the outside world is just stressful. We need to see our partners as people who want to feel joy and connect; to be responsible for communicating our own needs and desires because our partners are not mind readers. Everyone is stuck in their own self-absorbed world. Those in control of a conscious mind see their partner is not them. They have wonder and curiosity about who their partner is and how they think, which ultimately leads to being more knowledgeable about their partner. The construction of a good relationship has discipline, commitment, and the courage to change. To have a productive conversation about qualms, begin by requesting time to talk. You never know what your partner went through today or what is on their mind right then. Once you begin the talk use I language to not initiate blame and avoid criticism, a safe space is necessary and it’s your responsibility to regulate yourself. Then say what is bothering you and allow your partner to repeat it back. Your partner shows understanding by assuring it was repeated correctly. Next is to validate, not agree just see them as they are not as you want to see them. Now you have established a connection between your two realities and feel safer. It is important to check that you have properly perceived how your partner feels about what they shared. Empathy is the strongest emotional connection. For long term ongoing arguments that seem to repeat over and over remember conflict is growth trying to happen. First each partner needs to identify their chronic complaint, isolate desire, connect it to a childhood need and compose a list of target activities our partners can perform to make us feel healed from those needs through repetition. Through these activities even if you do not agree with the request the bond will grow and two-way heling commences. Love of self is achieved through love of the other.

Conclusion

As humans we find romantic love with people who have similar negative character traits to our caregivers. This phenomenon, while odd to dissect shows that only this specific type of person can help to resolve the faulty personality traits submerged below the surface of the person you are striving to be. The beginning of understanding your partner and why you argue is to realize most arguments are superficial and the real issue is a childhood trauma being triggered or a self-criticism that is being projected. To progress into a sturdy conscious relationship, you must view your partner with curiosity and wonder. Negativity about how they are not you breeds more negativity also you do not love them for being you, you love them for being them.

Ideas pulled from Getting the Love You Want By Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D.

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