How To Stop Feeling Frustrated In Your Relationship
Can you feel it? The sudden distance in the relationship?
You know something is wrong, yet you struggle to lay your finger on it.
A friend once told me we must grind each other in love and not in frustration.
It stuck with me, and I realized the little frustrations we feel that we do nothing about eventually lead to distance and destruction in our relationships.
But where does it all start, and how do people grow apart because of it?
Frustration starts with a seemingly insignificant dissatisfaction we feel in our hearts. Yet, before we realize it, the dissatisfaction grew so big that it overshadows the happiness in our relationship. It is all we think about, and then the frustration settles in.
It gets even worse.
The frustration we do not deal with has this way of turning into resentment and bitterness. Once the resentment creeps into our hearts, we withdraw from the other person to keep the peace. We then find ourselves standing on different shores resulting in us living our individual lives even though we are in a relationship.
All in the name of consideration and love.
Yet that is not what love is supposed to feel and look like, quit the opposite.
Love is not supposed to bring distance — love is supposed to draw closer.
Love is not supposed to build walls around our hearts — love is supposed to create a safe place to share the most intimate parts of our hearts.
The problem is we feel the discomfort and frustrations but do not take the time to understand what is causing it before it turns into resentment and bitterness. We learn to live with it until one day — when suddenly it becomes an emotional volcano erupting in destruction where we lash out towards the other person and create even more distance.
So how do we keep our relationship from going down this destructive spiral? How do we close the distance and break down the walls? How do we move from grinding each other in frustration to grinding each other in love before it is too late?
Firstly — stop ignoring the warning signs of the frustration boiling inside you and make time to identify what is causing the discomfort and frustration.
I know the thought is scary, especially when unsure where to start.
The one thing we must not forget is how our relationship impacts all areas of our lives.
Considering this, give us a good and safe starting point — evaluate your level of satisfaction within every area of your life.
The more frustrations we experience, the less satisfied we will be with that area. It is a safe and non-intrusive yet very revealing and potent approach.
Once we know how satisfied or unsatisfied we are with every area of our lives, we can look at the frustration that causes us to be unsatisfied.
The frustration might be something the other person is doing or not doing. It can also be different views on aspects of life and differences in how we approach doing things. There are various reasons, but the important part is to acknowledge the dissatisfaction and find the frustration causing it.
After identifying the frustrations, the second thing is to hold a “talk and listen” session to discuss our frustrations with the other person.
Another scary thought, I know.
But when we consider that frustrations are often only misaligned perceptions of two people from different backgrounds, with different views and ways of doing things, it changes everything.
Knowing and remembering this will help us to see the frustration we feel as an indication of what must change instead of fearing it. It then becomes less overwhelming and daunting to discuss and more manageable.
The final and most important thing to do: is to find workable solutions for both parties.
As I mentioned, it is not about who is right and who is wrong.
It is about: -
- acknowledging the dissatisfaction
- understanding the frustration causing us to be unsatisfied
- sharing it with our loved one
- finding a workable solution
That is consideration and love.
That is grinding each other in love.
That is what relationships are all about and what makes a relationship intimate and unbreakable.
Not keeping quiet but being able to speak the truth in love about the frustration we feel and then finding a mid-way without losing ourselves is what sets happy and healthy relationships apart.
P.S. Download the free worksheet to help remove the frustration from your relationship.
Talk again soon
Belinda Pieterse — ReDefine