Grow Together, Or Grow Apart
The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Music Credits: Sarah Kang, “More Than Words”
GROW TOGETHER OR GROW APART
Is your relationship growing together, or growing apart? As a Denver marriage counselor and online couples counselor, I am highly aware that the current circumstances of the world are putting a unique type of stress on relationships.
Many couples are using this pressure to grow stronger than ever before. Other couples are growing apart, and may never recover.
On this episode of the Love, Happiness and Success Podcast I’m discussing the seemingly inconsequential “make or break moments” that will either strengthen your relationship or tear it apart. Listen now so that YOU can be intentional and self-aware about what’s happening in your own relationship.
[Reading the signs? Here are the Signs Your Relationship is Failing]
Relationships Under Stress Either Grow Together or Grow Apart
When we’re stressed, with a swarm of things to figure out, we need each other more than ever. To cope, we find ourselves turning toward our #1 people for support — our partners, or our closest friend, or go-to family member. If we reach out in these moments and connect with the love, empathy, emotional safety and responsiveness that helps us feel calmer, safer and more supported…our relationships are strengthened. If we reach out but feel criticized, judged, uncared for alone…it creates mistrust and emotional damage.
What’s happening in the moments when YOU try to reach out lately? Does it feel healing? Or harmful?
[Reaching out to your partner but always ending up in a fight? Here’s advice on what to do if Your Partner is “Always” Upset]
Healthy vs. Unhealthy Relationships
Great relationships don’t just happen, great relationships are grown — moment by moment. Little things matter. All couples have had LOTS of moments lately to either show each other love and respect, solve problems productively, and provide each other with emotional support… or fail at doing any of those.
Great relationships don’t happen despite difficult circumstances, great relationships are created by overcoming difficulties and challenges together. Couples who do this courageous work together come out stronger and more successful on the other end.
Some couples are achieving this right now… but some marriages are quietly failing.
Marriage Falling Apart?
If the stress and strain of the current situation is making you feel like you’re in a relationship growing apart, that your relationship is becoming unhealthy, or even that your marriage is failing or falling apart you’ll definitely want to tune in and get the relationship repair strategies I share including:
- Why understanding our innate need to love and be loved is key to reconnecting with your partner or spouse.
- Gaining self awareness around how positive and negative interactions that you have with your partner affect you (and how you may be impacting them without realizing it).
- Learn the most consequential “micro-moments” that many couples dismiss as being unimportant (to the detriment of their relationships).
- Learn about the core principles of a happy and healthy relationship.
- Gain a deeper understanding of how conflict can strengthen relationships.
- Recognize what actions make the relationship system work.
- Learn how to cultivate compassion, empathy, and emotional safety in your relationship, and more….
You can listen now by scrolling down to the podcast player at the bottom of this page, or tune in to the “Grow Together, or Grow Apart” relationship podcast on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
Grow Together
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Grow Together, or Grow Apart: Episode Highlights
Our Need for Connection
Humans are relational. As burdens come, we have a healthy instinct to find comfort with people we love. This may manifest differently in what we receive from others. It’s also healthy and adaptive to share our burdens with others as this is how closeness, connection, and strong, secure attachments are achieved.
When we are in this space of needing support and reaching out, our relationships will become strengthened when we’re met with responsiveness, empathy, and understanding.
However, if we experience judgment, ridicule, or rejection when we reach out in vulnerable moments, our relationships can be damaged. It’s incredibly important to avoid this negative type of reaction at all costs, particularly in stressful moments when your partner needs you.
Feeling Failed by a Loved One
We often think that our relational fights and conflicts are the ultimate damage to our partnerships. While this can be true, what’s more common in a failed relationship are the micro-moments that define our relationships, building from everyday encounters.
Small moments of judgment, ridicule, resentment, silence, or small actions (or inactions) may destroy your relationship in the long run.
When your relationship is becoming unhealthy and you’re growing apart rather than together, you may find yourself withdrawing from that instinct to connect. Because this is the opposite of our everyday adaptive attachment needs, withdrawing from that instinct is damaging on a deeper level.
Couples who lack responsiveness in a relationship may feel existentially alone — couples who feel this way often end up getting a divorce because they don’t talk about those micro-moments and resolve the most important below-the-surface issues during “make or break ” moments.
Couple fights don’t always have to be about something big. When a partnership is struggling with unspoken resentment, hurt, or fear — even the smallest things can explode into a full blown argument.
However, as a marriage counselor, I know that all “conflict” is an opportunity for greater understanding and increased connection, if you use it to grow together instead of apart.
Particularly when we have effective strategies to stay calm, practice radical acceptance, and maintain our empathy for each other, we can turn conflict into connection.
Here are some strategies that healthy relationships and healthy couples use to achieve this.
Happy and Successful Couples
When we learn acceptance, our relationships grow stronger and healthier. Through acceptance, there is compassion and empathy. What else do happy and successful couples have?
Psychological Flexibility
We react to situations as they come, allowing us to respond to different situations appropriately. Problems are inevitable, but when you’re psychologically flexible, you can figure out a path through them.
This ability to stay in the present, approach problems without preferences, judgments, and other biases tie into our emotional intelligence.
Flexibility allows us to regulate emotions and communicate with our partners. It enables you to stay connected to your partner. If this is an area you need to work on, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or Coaching may help manage these thoughts better.
Kindness and Generosity
The two keys to an amazing relationship that every happy couple knows, is that you must practice kindness and generosity. According to the Gottman Method of Marriage counseling, when kindness and generosity are at the center of a relationship, couples:
- Have empathy for each other
- Communicate feelings, thoughts, and needs
- Respect each other
What Gottman’s research has found is that you can basically throw 90% of everything else out the window if you keep kindness and generosity at the center of your relationship. When you treat your partner with kindness and generosity (and they you in return) you can grow together as a couple and as individuals.
However, it’s important to remember that kindness and generosity go beyond your words. You also need to show these through your actions.
Empathy: The Key to Growing Together
To have a successful relationship, you must have empathy at the center of your partnership. Empathy looks like approaching our partners without judgment and accepting how they understand their context and perspective.
Empathy (similar to kindness and generosity) requires action. “Understanding” goes a long way, but it isn’t enough. You must take the time to truly understand your partner’s feelings and take necessary action to assure them that their feelings are just as valid as yours. It’s not a competition.
Acknowledging our personal feelings will allow us to respect differences within the relationship. When there is respect, it gives room for understanding and appreciation.
Courageous Conversations
In the podcast, I mention how one of the most destructive things we can do in a relationship is not talking to each other. We tend to avoid bringing things up out of anger or fear. We bottle them up until we explode. Couples who do this can eventually grow apart. (More on this subject: Withdrawn Partner? How to Talk To Someone Who Shuts Down).
But in a healthy relationship, it’s vital to have conversations about the important things.
These aren’t fights or discussions; instead, these are authentic and passionate exchanges of our thoughts, values, and truths. After all, effective communication is crucial to a healthy relationship, and a lack of open communication can create distance.
These conversations can be challenging because people can discover that there are areas of their relationship that feel out of alignment. There are differences in values, perspective, needs, wants, or desires — and that is all okay. (More on “How to Have Difficult Conversations” right here.)
Related to courageous conversations is the concept of emotional safety. It is the most critical component of a healthy relationship. When we have courageous conversations with our partners, and with kindness and empathy, we can give each other an emotionally safe environment that allows us to grow together and be authentic.
Emotional Intelligence
Your ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others, and then respond to them appropriately, effectively depends on not just emotional intelligence but also the foundation of emotional intelligence — self awareness. Self awareness is the ability to understand and manage your thoughts and feelings first.
Emotional intelligence is all about being aware of your feelings and surroundings. It is the ability to regulate your emotions. It is also vital for understanding our partners.
Emotional intelligence is powerful. It allows us to:
- Become aware of our own and other people’s feelings
- Regulate emotions
- Practice empathy, especially during stress and disappointment
- Establish emotional safety
Respecting the Fact That Relationships Are Systems
Relationships are systems where two individuals respond and react to one another. You and your partner are not existing independently.
What we put into the system partly influences our partner’s behavior.
When you are aware of this, you understand that your negative actions can also trigger negative responses from your partner. This cyclical nature allows us to adjust and change ourselves to be better instead of trying to force change on our partners.
Steps to Grow
How can you start taking steps to grow your relationship?
You can have your partner listen to this episode and have courageous conversations about things that matter to you most. To help you along the way, you can take our How Healthy is Your Relationship quiz.
If you feel that you are both growing apart no matter how much you try, it’s not too late. You can seek expert relationship advice from a licensed marriage and family therapist.
Learn how to find a good marriage counselor here.
More Resources: Grow Together or Grow Apart
We have a comprehensive library of other relationship podcast episodes and relationship advice articles here at GrowingSelf.com, I hope you take advantage of them!
- How to Have Difficult Conversations – Like courageous conversations, difficult conversations bring people together despite differences in beliefs, feelings, and values. Learn how to have and respond to these difficult conversations.
- Emotional Safety – Learn more about how to practice emotional safety for you and your partner.
- When to Call Quits in a Relationship – Walking away from a relationship can be challenging for many. Listen to this episode of the Love, Happiness and Success podcast to learn when to call it quits.
These trying times are genuinely challenging for everyone. I hope this episode gave you valuable advice on how to improve your relationships. What did you learn and can apply in your life from this episode? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Did today’s discussion inspire you? Please review, subscribe to, or better yet, share the Love, Happiness and Success Podcast.
Wishing you all the best,
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
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Grow Together, Or Grow Apart
The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Music Credits: Sarah Kang, “More Than Words”
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Subscribe To The Love, Happiness, and Success Podcast
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is a licensed psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, board-certified coach, AAMFT clinical supervisor, host of the Love, Happiness, and Success Podcast and founder of Growing Self.
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