Relationship Problems
Therapy High Barnet
"If your relationships keep leaving you confused, hurt, or stuck, it may be worth looking at what's really going on."
One of the givens of life is that we must relate to others. The world of social relations however can feel overwhelming and confusing at times so much so that it feels like we must have been absent at school on the day they handed out the book teaching us how to relate successfully to others. Of course, there is no such book and by and large we are left to figure things out for ourselves.
What Relationship Problems Really Are
If your relationships keep leaving you confused, hurt, or stuck, it may be worth looking at what's really going on. Relationship difficulties are far more than just couple relationship problems although it obviously encompasses those as well.
When I think about relationship difficulties, I’m thinking about difficulties that we encounter relating with others whether in family, social, personal or professional settings. In other words, these are difficulties we encounter within the broader social dimension of our lives.
I like to refer to these difficulties as disturbances in communication which unless we can make sense of them and learn how to minimise them, tend to repeat and show up in numerous different situations throughout the course of our lives.
Understanding our relational style and where we are going wrong is the first step towards navigating the social world better. This can be achieved through a genuine willingness to explore relational problems in depth which helps greater understanding to emerge.
The Paradox at The Heart of Relationship Problems
"When we relate defensively, we tend to create a wedge between ourselves and others."
Relating per se is not the problem rather it’s the manner with which we do so that can cause us problems. What I have noticed time and again over the past thirty-two years or so in my work with clients is that when we relate defensively, we tend to create a wedge between ourselves and others.
When we tend to push away others for one reason or another, we end up more isolated. The wedge that comes between us and others doesn’t in fact serve to protect the original connection we have established with them rather it tends to sever it which leaves us more often than not feeling alone and ultimately unloved.
If I am in an argument and I'm being criticized by my partner and I double down and refuse to engage with what they are telling me, then what am I defending against? The possibility that I might be wrong of course, that I have mistreated them, that perhaps their experience of me is accurate and that’s a difficult pill to swallow because it would tap into long standing issues, I might have around not feeling good enough and a fear of making mistakes. So instead, I end up perhaps exacerbating the already existing wedge between us by not engaging with their feedback and that's the price I pay for my unwillingness to perhaps admit my own culpability.
Illustration
Matthew, a fictitious rather than a real client in his mid-fifties came to see me because he was struggling to find any real direction in his life. As a young boy, his parents had emigrated from Brazil to live in a village outside a small city in England where his father had been offered a job. Not speaking any English and perceived to be very different to the local kids, Matthew told me that he had felt excluded by his peers from the very outset who ridiculed his attempts to speak English and never invited him to parties or social gatherings.
Because of his early life experience, Matthew struggled to shake off the fear that others wouldn't like him if they really knew him, so he tended to stay quiet in social situations for fear of being criticised.
He told me that he had constructed a sort of social veneer of respectability which he could hide behind but with the concern was that in doing so and in never really saying what he was thinking, he had become a bland and uninteresting person.
These issues tended to play out in the staff room at work where he felt unable to shape school policy, in social situations where he tended to listen rather than speak and even in his relationship where he would defer to where his partner wanted to go on holiday.
The work with Matthew was to help him to find his voice in order to challenge this reluctance which meant he had to find the resolve to begin sharing his experience with others. This was not an easy process but gradually, he began to feel like he was for the first time in the driving seat in life taking control of his own destiny and worrying less about what others had to say.
What becomes possible
Sometimes it's hard to see the wood from the trees and that's where therapy can be an invaluable space to figure out what’s actually going on. I won't pretend for one second that this is necessarily an easy process but I have found that when you are prepared to show up week in and week out over a period of weeks, to hold yourself accountable and do the work, then it is most definitely possible to achieve a great deal.
Understanding yourself better can be enormously empowering because it opens up the very real possibility of change and with that come the greatest prize of all – the opportunity to build good relationships with others, ones which sustain over time, in which in spite of the inevitable ups and down, you are far better equipped to successfully deal withthe sometimes tricky situations with other people. When you are better able to open up to others and be less defensive in your own relational style, then life can really feel rewarding perhaps in a way it has never felt before.
How I Work
The social world of relationships is complex, and I have found that the best way to understand what’s really going on is to encourage you to bring concrete examples of the difficulties you are having.
If you are having constant arguments with your partner for instance, then the best thing would be to describe to me in as much detail as possible exactly how an argument occurred and if you are able to describe this vividly, all the better.
As a therapist, I can do my best work when I’m able to see clearly the issues you are having in your most difficult interactions with other people. The same goes for other relational difficulties as well. Together, we can explore in considerable detail what actually takes place in your various interactions with others as well as your thinking associated with them.
Get in Touch
If you would like to book an appointment with me to discuss the difficulties you are currently experiencing, then please feel free to click on the Get in Touch button below and I will get back to you as soon as possible.