When people are questioned about their relationships, whether they are professionals, businessmen, housewives etc., almost all of them rate themselves low on the satisfaction scale. The complaints, dilemmas and sometimes embarrassments about their relationships come from personal, social or professional aspects of their life. Probing more into matter reveals that there are some common but consequential reasons for this decline in satisfaction level.

As our lives get more and more busy and mechanistic, we expect our relationships to run on auto-pilot with little or no intervention from us. We have taken on a number of responsibilities, which combined with the unrealistic expectations from others makes us overwhelmed when it comes to maintaining our relationships. We want them to behave in predictable ways i.e. without causing any disturbance or demanding extra attention in our daily life.

Most relationships, whether it is family, friends, acquaintances, employers, employees etc., become burdensome because we refuse to see them as individuals with different emotional and psychological needs. We view the relationships objectively, and want others to behave as per our expectations, not caring much about their feelings and sentiments. 

This behavior leads to deteriorating relationships, where people tend to resent the other for not behaving in the expected way. The conflict may start with an issue as small as difference in choice of food, which if not worked out can grow exponentially to a general criticism such as “you always reject my choices” to challenging each other’s values “you never make an effort to understand me” to viewing the other person disapprovingly. It is kind of a snowball effect, starting with something small, but grows very quickly if not intervened at the right time.

Most people refuse to address the problem at the very beginning, where either one of the parties feel neglected emotionally or psychologically, causing the relations to weaken over time, with none of the people wanting to back down. They might understand the problem but keep on maintaining the relationship as is for a greater good e.g. to keep a job or to be there for the kids. This attitude tends to erode the foundation of the relationship over time and people realize this when it is already too late.

It is important to realize that getting outside help with understanding relationships is not a sign of failure. In fact, it is a sign of strong will power to maintain healthy relationships.

A coach can help you in assessing your relationships and can inspire you to work towards your relationship goals. He can help you to understand the situation from different perspectives, so that you find a better way to mend your relationship by working on it. The coach motivates you to focus on your role in a relationship. At times, it’s just a matter of how to let go of factors that you cannot control and to focus on the elements in your hands.

This article first appeared at https://bit.ly/2TERr2k