When we are thrust into what Terry Real calls “the raw experience of our unmet needs,” we too often find ourselves acting in ways that are comfortable, familiar, and profoundly counterproductive. We want to close the gap and heal the crunch. We want to be close to our partners. We want them to understand what we are feeling, to see things from our point of view, and to validate our experience.

Unfortunately, few of us come into our relationships knowing how to effectively reconnect and repair our relationships. Most of us ride the wave of our emotions and reactions, allowing the rawest parts of ourselves to take control during difficult and sensitive moments. We default to our “Losing Strategies,” venting our emotions at our partners, arguing with our partners about events, trying to “get” our partners to behave differently, being passive-aggressive, or just giving up and shutting down.

Over time, these reactions make certain topics and issues feel impossibly loaded, leaving our relationships in a state where we either avoid an issue entirely or blow up about it. Either way, these behaviors foster disconnection, resentment, turmoil, and pain in the relationship instead of authenticity, intimacy, understanding, and growth. We’re left feeling disconnected, hurt, misunderstood, angry, resentful, and disappointed, and over time our relationships become less intimate, less cherishing, and not much fun. We start to blame our partners and question our relationships with them. We mistakenly believe that if we had the “right” partner, or if our partners were a “better” version of themself, or like they “used to be,” these ruptures wouldn’t occur.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can heal the crunch and build an intimate, connected, and cherishing relationship.

If you want to heal the damage that gets in the way of intimate connection, I’d love to help you get there. Reach out. I can help.