This post was developed via a partnership with BetterHelp.
Your life will be full of relationships – acquaintances, friends old and new, lovers, and those that just weren’t meant to work out.
No matter how much we love them, things can’t always be perfect between us and the ones we love.
Whether romantic or platonic, relationships are bound to have ups and downs.
However, without healthy ways to address and unpack these bumps in your dynamic, a relationship can become harmful for everyone involved.
With commitment, work, respect, and of course, love your relationships can prosper and your connection can deepen.
Here are four ways to deal with relationship difficulties in a healthy way.
1. Create Some Distance
Disagreements in your relationship can get heated. We’re not always kind when we’re angry.
A great way to diffuse a conversation before or when it becomes argumentative is to create some distance. This doesn’t necessarily mean ending the relationship.
Instead it can mean just taking a step back from the conversation, separating yourself from the other person, or even taking some extending time apart.
As much as we may want to cling on when things get bumpy, taking even just five minutes to get some distance, breathe, and evaluate can be what helps you or your partner understand the other perspective.
When things get a bit too heated, consider taking a step back from the conversation.
You may not need to separate yourselves but taking a break from a heavy conversation can give both of you the chance to calm down, consider the other’s perspective, and collect your thoughts.
This isn’t necessarily avoiding the conversation, but instead taking time to give it more thought.
Get some lunch, watch a movie, or play a game. Then come back to the conversation with a new perspective.
Another option is to separate yourself from your partner for a brief amount of time. This may mean going for a run, taking a walk, or even just going into separate rooms for a few hours.
Stepping away from the other person for a few hours can give you both an opportunity to reflect and recollect before addressing your issues again.
Lastly, the option everyone dreads, is to take a longer time apart from your partner. This does not necessarily mean breaking up.
Instead, this may look like: continuing to date but living separately, pausing your romantic relationship to work on your relationship as friends, or pausing your relationship as a whole.
However, it is important to set clear boundaries regarding the state of your relationship during this time apart.
2. Compromise And Respect Each Other’s Boundaries
Sometimes the best way to deal with a difficulty or disagreement is to compromise, and find common ground.
Say for example, you both hate cooking but you feel like you get stuck with most of the dinner responsibility in the relationship.
You and your partner may switch off on cooking duties every other day and choose to get take out on Fridays.
That way, the work is evenly distributed and you have a day where neither of you has to do the thing you don’t like doing.
Compromise is a great solution to a lot of the issues we may have with the people close to us. However, compromise isn’t always the answer.
It’s important to recognize the difference between a compromisable issue and a boundary.
If we stick with the dinner example, neither of you particularly enjoy or feel like cooking, but you still feel comfortable doing it, so you share the burden – that’s the compromise.
Say however, that you’re allergic to peanuts. When either of you cook, there is an expectation that peanuts will not be in the food as that is your steadfast boundary.
By refraining from crossing your boundary, your partner shows you respect.
3. Go For Therapy
There are so many different kinds of therapies. From electroconvulsive therapy to cognitive behavioral therapy, there are a plethora of ways to address your concerns with mental health treatment.
Couples therapy is defined as “therapy in which both partners in a committed relationship are treated at the same time by the same therapist or therapists.”
This form of therapy is great for helping couples address some of the concerns that may arise out of the ups and downs of a relationship.
A great part of couples therapy is that the presence of a therapist offers a neutral mediator party.
This can be essential, especially when disagreements become a bit more serious or heated. Couples therapy isn’t exclusive to marriage.
Non-married couples can receive couples therapy, while married couples receive marriage therapy, a specified kind of couples therapy.
4. Talk It Out
You don’t have to wait for therapy to talk about your relationship issues. Talking it out without the mediation of a therapist is an option.
Taking the time to communicate with each other and make each other feel heard can bring you closer.
If you feel like your difficulties don’t warrant a therapist and can be resolved with individual conversation, for example you’re just trying to work on spending more time together or delegating tasks, making space for communication by sitting down to talk can be vastly effective.
You could even make a date out of it: cook a nice dinner together and have a chat while you eat, go for a long stroll and enjoy some nice weather while you talk – sitting down to talk things out doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative experience for your relationship.
You could even set recurring dates to have check in conversations just to give yourselves allocated space and time to talk about your relationship, goals, plans, and concerns.
Conclusion
All relationships have their ups and downs that come along with loving someone.
However, navigating these ups and downs doesn’t have to be painful or unhealthy.
Finding healthy ways to deal with relationship difficulties can help preserve your relationship and ward off feelings such as resentment and jealousy as you build a life together.
Recommended reading:
How To Avoid Problems In Your Relationship
How To Solve Relationship Problems Without Breaking Up
5 Reasons To Consider Individual Therapy For Relationship Issues