Relationship Problems: The Forgotten Front-Door Kiss
It’s morning, you’ve woken up and made your partner/boyfriend/girlfriend breakfast, and as they walk out the door, you lean forward expectantly for the sad yet always sweet ‘goodbye kiss’. Instead of passionate warmth against your lips you feel the door, and they’re already halfway to their car.
Finding relationship problems in situations similar to this is easy to do. Thousands of relationship advice blogs, magazine articles, and daytime television shows will negatively encourage anyone who has a pre-existing insecurity about their love-life. The challenge you should instead take on (and it IS a challenge), is to approach each moment of insecurity or relationship discomfort with a level head, calm collected thoughts instead of heated self-doubt, and under all of this, the strong belief that everything will be alright regardless of the outcome of the relationship. Sure, it’s not as dramatic as dwelling on relationship problems, and who’s to blame you for wanting to, what with popular media sources such as blockbuster cinema shoving self-sacrificial love stories down our throats which would make a lifelong martyr jealous. But, and this is a huge ‘but’, there is nothing romantic about three or four hours spent huddled up in bed (ice-cream, chocolate, and the entire collection of “How I Met Your Mother” optional), constantly turning that moment over in your head and repeatedly weighing up the emotional inequality of the relationship, that is, “they mustn’t love me”.
Here’s the first piece of relationship advice; breathe. Doing it? Good. Now, question yourself as to whether this is a problem to do with your partner, or you. In many cases of momentary feelings of relationship problems, unsettling thoughts are often about yourself, not your other half. It is common to be able to trace these to one single notion; “I’m not good enough”. So, here we’ve already progressed from worrying about one silly, meaningless forgotten kiss at the front door to questions of self-worth. And now that you’re here, the solution is easy. Of course you’re worth it, of course there isn’t anything wrong with you, and there is nothing to feel bad about. Forget about something that, to your partner, was probably never intentional. Stop dwelling on a moment in the past which in no way defines the whole of your relationship, and instead, look forward to the future, to when you’ll get to see them again (you know what they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder). And, as mentioned before, breathe. Now, get back to loving yourself, living life, and enjoying that last piece of toast they left behind!