When Love Hurts
Fred and Ginger sit side by side on the couch.
They’ve been arguing a lot the past few months, but right now, she feels a surge of love for him, and reaches for his hand.
He pulls it away, and claps for the team playing on the screen. The moment has passed for her, and she goes back to looking at social media on the phone, with a sad look on her face.
A commercial comes on, and Fred’s attention is on Ginger. He sees her looking sad and scoots over to put his arm around her, but she gets up and leaves the room.
An attempt at physical connection has been made by both, and rejected by both.
This is how problems in relationships arise. We try to make a connection, and sometimes feel rebuffed, and then withdraw. If this is going on long enough, we begin to have resentments about our partner, and those resentments build, and build.
Ginger becomes angry when she sees that the garbage hasn’t been taken out. She’s been asking Fred to do it for days. Now it’s spilling out of the can. She sighs, and takes it out herself, thinking, “I can’t trust that man to do a damn thing around here. I have to do it all, while he sits and watches the game.”
She hears him calling her to bring a beer, but pretends not to, and goes to take out the trash. After having worked all day, prepared dinner for him, and put the kids to bed, she feels exhausted.
A few hours later, he comes to bed wanting to tell her something about his day, but she’s knocked out, and drooling a little. He gently wipes the saliva off of her face and kisses her. In her sleep she rolls away. He feels confused that they haven’t had sex in months, and that she’s rebuffed his attempts.
He recalls a time when they would be all over each other once they got off of work. They would make love, and order a pizza, and eat it in bed watching some stupid sitcom. He feels lonely, like she has energy for everyone but him.
I see this a lot in my practice.
A couple trying desperately to reconnect, but not able to. They’re both lonely, and frustrated. They both believe they aren’t important to the other, and somewhere along the way, they just give up and stop looking for what they’re not getting.
This is a dangerous time for a relationship, as one or more partners may look outside of the relationship for attention and connection.
Perhaps Ginger begins to look forward to the water delivery guy coming, because he pays attention to her, and flirts a little bit. She really enjoys the boost her ego gets, and she makes sure to be available when he’s there. Maybe Fred starts spending more time with a co-worker, who is also having problems in her relationship, because he feels like someone is listening to him, and that they are connecting.
When partners aren’t feeling a connection to their spouse, they may seek connection consciously, or unconsciously outside the marriage. Someone that was a good listener, turns into someone they spend more, and more time with. Someone they spend more time with, becomes attractive to them because of the time and effort that goes into maintaining that friendship. Perhaps that friendship turns into something more?
I believe that lack of communication is a problem for many couples.
Couples that don’t improve their communication skills, may find themselves pulling further away from their partners until they may not know how to reconnect, because there’s so much anger and resentment that has built up.
I teach couples communication skills to reconnect in the way they want. We often lose sight that we get complacent in relationships, and don’t work at them as hard as we did when the relationship was new and exciting.
I help couples let down the walls of resentment and fear that they build to try and keep themselves safe from rejection.
If Ginger and Fred’s relationship seems somewhat like your own, and you want to get back to how it was before, or better than it was before, please call me.
I can help you get back down that road of happiness where you feel supported and important again.
Mechele Evans, LCSW
(225) 366-8606