Dear Lorraine
Dear Lorraine,
I love my partner, and yet I don’t think we are compatible. We fight all the time, and break up and make up more than you can imagine. I don’t think I can be with him, yet I don’t think I can live without him. HELP!!!
Dear Helpless in Love,
Or maybe it’s how you are both getting your needs for love and connection met. Maybe it’s easier and safer to fight, than it is to share deeply and intimately. In order to be that intimate, you would need to become vulnerable; something that is scary for a lot of people, especially when you don’t know where you stand with the other. Do you have a committed relationship and use the break up, make up piece to get that need for love and connection met?
I bet if you both made an agreement NOT to threaten to leave the relationship unless you really meant it, then things would change.
I also believe that if you found some common ground, and if you put as much energy into your common goals as you did fighting, things would turn around pretty fast. I would also suggest setting some strategies for your relationship, like how to fight fair and setting some boundaries. Have you read our book, “Olive Juice Forever?” There are some tips in there about strengthening your relationship, and there are also many other excellent books on the market as well.
You are far from helpless… you are stuck in habit, and you can change your mind about that at any time…
Lorraine
