Caitlin has strengthened people’s relationships in both her profession and her passion with a degree in psychology and over a decade of practice. In publications such as Bustle, Well + Fine, and Goalcast, her work has been featured, and she currently resides with her husband and big fluffy puppy, Remy, in Austin, Texas.
We all know the pair who are always broken up and going back together. Or you might be part of The pair, in a perpetual state of making up just to split up. These forms of relationships are marked by a state of heightened feelings, instability, and revenge, frequently breaking and making up.
In a love-hate relationship, couples have deep feelings for each other, but they are contradictory in their acts and their thoughts.
These forms of relationships are frequently blamed by observers who are willing to see the unhealthful nature of the arrangement that may be lost to those who are already in the relationship. Even if these marriages appear to inflict more misery than intent, it can be difficult to break away from the loop since the pair has a common history and dependency on each other.
There are ways to interrupt the love-hate relationship loop if you and your girlfriend are able to discuss the root causes of your breakups. But before you devote time and resources to make the relationship succeed, it’s important to question whether the relationship is worth saving. And if the relationship is not unhealthy, there is also a need to determine whether it is worth the effort and resources to try to repair it.
If you’re committed to repairing a relationship, here are some suggestions that you can try helping to break the love-hate relationship cycle:
Cultivate healthy non-romantic relationships
Stopping a love-hate relationship loop can be challenging, particularly if your partner is your primary/only source of help. Breaking these sorts of relationships off for good can be super emotional, so you’ll probably need a support circle of friends around you. These intimate friendships may also offer an important glimpse into your relationship, which you may be losing because of your proximity to your partner.
Close friends and family want the best for you, and they will continue to give support if things don’t go smoothly in your relationship. Even if you’re not in a love-hate relationship loop, or if you’re able to grow your relationship out of this process, it’s still so important to maintain positive, platonic relationships. These relationships will bring you through good times and hard times in your marital relationship, and they are only important for a relatively happy and safe life.
Prioritize your mental health
Love-hate relationships can be super stressful on your emotional wellbeing, and the complications that trigger the love-hate aspect of the relationship can also derive from personal insecurities and mental health issues. Overall, until you take care of your personal needs, you won’t be able to focus on your friendship or finish the break-up/running loop.
Personal issues are frequently at the center of relationship problems, which makes it especially important to give importance to your emotional health. For certain people, exercise can be a perfect way to process complex feelings.
Journaling, yoga, mediation, and even customized therapies are excellent choices for others. It’s possible to give attention to your mental health even though you’re in a relationship, but often you need to take a step back from your partner and just turn your energies inward.
When you’re in a break-up/break-up stage, that can mean dedicating time and space to yourself through the break-up, and even remaining broken up for longer (or even forever) if that’s what’s best for your well-being. Taking time to yourself will also allow your companion the space to take care of their own mental wellbeing.
Have big talks with a mediator
Learning how to fight successfully is another way to end the loop of the break-up. Couples caught up in a negative relationship loop may find that they still have the same battle over and over again. The war may not be massive enough to warrant a permanent separation (hence the cycle), but it is big enough to be a recurrent issue.
If this is the case, it is necessary to change your mind and make this recurring battle successful. Effective conflict requires collaboration, consensus, and goal-setting to better establish a strategy for how to prevent conflict in the future. Doing this sort of thing will help you break the loop. But it is always better said than achieved.
It can be super difficult to understand how to successfully settle a dispute, which is why it is always useful to hold talks with a mediator. The mediator may be a close friend or family member, or even a psychiatrist (more on that to come) who may help you and your partner settle the issue in a civil manner. The battle is less likely to blow out of proportion if there is a neutral party, and the mediator will help you come up with options and agreements to keep the same dispute from occurring.
It’s easy to disrupt the love-hate relationship loop if you’re handling a disagreement with discipline and a commitment to work beyond the issue as a team. Fights are not necessarily scheduled, so it’s not always possible to get a mediator there. But if you’re going to have an important discussion, and there’s a chance that it’ll end up in discord, then it may be better healthy than sorry to have a mediator around you.
Consider the Root of the Conflict
When you’re trying to end a love-hate relationship loop, it’s important to understand the source of hatred and the reason why you’re both breaking up. It may be because you are unable to communicate adequately and/or resolve the confrontation effectively. But, a lot of people who get themselves swept up in the cycle learn that they potentially build a lot of drama out of nothing in their relationships.
Couples in love-hate relationships frequently have an eye on each other and build tension out of nowhere. This may be a difficult phenomenon to understand, but for some people, the drama and the roller coaster of emotion make them optimistic about the relationship. A partnership without conflict can feel stale or uninteresting so that people make conflict out of nothing. People don’t often do this knowingly, it’s always a completely involuntary impulse that people learn when they dig at the source of their relationship conflicts.
And if this is not the case, it is important to consider that you and your wife are still breaking up. And how these differences would also be reconciled. Is there something you and your wife can alter to make the relationship work? Or is the root of the dispute a deep seed incompatibility that will still cause problems? Understanding that you’re still breaking up will help you learn how to break your dating cycle, whether it’s by engaging in a relationship or choosing to call it a stop once and for all.
Decide Whether the Relationship is Worth It
Constantly arguing and making up will cause a great deal of tension and emotional hardship. Love-hate relationships are also distinguished by high and low levels. This form of instability will have an effect on your other relationships and on your mental health.
If you find yourself in this position, you should decide whether the relationship is worth it. And if you’re interested in your mate, it’s likely that the bad relationship is enough to outweigh the value of being with them. Doing stuff like making a list of pros and cons, and assessing a relationship while you’re at the lowest level, will help give you a view on whether a relationship is worth it to you.
Although it might feel impossible to come to this conclusion at the moment, the companion might feel the same way. Love-hate marriages take a big toll on both parties, but opting to break the relationship might potentially be beneficial for both of you in the long run.
It is possible to turn the love-hate relationship around, but this requires all parties to wish to repair the relationship and to devote time and commitment to make substantive improvements. If you’re not able to do this, or if your partner isn’t willing to accept the issue and attempt to change, then maybe it’s time to move on. Breaking the love-hate relationship loop can enable you to end the relationship on a permanent basis.
Consult a Therapist
If you and your wife assess your relationship and conclude that you are both able to make the requisite improvements in time and commitment, it may be useful to visit a psychiatrist. It can be very difficult to get out of a love-hate relationship loop because of the cycles of actions that make the relationship cyclic.
Action habits are super hard to crack on your own, particularly if you can’t find out what the trend is. And if you can define a troublesome behavior, it can be difficult to conceive of a different approach. It can also be difficult to point out inappropriate habits on behalf of your mate.
Consulting a psychiatrist will help you recognize the risky habits in your relationship that trap you and your wife in the same way. Therapists can even help you work more quickly on ways to handle conflict, and they can also serve as mediators if you feel awkward going to relatives or friends to mediate the conflict.
Although counseling can be an expensive commitment, it can pay off in the long run if you and your wife are able to break the love-hate relationship loop!
Relish
If you and your wife are committed to focusing on your relationship and overcoming your break-up and make-up pattern but don’t have the time or money to figure it out with an in-person therapist, you should turn to Relish, an inexpensive and easy relationship coaching service.
Relish offers customized relationship counseling that helps you and your partner to assess your relationship, set expectations, and make progress against your goals. Relish is a perfect tool to use if you’re involved in ending the love-hate relationship loop, but don’t have the resources or funds to go to conventional counseling. Relish is also an ideal resource for goal-oriented partners who are able to prepare and follow up on consistent intervention.
Relish’s experts are trained to help you recognize destructive trends of behavior and overcome disputes that continue to affect your relationship.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash