Education

The hardest part about loving someone is knowing that you can lose them, and the hardest part about losing someone is knowing you may never love them the same again.

The vulnerability of loving someone, and then the lasting impact of losing that love – the deeper you care for someone, the more vulnerable you become.

Whether through physical separation, emotional distance, or something more permanent like death or betrayal, the awareness that the connection that is so precious to you could slip away at any moment is a painful and devastating reality of being in love.

This vulnerability creates a quiet anxiety, because as it’s impossible to control or predict when or how love may be taken away, and makes the act of loving both profoundly rewarding and deeply unsettling.

It’s not just the absence of the person that hurts, but the realization that the love you once had can never be fully replicated or experienced in the same way again.

After the loss, the emotional landscape of the heart changes.

Grief, healing, and time may dull the pain, but the love that once was can never be recreated in its original form.

The connection will likely never carry the same intensity, purity, or ease that existed with the lost love.

Both love and loss involve a kind of personal transformation.

Our heart is reshaped by the experience, and even when new love comes into our lives, it may be colored by the shadow of what we have lost.

We may learn to love differently, more carefully, or perhaps more deeply, but the innocence and openness that marked the original love may be replaced by a more guarded, cautious heart.

Memories of how relationships started

The first six months of a relationship are wonderful.

There are flowers, candy and hundreds of emoji filled texts that are promptly read and responded to.

You leave each other in the evening and video chat a few hours later.

You share your food, and walk down the street with your hands in each other’s back pocket.

You are happy and so in love with your companion.

You can’t get enough of each other.

A year later you’ve broken up…

When do most relationships end?

How does the sweetest couple end up breaking up?

You started off so well.

The relationship was perfect.

You were so sweet and in love with each other and somehow the passion still faded.

But how you start never matters.

Most relationships go from hot, heavy and passionate to “meh” in about 18 months.

The feelings people associate with being in love – the butterflies and the longing – dissipate during this time and the couple begins to wonder if they should carry on with the relationship.

New research shows that relationships are actually more vulnerable to demise far sooner than the dreaded seven-year itch.

The most common time for a couple to split is right around the two year mark.

By then, you’ve most likely seen everything about your partner – their best and their worst physically and emotionally.

You have started to get used to each other’s presence and the spark to stay passionate and playful has gradually faded in the relationship because you just no longer feel the same.

Lots of couples end their relationship here.

What most couples who end their relationship there don’t realize is that this is just a phase. It’s a part of the process and happens to all couples.

The five stages every relationship goes through

The first mistake couples make is believing that when the “infatuated” feeling fades, it’s a sign that the love is fading as well.

They think that when the butterflies are gone, it’s time to end the relationship.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

When it comes to relationships, experts agree there are five distinct stages.

Every relationship goes through these stages.

The ones that last successfully make it through all five, but most relationships get stuck and fall apart during Stage 3.

Stage 1: Passion and Romance

This is the honeymoon or infatuation stage.

It is filled with lots of kisses and touching each other for no particular reason.

It is when you are completely taken by your mate and are blind to his or her flaws.

It is the easiest phase to endure and very intense.

Stage 2: Getting Serious

This is still within the infatuation or honeymoon stage.

You are still blinded by love but have the clarity to see that this relationship has long-term potential.

This is when the relationship becomes exclusive and you begin making long-term plans with your partner.

There is still lots of hand-holding, cuddling, and you give each other meaningful nicknames.

You begin to share yourself more intimately with your mate.

Stage 3: Relationship Plateau

Stage 3 is when the relationship becomes real.

The blinders are off and you see your partner for who they really are.

Physical touch like hand-holding, kissing and other forms of physical intimacy may be starting to slow down a bit.

The butterflies are gone and your partner doesn’t seem as cute as they once were.

Discover why you keep putting things off and get a personalized plan to finally break the cycle.

The hardest part about Stage 3 is that you both begin to question the relationship: where is the passion we used to have for each other? Is our love fading away? Is he/she the one I can be with for a longer time?

Stage 4: Moving Beyond Infatuation

Once you’ve chosen to move past Stage 3 and to stick with the relationship, you develop a deep and intimate bond.

This is the time when couples really begin to merge their lives.

Serious discussions concerning marriage, kids and finances ensue and plans are made to move the couple forward as a unit.

This is when the relationship is solidified and the couple builds a life together.

Many couples make it to this phase and experience a long, healthy and meaningful relationship.

But there is one more phase…

Stage 5: Becoming a Team

Stage 5 of the relationship is when the couple becomes a solid team.

The relationship moves past “me and you” decision-making and the team becomes more important than the individuals.

This is the part of a relationship everyone longs for but few reach. It’s the true love phase.

It’s when the couple has the best chance of making it to “happily-ever-after.”

That’s not to say that there will not be challenges, hardships and bumps in the road. But it does mean that both parties are committed to staying and making the relationship work no matter what.

It’s the phase of full acceptance and unconditional love.

Breaking Through the Honeymoon Stage

Most relationships that end do so somewhere within stage three.

Other relationships can last for years and never make it out of Stage 3, but the relationship is not healthy and neither partner is fulfilled.

The first thing you must understand when you began to feel disillusioned is that feelings don’t sustain a relationship.

Feelings are unreliable because they vary and are subject to moods and external factors.

Think of when a family celebrates the arrival of a newborn.

At first, all of the attention is on the new addition and everything is sweet and cute.

After a few months of dirty diapers, spit up and random crying, the initial excitement passes but that doesn’t mean the parents don’t love the baby anymore.

A romantic relationship works similarly.

It’s the struggling process that helps both partners grow and this process also helps the relationship grow into something better, something that will last.

Giving up at Stage 3 is like declaring the death of a patient with a beating heart.

The duration of each stage is different for every couple.

For some couples, the honeymoon stage may last for years and for others a few months.

The important thing to note is the length of the stage has no correlation to the viability of the relationship.

When you reach Stage 3, you have the power to determine how long it lasts.

Getting out of Stage 3 requires you to make a decision.

You must decide that your relationship is worth it and you must chose to go all in.

Here are a few things you can do to help move your relationship out of Stage 3:

1. Recognize that questioning your relationship is normal and necessary.
2. Allow yourself time to assess whether or not your concerns are simply connected to a loss of passion or if you have legitimate concerns about your partner and the relationship.
3. Talk about your concerns with the right person. Sharing your concerns and seeking advice from others during this time is normal and acceptable, just be careful who you listen to.
4. Make sure that you share your concerns with your partner. Saying something as simple as “I feel that our relationship is getting a bit boring these days, I think we should do something about it,” could be the juice the relationship needs. It will start a dialogue and assist you both in actively addressing your concerns.
5. Make a decision and then put in the work.
6. Once you decide that the relationship is viable, do something about it. Don’t make your decision and then hope things will get better.
7. Actively work to move your relationship further. Try new things. Do things your partner likes to do. Be romantic on purpose.
8. Relationships take heaps of effort. It’s time to put in the work.

It’s not how you start, it’s how you journey through

All relationships take time, energy and targeted, intentional effort.

It doesn’t matter how “lovey-dovey” cute and cuddly you are in the beginning.

The honeymoon will end.

And when it does you must work in order to make it last.

Stage 3 doesn’t have to be the death of your relationship.

You control whether to relationship lives or dies.

Do you ever feel like you need to just hit the reset button your relationship and start over?

Do you long to stay with your partner but embark on a new beginning?

Are you reconciling with an ex in hopes that this time you could find your way together?

The following information addresses what it looks like to start fresh and rebuild better and stronger.

Sometimes you break up and reunite weeks, months or years later.

Sometimes you stay together but drift emotionally for a while and then reunite, and other times the relationship is rocked by a major shift in your dynamic or by an event of some kind.

Whatever the case may be, there’s a possibility, maybe even a signal, to begin again.

To start anew.

How do you do that?

How do you have a fresh start with someone you love?

And how do you know if you should?

Most couples who have been together for a long time will tell you that they have had many rebirths of their relationship or marriage over the years.

I once heard a relationship expert say that she is on her 4th marriage with the only husband she’s ever had.

Long-term romantic relationships often have many deaths and rebirths.

This is not uncommon, but it isn’t commonly understood.

We often see a depiction of a romantic relationship that starts passionately and has some drama in it early on that gets ironed out and after that all is well forever and ever.

But that is not real life.

Many people have a hard time settling into a relationship because they aren’t sure if they are settling or not because of faulty representations of what romantic relationships, good ones, actually look like.

They have this notion that a relationship based on true love should “flow”, but that’s not really how things usually work.

Most relationships have a long-term “ebb and flow” dynamic.

Even the best relationships will feel challenging at times, and downright intolerable at other times.

Not every new relationship is with a new partner.

As couples (and also friends and family members) go through difficult times with each other, they often come out on the other side different, better people.

A better person will be capable of a better relationship.

Someone who is not learning through the trials and struggles will create and perpetuate a broken relationship.

So the first thing to consider when deciding how to start over with someone you love is whether or not each of you has learned from what damaged the relationship in the first place, what caused it to drift, and whether you both have been able to reflect on and own your own parts.

And furthermore, clarify to yourselves and each other how you would need to show up in the relationship differently if you were to give it another try.

It would not be a good idea to reunite and try to begin anew because you’re in emotional pain and are looking to soothe your broken heart.

Or because you’re watching their life on social media and continuing to experience prolonged heartbreak as a result of not allowing yourself to truly move past a relationship that you realized wasn’t what was best for you.

Sometimes letting go and moving on is the best choice and it’s important to know what it actually looks like to truly start over vs. just ending up right back in the same relationship you decided to leave and investing even more of your precious time and energy on something you’ll eventually decide to finally walk away from once and for all.

What it means to truly start over

There is a difference between starting over and simply picking up right where you left off.

Picking up where you left off could look like reuniting with a former partner who was not willing or able to create a healthy relationship with you and has shown no evidence of a desire or ability to change.

Or reuniting with someone who wants very different things than you do from life or from a relationship.

Or getting back together with someone who mistreats you and has shown consistently that they do not value or respect you.

The most important thing isn’t whether you love the person, though that is an idea our culture heavily promotes.

Love is NOT enough and not a good reason to try to start over together.

The most important thing is whether or not the two of you can agree on what it looks like to function in a healthy way, become mutually committed to doing that, and when there’s difficulty both being willing to do the inner and relationship work that is needed in order to grow and improve in how you relate to one another.

Can you truly work together as a team to nurture and develop your bond?

Simply getting back together, deciding not to leave, or realizing you still love someone despite your hardships with them does not equate to starting over.

Starting over means taking the time to deconstruct the old relationship, get very clear on what caused it to weaken and fall apart, decide what needs to happen instead moving forward and put a plan in place to build a new relationship.

A healthy relationship requires two healthy people, so fundamentally each being able and willing to up-level your own ways of being as partners is going to be central to your being successful at starting over and maintaining a healthier and more fulfilling relationship with one another.

So let’s say that you are both clear on the causes of the relationship breaking down and are determined to do things differently, seek professional help if necessary, and you are both wanting to start over with each other.

How do you do that?

Can you just decide you have a clean slate and let the past be in the past?

 Do you need to let go of all of your negative feelings first?

The best way to start your new start

The first step to starting over is to repair the past.

After taking enough time and personal space to reflect, what will help you most in the long run is that your new start feels fresh and there is a lot of clarity and understanding – even about little things.

This may require having an awkward conversation (or series of conversations), but it will be worth it.

For a long-term relationship to work, both people need to be open to learning how they can best relate to one another.

Reflecting together on what you each have learned from your relationship will help build mutual respect and trust.

This is a good thing to do at the end of a relationship anyway, even on your own, in order to make sure you have recognized your own lessons and are prepared to apply them in any future committed relationship.

For a couple wanting to start over, an important part of the healing process is to fully own one’s contribution to the relationship issues and clarify the different ways that you each plan to behave and engage with one another moving forward.

Your previous relationship did not work.

Get clear on why by focusing on your own past mistakes rather than getting caught up in playing the blame game.

Learn from your past experience and vow not to repeat the same mistakes.

You will make mistakes, but your goal is to not repeat old ones.

And this is an opportunity to begin the habit of repair after conflict in your new relationship which you may not have done in your past relationship.

Working through any lingering hurts or concerns is the only way to achieve the sense of a having a clean slate and truly leaving the old relationship behind.

Doing this should also help heal any lingering negative emotions from past arguments or painful conflicts.

To really ensure things change and that you don’t recreate another unhealthy relationship together, it would serve you greatly to consider hiring a couples counselor, a relationship coach, or if you are married, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

Don’t wait until your relationship is on the rocks again before you decide it is a good time to seek professional support.

Old habits die hard, and while you may both be well-intentioned and have an intellectual understanding of the issues and what you need to be doing to keep the relationship healthy, the best course of action is to work with a trained 3rd party who can help you cultivate new skills and ways of being and address any underlying causes to the behaviors that led to the first failed relationship.

Never stop learning how to build a great relationship

Couples who get complacent lose their connection over time and often struggle to reconnect.

The good news is, this doesn’t have to be your experience.

At the end of the day, the couples who stay strongly connected and happy are the ones who don’t take one another or their relationship for granted and decide they want to continually learn how to nurture their bond through every stage of their relationship.

They seek out positive things they can do for the relationship, new experiences they can have, and they’re open to trying different things in an effort to keep the relationship fresh and fun.

For many of us, our first attempt at relationship fails miserably but sometimes we keep failing because we think we’re just going to magically figure things out.

Relating is a skill that needs to be learned. The sooner a couple can accept and embrace that, the better off they’ll be.

To have a better relationship, we have to be better human beings

There’s no gentler way to say it really – the truth is that most relationships fail because of human tendencies toward selfishness, self-righteousness, and pride.

The 3 virtues of great partners are empathy, humility and patience.

On top of that there are essential skills that need to be learned and developed like listening, validation, bargaining and co-regulation.

You have to be asking yourself “how might this make my partner feel?” on a regular basis.

You have to have the humility to continually forgive and let go of the past.

You need to be able to do the right thing when it’s the hardest.

To have a successful relationship this next time, you have to strive to be the best version of yourselves.

When you’re not aligned with your own emotional needs, you abandon them – then wonder why others do too.

But when you’re truly aligned with what you need, one-sided dynamics simply can’t survive.

Cultivate a relational mindset

As you start over, learn what it means to think relationally.

This involves learning to see the relationship as a system of which you and your partner are two parts, and the system functions based on the harmonic operation of the two of you.

Also, each part operates in relation to the other and influences its functioning through its own functioning.

If either of you “breaks down”, the whole system is at risk for collapsing.

So it is important that each of you make sure every part of the system – yourself and your partner – is functionally optimally through the meeting of needs and check ups and proper tending to.

If you decided to start over with someone you love, make sure, first and foremost, that it’s for the right reasons.

What makes you think things can be different?

It’s never easy to let go of a relationship but it’s a much better option than spending years of your life in a relationship where you’re just repeating the same negative patterns with no light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s much wiser to make a clean break if there isn’t any evidence that things will be different.

However, if you and your beloved have realized some important things and learned and grown from your past mistakes, then repair your hurts and grievances fully and hit the reset button.

There is a lot to learn for most of us.

Make relationship education a normal part of your relationship care. There’s no easy way to do relationship.

People are difficult.

All relationships have struggles.

Deliberately learning how to relate well is a gift you can give to one another.

Let the relationship grow you into the best version of yourself.

Rather than focusing on changing your partner or wanting them to be different, focus on your own capacity for love and appreciation of the one you are with.

Allow yourself to be influenced and changed.

Practice deep curiosity and compassion whenever conflict arises.

Forgive quickly, apologize quickly.

Not everyone gets a second chance with someone that they love, so count your blessings and be mindful every day of what you have to be grateful for in your relationship and in your partner.

The hardest part of loving is knowing that it might end, and the hardest part of losing is realizing that the love you had can never truly be recaptured in the same way.

You chose them for a reason – never forget what that reason is.