Relationship Problems

When you first begin a relationship everything goes well. You only see nice things in him/her. Life brings ups and downs in every relationship/family, though. Routine, changes, differences of opinion, infertility, job loss, or financial problems are some of the things you can face in your relationship.

Most of these relationship problems might be easy for you two to solve. Some of them will be solved with time. Yet there are some that seem to wreck your relationship. If you want to overcome them you need to work together, and if you can’t do it by yourselves you might need to ask an expert for advice.

Here is a list of some of the main relationship problems and some tips to overcome them:

Falling out of Love:

This is a very common problem. When you first meet each other you show your best side, but routine makes everybody look just normal. This, together with other things that interfere in your relationship is the best way to fall out of love.

Falling in love seems to be something that happens by chance. You see someone and you suddenly find him/her special, different from everybody else. And he/she captivates you to the point you can’t stop thinking about him or her. Do you recognize these feelings?

Now, if falling in love seems to happen by chance, falling out of love could also seem to follow the same procedure… You suddenly wonder what you saw in that person that made him/her so special and you stop feeling any butterflies when you see him/her.

There’s something missing in this theory and it is that

“LOVE is like a FLOWER, you need to NOURISH IT. If you don’t, it gets dryer and dryer until it dies.”

Do you remember the things you did when you started dating? I bet you spent a lot of time together. I guess you only told him/her nice things. I guess you gave the best of yourself to show your best side. No reproaches, no criticism, no disappointments…

You might be thinking: “Yes, but life is not all roses and butterflies”. That’s true, life brings challenges to every relationship but it is the way we face those challenges that make the difference. At this point, you might want to stop and think over when love started fading. Did you stop doing certain nice things you did before? Did you lose respect for each other? Did other things/people come between the two of you (work, friends, children…)?

If you recognize some things have changed for the worse, you are at the right point to change things back to good. Work it out so that you can fall in love again.

Believe it, if you fell in love once you can do it twice, and IT’S DEFINITELY WORTH IT.

Financial Difficulties:

At first, money wasn’t important, remember? You had each other, and that was enough! Now you have bills to pay and money IS important. Someone said, “Money doesn’t bring happiness but it stops you from worrying about bills.” That’s exactly what it is. If you are experiencing financial difficulties, make sure these won’t pull you apart. Work together to get out of doubt. Set goals to save money for something you both want and remember the importance of financial planning.

A Family budget will help you in more ways than you thought…

The marriage economy is usually a complicated thing and one of the main reasons for divorce. In a marriage or a couple, both men and women have usually different opinions on spending money. Some people are more conservative, they like to put money aside for the hard times while others prefer to enjoy life and spend money as it comes.

This might bring arguments when both men and women don’t find a common solution or agreement on how to spend money. This problem worsens when the couple experiences financial difficulties or when money is tight.

Both need to understand that finances are something that will affect each other and they should be careful about how and what they spend money on. Having a family budget is a good solution to organize expenses and not get into debt.

Some Budget Tips:

• Set up a budget and review it at least once a month. Write down the average amount of money you make every month.
• Do this by reviewing what you’ve earned in the past 12 months and dividing it by 12. Then write down the regular expenses you have such as mortgage, taxes, and electricity… and continue with necessary expenses, such as food, clothing, or gas.
• Put aside some money to save. 10% of your salary is ideal.
• Write down the conditions to use that saved money and agree to ask each other before giving out saved money.
• Set an amount of money for each of you to give away on your own expenses and ask each other before making any unplanned expenses.
• If you’re living on one income, take the time to compare prices in different stores. You can save money for gas if you check the prices on the different websites from the different supermarkets.

AND REMEMBER:

With finances, there are only two options either you control them or they’ll control you. Having finances under control is a source of stress in your marriage.

So… go budgeting to enjoy your relationship!

Infidelity:

This is a sensitive topic to face. If you know for sure he/she is cheating on you, you need to first calm down before you talk to him/her or before you take any decision. Then you need to decide if this is enough for you to break the relationship or if you think you can work it out. If you choose to work it out you need to make sure he/she wants to work it out as well. Otherwise, you will be living a damaging relationship that will cost you a great deal of your self-esteem in the end.

The best relationship problem advice: the most important thing to solve problems in your relationship is to solve them together. This is best achieved through good communication.