I will here continue to give suggestions of what I tell my patients to think about when they try to get healthier relationships.
6. If you have negative feelings towards a partner, (a partner you felt attracted to at first) even if that person behaves well, analyze why.
If you feel annoyed at everything your partner says (even if he/she behaves well), one reason can be that your partner doesn´t set good limits and lets his/her needs get run over. That can lead to the fact that you take your partner for granted and the more he/she tries to please you, the more faults you find in him/her. If you recognize yourself in this, try not to ”take the chance” to be rude because if you lose respect for your partner, the relationship will not be good neither for you nor for your partner.
Also be aware if the oppsite happens, that is you try to please your partner with the described consequences.
7. I think that another reason for suddenly losing interest can be that, in the beginning of the relationship, when you were afraid of being abandoned by your partner, you adapted yourself after you partner´s needs, pushing aside your own needs. This behavior an sometimes lead to, that after a while, when you feel more secure, your anger comes up in the form of ”feeling not attracted and annoyed” at everything your partner does. If you recognize yourself in this, try to analyze the situation, stop letting your needs be run over and then wait, your anger will fade away when your own psyche doesn´t feel disrepsected anymore.
8. If you notice that your partner is getting clingy and it annoys you, try to help him/her (and in the long run yourself) by giving him/her structure. As I have said before, the psyche loves structure and control, so if you tell your partner when you can meet or talk, you are giving his/her psyche a sense of security that he/she will not get abandoned, which will reduce the need for clingyness.
If you feel insecure in the relationship because your partner says”I like you, but I don´t know when I will be ready for a relationship, I think it will be soon”, ”I want children, but I don´t know when”, ”I like you, but I don´t know when I am ready to move in together” etc., you will probably feel bad. It´s easier to get a ”no” than the diffuse ”yes and no” because when you switch between hope and despair it gets draining for the psyche. If you are in this situation, try to set at time limit for yourself, how much time you think it´s reasonbale to let your partner decide what he/she wants. Your psyche can endure the uncertainty, but it wants to know for how long it will have to endure it in order to feel better.
9. If you feel you really can´t get the energy to start setting limits in order to take care of your feelings out of fear of getting abandoned, try to tell yourself that the alternative is that your self esteem will become lower and lower with the consequence that the person who does not behave well will lose respect and continue his/her bad behavior. The lack of respect heightens the actual risk of getting abandoned so in other words you have nothing to lose when you start demanding respect for your feelings.
Cognitive behaviour Psychologist Monica Emanell