Successful relationships involve a significant amount of give and take. The problem can arise if one partner believes they are doing more or if the expectations aren’t aligned.
Typically, couples don’t directly open the discussion when the first red flags arise. Couples usually allow their feelings to build until frustration builds into resentment. At that point, it is too late. Partners become critical and accusatory or shut down and then pull away from their mate.
The best way to avoid having your intimate relationship deteriorate into bickering and hostility is to become transparent with each other about what you’re giving and receiving from each other.
You can accomplish this by taking a relationship inventory.
Look at the following tips and answer the following questions.
- Love – Was there love expressed in your relationship in the last twelve to thirty-six months? In what ways was love told or not expressed? Depending on your love language, some people can feel satisfied with expressions of love with gifts, words of appreciation, acts of kindness, or affectionate touches. Did the actions of love satisfy you? If not, why not?
- Trust – Did you trust your partner and vice versa? How did you navigate violations of trust when they occurred in your relationship? A breakdown of faith is not always infidelity, and belief shows up by being consistent and coming through when you say you will do something. It is trusting their judgment and opinions, and ideas. Lastly, trusting the person is honest, transparent, and loyal to the marriage values.
- Loyalty and commitment – Did you know that your ex had your back and that they were there for you no matter what? Were you there for them? Did they say they wanted out of the relationship whenever there were difficulties? In what ways was commitment shown or not shown?
- Support – Was your ex your cheerleader? Were you theirs? Did you encourage them to grow and develop themselves to heal and change? Did you feel held back and suffocated? or did you feel unsupported with your desires for growth?
- Respect – Did you respect them as a person? Did they respect you? Love can only exist when people see themselves as equals in the relationship. How did you see and judge yourself? How did you evaluate your ex? If mutual respect doesn’t exist between you and your ex, consider whether judgments were used.
- Honesty – What is the truth about you? Did you each tell the truth about the fears, needs or did you hide, deny, void? The hard stuff about honesty is that you sometimes must confront things in the relationship. These things are challenging to say, but you do it anyway because of the commitment you both have.
Great relationships have the above six essential qualities in the bag.
Lest Continue To Look At Questions Just For You, About Your EX.
- Did you choose your partner knowing they were not quite right for you? Why did you decide to stay when problems arose?
- What didn’t work in your relationship?
- Did you go into the relationship with the confidence of building a long-term relationship with no fear?
- What sort of attachment style do you have in a relationship?
- Were you in a relationship of obligation – I must do this for you because of X? If you do that, I will do X?
- Were you in an ambivalent relationship where you or your partner found it difficult to express love and connection? Did you or your partner over-rely on your close relationships for reassurance. Did you or your partner avoid intimate relationships due to the desire to maintain emotional distance?
- Were you in a codependent relationship? – This is where one person supports the other. Neither of you tells each other the truth. Excessive reliance on another person is unhealthy. The other person should not validate your identity, and you shouldn’t need your partner’s approval to feel good about yourself.
When you reflect, it will become more apparent which category of attachment style your relationship was based around. You do not need to know the specific details related to an attachment style. However, it is essential to understand the basics over time, as this will help you later with self-awareness and self-discovery.
When separation and divorce happen in all attachment styles, a level of dependency has formed for the ex-partner and a sense of loss and lowered self-esteem. Knowing your attachment style helps you determine how you relate to the world. It can even help decide what kinds of ”problems we have in our friendships or at work. Understanding your attachment style is about understanding how you relate to others and perceive other people in your life.
Let’s continue with the questions….
- Did you like your ex as a person?
- Did you feel attracted and connected to your ex?
- Did your ex have a genuine interest in you? Did they want to spend time with you?
- Did you feel safe with this person – physically and emotionally?
- Did you practice self-care, did your ex?
- Did your ex treat you well? Did you treat them well?
- Did your ex try to get along with your family and friends? What matters to you should matter to them.
- Could your ex-handle conflicts in a civil manner? Do they know how to co-operate? Or did they shout, swear, and threaten?
- Was this person an effective communicator – Did they express themselves and let you describe yourself?
- Did they bring positive energy into your life, or did they drain it?
- Did I value the relationship? If not, why? Did your ex demonstrate that they appreciated the relationship and accepted you just as you were?
- Did they have a growth attitude for working on the relationship? Or did they think relationships don’tdon’t require any work?
Further work:
- How many Yes and Nos did you answer from the list above?
- Find your top three painful memories that you wrote down previously and answer these questions:
- What did you learn about yourself from that experience?
- Who do you need to forgive?
- Where has the unresolved pain and lack of forgiveness shown up in other areas of your life?
- Has the pain of those memories shown up in your relationships? Did it impact the relationship?
- Write down the top three best moments and memories you shared with your ex?
- Write down why they were the best moments with your ex?
- Please write down the top three worst moments you remember in your relationship, and then why they were the worst.
- What did you learn about yourself from that experience?
- Who do you need to forgive?
- Write down three things you would change about your behavior in your last relationship.
- How could you have shown more love and commitment?
- How could you have shown trust support?
- How could you have respected and been more open and honest?
- Write down three things about you that you will keep doing in relationships in the future.
- Write down what characteristics you liked in your ex
- Write down the elements you didn’t want in your ex
Closing Thoughts
This relationship inventory should give you a balanced view of your relationship’s negative and positive things. It should help you recognize what type of dependency you have on relationships in general and what you have learned from the experience. If done correctly, you should come away from this exercise with more clarity on what values you are drawn to and what changes you need to make in the future.
