Starting Over With Your Relationship - Get Your Love Back

When we sift through the rubble of a broken relationship, we're moved to take stock of what happened. Before starting over with your relationship, you should first know what went wrong in the first place.

Perhaps your life goals didn't match. Especially in the busy-busy 21st century, too many couples get so wrapped up in their career plans that they can't be flexible enough to accommodate a relationship. One wants top go to school at Berkeley and then work in Seattle, while the other wants to spend two years on a field mission in Cambodia and then go work in Austin, Texas. Every Internet relationships forum in the world is loaded with postings that read something along the lines of: "We tried to have a long-distance relationship, but it didn't work out."

Perhaps your relationship was eaten by stress. Here again, an outside force can have an impact on a relationship that was the fault of neither party. Relatives and in-laws could have made things tough on you. Financial problems could have gnawed away at your domestic happiness. Or one spouse had a career that was so demanding that it killed their marriage. You almost can't count how many times people in high-risk, high-pressure careers - police, paramedic, performing arts, legal careers - end up accumulating a string of divorces. It's hard for someone to understand you when you work twelve hour shifts in a hellhole and then come home grouchy and needing a drink before you can sleep.

Perhaps the relationship simply failed to meet one or both of your expectations. This was always the domain of those who were built up to marriage as this fairy-tale happily-ever-after scenario, where the reality is that most people don't get more attractive with age and most relationships don't go on forever in a cottage in the enchanted forest with singing squirrels and deer outside the window every morning.

And then there's the case where one or both people had an issue that broke you apart. Here goes infidelity, dishonesty, substance abuse, personality problems, and all the other usual complaints. But if you stop to think about it, even these issues are sometimes external. The old saying goes "be kind - everyone is fighting a battle, even if it doesn't show." The partner with an inferiority complex might have been raised by parents who were nasty-tempered and critical and they learned to internalize the abuse. The partner with the drug addiction might have been crying out for help and unable to face their problem.

Whatever the case may be, examining these details can help you in starting over with your relationship. Put your foot down, and set rules that this time you aren't going to let a mean, cold world spoil your love.