Creating peace in your relationship

Does your relationship seem to be more of a battle zone than an actual love nest? Do you constantly find yourself fighting or in conflict with your spouse? With the rate of divorces on the rise, it is hard to find a couple who have been together for more than 15 years. However, the problem might not be so much with the relationship as it is with an individual.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Rachel Garuka

Does your relationship seem to be more of a battle zone than an actual love nest? Do you constantly find yourself fighting or in conflict with your spouse? With the rate of divorces on the rise, it is hard to find a couple who have been together for more than 15 years. However, the problem might not be so much with the relationship as it is with an individual. If you are harbouring feelings of anger, hatred, sadness and resentment within yourself then there’s not a chance in hell you will have a healthy and happy relationship. Negative energy will literally poison your body, causing illness to arise. The last thing a relationship needs is negative energy because relationships have their own natural hurdles and don’t need one more thing pulling them down. I know people who spend all their time in a relationship waiting for something to go wrong. They sit and predict failure in every aspect, not knowing that the more they wait for it, the more likely it is to show up. Arthur, an IT technician and friend says that his girlfriend insists on nagging him about cheating when he is not. "We just seem to fight all the time. She’s always looking through my phone and when she doesn’t find anything, she says I deleted the shady messages. She never actually takes time to think that maybe, there were no shady messages to begin with!”Like Arthur, many guys have fallen prey to the consistent nerve wrecking syndrome caused by what women do best – annoy! In China a woman once nagged a man to the brink of suicide. He was found just in time –true story. It’s art really. If we are not out having our hair and nails done, we are nagging someone – especially ‘boyfie’ because he is the most suitable victim. But then again, the same way women irritate the sense out of you; men tend to think they are always right. And no one likes a person who is always right or is a know it all. So if a guy can bring his ego down a notch and not assume that every time a woman corrects him, she is being disrespectful, the nagging might be watered down. There is a chance that some people tend to think they know their partners better than they know themselves. I’d fight too if my boyfriend assumed he had better knowledge of myself than I did. No matter how much you think you know someone, you do not know every thing!The words ‘I told you so’ have started more fights than you can imagine. If someone has realized that they made a mistake, adding more salt to the wound with mocking comments like ‘I told you so’ will only anger them further and bring you deeper into conflict. Contrary to popular belief, apologies are not saved for when you have done something wrong. Apologising to a spouse shows that you are willing to move past the mishap. Apologising even when you believe you did nothing wrong is called not being too proud to take the first step in fixing a relationship. If you love and cherish each other, who apologises first or at all is not the inferior party.You must be willing to adapt to a situation and also willing to listen. When starting a new relationship, give your partner space to grow and be their own person. Keep the lines of communication open. Remember that even though your intentions are good, you may backfire a time or two. It happens, you just have to stay strong and know that what you are building, is definitely worth preserving, so make peace.