Berna Namata says fix it or quit for good

It normally begins with a series of quarrels and fights. Sooner or later you begin by wondering if you are the right person for them.

You start thinking if maybe you are better off without this relationship. You start to withdraw. Then what happens? Everything you fear will actually HAPPEN.

Not only is this a destructive pattern, it’s downright distressing. It can keep showing up again and again, no matter who you’re with and no matter how good things are at first.

"Relationships have never been a straight line .At least at some stage one of you will feel like calling it off after an argument,” says Marjorie, 24, a public relations officer.

Marjorie met her fiancée Eddy, 28, at Makerere University in 2004.

"I remember when I started dating Eddy; he was a finalist while I was a fresher on campus. For the first six months, everything between us was fine. We were madly in love,” Marjorie recalls. One year down the road, reality dawned on the two love birds.

"It all started when Eddy started canceling our outings and reduced the time we spent together. After canceling three dates in a row, I called him and told him it was over. It told him I never wanted to see him again.”

Four months on, Marjorie "bumped” into Eddy at a wedding party. "I never thought I would meet Eddy again. But I was so surprised to find him attending my cousin’s wedding party,” Marjorie says.

As fate would have it at the wedding, Eddy was ushered to a seat next to Marjorie. This availed a moment of discourse. Throughout the wedding party Eddy and Marjorie talked about their relationship and before anybody could stop it, Eddy and Marjorie reconciled.

"Since then, we have never looked back. I think the four months we spent apart strengthened our relationship because we realised we still loved each other,” Marjorie confesses.

Eddy and Marjorie’s story is just one of the many stories where couples spit venom to be found the next day holding hands, kissing like  newly weds.

While it may sound simplistic, this kind of love/hate relationship can have far reaching implications when it becomes routine. It is capable of causing emotional distress and even depression.

Love/hate relationships are unhealthy. If you find yourself nagging, mothering, controlling, or walking on eggshells with your spouse or intimate partner it means one thing: You have completely lost touch with one another.

It’s high time you got back to the things that you love about each other and brought you together in the first place.

And until you learn to recognise and nurture that ability and the techniques that work to reconnect a couple who have grown distant or angry, then you will never be able to come back to each other.

Find out what works to stop feeling hurt and start feeling more alive, more like you, and more loved by your partner or spouse in the process.

Don’t try to force things between you and your partner; you will only be burying your head in the sand. If things don’t work out, gather the guts and call it off.

Contact: ubernie@gmail.com