So if you’re struggling with this, let me - a complete stranger - assure you: There will always be someone else. But I was a teenager, and she was my mom. To be fair, my mother tried to tell me there would be someone else.
My family and friends were always telling me to walk away, but I waited for months because I was too scared he was my only shot at love. Why? Because it would’ve helped me step away from toxic partners. It took me two more relationships to learn a powerful truth: There will always be someone else - something I wish I’d known from the start. There Will Always Be Someone ElseĪfter my first break-up, I was 100 percent sure I would die alone. So why try to win? Why not search for a solution instead?Ĭhoose to be happy. Remember that in the end, you and your partner want the same thing: being together. Put simply, being right equals being wrong.įorcing your perceptions on your partner will only drive them away because they have different backgrounds and beliefs - because it will feel like an attack on their identity.Īnd when we feel our egos are in danger, we lash out, using criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.Īccording to Gottman, it’s better to work on understanding each other’s view and reaching a compromise by using a technique such as the Two-Circle Method. In other words, reality is subjective, which is why your partner’s take may be different from yours without either of you being right or wrong.” Why? Because reality is subjective.Īs Gottman says in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert, “we are all complicated creatures whose actions and reactions are governed by a wide array of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories. If left to run rampant, they bring a painful end to love.Īn easy way to trigger them is wanting to be right. Gottman, an American psychological researcher specialized in divorce prediction and marital stability, criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling are the four horsemen of a relationship’s apocalypse. In response, my ex-partners resorted to defensiveness (it’s not my fault it’s yours!) and stonewalling (silence), a vicious cycle that inevitably destroyed our love.Īccording to John M. Trying to win every argument led to screaming, criticism (you always do this), and contempt (I would’ve done it differently). In my past relationships, feeding my ego led to horrible fights.