Relationships: Telltale Signs You and Your Partner Aren't on the Same Page About Your Relationship

In my previous article, I discussed why it's important for you and your partner to be on the same wavelength in your relationship.  I also talked about the many different relationship choices these days, and the consequences of having divert needs on major relationship issues.  In this article I'll be discussing the telltale signs you're not on the same page (see my article: Are Your Emotional Needs Being Met in Your Relationship?).

Telltale Signs You and Your Partner Aren't on the Same Page

Telltale Signs You and Your Partner Aren't on the Same Page

The following list might indicate that you and your partner aren't on the same wavelength with regard to your relationship:

• Less Emotional and Sexual Intimacy: When you're not happy in your relationship because you and your partner aren't in agreement about what you each want, you might feel disconnected from your partner which could lead to a reduction in emotional and sexual intimacy or you feel like you're just going through the motions (see my article: What's the Difference Between Sexual and Emotional Intimacy?).

• Arguments About Time Apart vs Time Together: If one of you wants to spend more time together than the other, you could be having more arguments about this. Often the person who wants to spend more time together feels rejected and abandoned by the partner--even though this might not be the case. It might just be that one partner needs more alone time to recharge (see my article: Learning to Compromise in Your Relationship About Spending Time Apart vs Time Together).

• Arguments About How You Spend Your Time When You're Not Together: If one or both people are feeling insecure about the relationship because they don't know where it's going, they might argue about how much time you spend with friends, hobbies or at work. 

• Discussions About Life Decisions Are Avoided: You and your partner aren't talking about long term relationships goals because you don't have a common understanding about the direction of the relationship, so you avoid dealing with these issues. This avoidance, in turn, creates more tension and misunderstandings (see my article: 7 Tips For Creating a Stronger Relationship With Relationship Goals).

• Arguments About Money: If you're not discussing relationship goals, you won't know how to prioritize decisions about money, e.g., buying a house, saving for a vacation, and so on (see my article: Arguing About Money in Your Relationship).

• Arguments About Flirting With Others: As mentioned in the prior article, there are so many different types of relationships (monogamous, monogamish, open relationships, etc), so if you each have a different understanding about how you define your relationship, you might argue about how your partner is interacting with other people, including being overly flirtatious.  If you're feeling insecure, even if your partner has no intention of being with anyone else, you might engage in "mate guarding," which can create even more tension in your relationship (see my articles: Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding - Part 1 and Part 2).

• Family Events Are a Problem: If you and your partner aren't on the same page about the type of relationship you each want, you might find family gatherings become problematic because you don't go to your partner's family events and/or your partner doesn't go to your family events. This can create tension for significant events like parents' birthdays or holidays. Even though some family events might not be fun, if you're in a serious relationship, you're there to support one another.  You also might end up making excuses to your family about why your partner isn't there.

• Boundaries Aren't Respected: Whether it's emotional, sexual or other physical boundaries, it's hard to know what the boundaries are when you and your partner aren't in agreement.  If you want to be in a monogamous relationship, but your partner wants an open relationship that includes sexual and/or emotional intimacy with others, you or your partner are bound to get hurt and disappointed.

• A One-Sided Relationship: If you feel you're making most of the effort in your relationship so that your relationship feels one sided, you're going to feel resentful and disappointed. Another sign of a one-sided relationship is when your partner talks about something the two of you did together and instead of saying "we," they tend to say "I."

• Frequent Misunderstandings About Your Partner: If you feel like you don't know your partner anymore, you could be experiencing a sign that you're not on the same wavelength anymore (or maybe you never were). You might be growing apart because you have divert views about what you want in the relationship.

• Together But Feeling Alone: When a couple isn't on the same page about the relationship, one or both of them can feel like they're alone even though they're physically together. If you're with your partner but you feel lonely, this is another indication of being disconnected from one another (see my article: Are You Feeling Lonely in Your Relationship?).

The items listed above aren't exhaustive, so there might be other telltale signs that you detect with your partner.

In a future article, I'll provide a clinical vignette and discuss how you can try to resolve these issues.

Getting Help in Therapy

Just because you and your partner aren't on the same wavelength doesn't necessarily mean you can't get there.  Sometimes you just need help.

These kinds of problems usually don't get better by themselves, and if you don't know what to do, you could benefit from working with a licensed psychotherapist.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to discover what you want, how to communicate your needs and how to work out a possible compromise.

So take the first step of contacting a licensed mental health professional so you can have a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.

Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding in Relationships - Part 2

In Part 1 of this topic, Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding in Relationships, I gave a basic description of this dynamic.  In the current article, which is Part 2, I'm providing a clinical vignette to illustrate a typical scenario.

Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding in Relationships

Clinical Vignette:  Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding in a Relationship

The following vignette, which is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information removed, illustrates a typical dynamic related to irrational jealousy and mate guarding:

Sue

After her boyfriend, Nick, told her that they should take some time apart, Sue sought help in therapy to deal with her irrational jealousy.

Sue told her therapist that Nick was a great guy and she had no objective reason to believe he was cheating on her or even interested in anyone else.  However, even the mere thought that he could become interested in another woman made her anxious, obsessively jealous and insecure.

She gave many examples of when she and Nick were around other people and how she would imagine Nick with one of the women in the group.  She felt something came over her, she lost all objectivity and then she would spend the rest of the night monitoring Nick's behavior--even watching to see if he glanced at any of the attractive women in the group.

Afterwards when they were alone, Sue would grill Nick to try to find out if he found any of these women attractive.  Since Nick knew about Sue's irrational jealousy, he would try to change the subject, but once Sue was on the topic, she wouldn't let it go.

Eventually, after she hounded Nick about whether he noticed the attractive women at the social event, they would get into an argument and she would break up with him.  

Once she calmed down, Sue realized that these thoughts had taken over her better judgment and she would apologize to Nick.  Then, they would make up and get along for a while until the next time that Sue got jealous.

After the last event, Sue insisted that Nick check in with her several times a day to give her an account of his whereabouts.  She also told him that she wanted to install a tracking device on his phone, which he adamantly refused.

Most of the time Nick was patient with Sue, but after a particularly volatile exchange where she accused him of looking at an attractive women at a party, Nick said he was fed up. That's when he told her that he thought they needed some time apart.

As usual, when Sue calmed down, she realized she was being irrational and she apologized, but Nick insisted that they spend a few months apart so he could clear his head.  Even though Sue felt remorseful because she realized her mistake, she was even more concerned now that they were apart that Nick would meet someone else during their separation.

Sue revealed to her therapist that this wasn't the first time she experienced irrational jealousy in a relationship.  She felt the same way in her previous two serious relationships and her jealousy contributed to the demise of those relationships.  

In each case, she said, she knew logically that she had no reason to be jealous, but she felt once she became jealous, she couldn't help herself.  She told her therapist that she didn't want her jealousy to ruin her relationship with Nick, and she hoped it wasn't too late to overcome her problem.

As Sue discussed her family history with her therapist, she recounted her parents' marital problems.  She said her parents fought openly in front of Sue and her siblings about the father's infidelity (see my article: How Childhood Trauma Affects Adult Intimate Relationships).

She said her mother eventually found out that the father not only had an extramarital affair, but he also had several children with the other woman.  According to Sue, after her mother found out the father had another secret family, she threw him out of the house and he went to live with the other woman and their children.

Sue said she and her father had been very close before this, but after her mother told him to leave, she didn't see him for many years.  She said she believed as a child, and even as an adult, that her father loved his other children more and she was devastated by the loss.

Just before her father died, Sue said, he reached out to her and her siblings to reconnect.  Her siblings wanted nothing to do with him, but she went to visit him and spent the remaining weeks of his life visiting him at the hospital.  By then, he was a sad and lonely man--his relationship with the other woman had been long over and he had no contact with the children from that relationship.

Even though she had a chance to reconnect with her father before he died, she couldn't overcome her longstanding feelings of being abandoned and that her belief that he preferred the children from the other relationship (see my article: Fear of Abandonment Can Occur Even in a Healthy Relationship).

Her therapist recognized that Sue's childhood trauma was triggering Sue, and that history was having a negative impact on her relationship with Nick. So she helped Sue to develop internal resources to contain her emotions first, and then they worked on the original source of the trauma related to feeling abandoned by her father with a combination of EMDR therapy, Somatic Experiencing and AEDP therapy).

Once Sue processed and resolved her childhood traumatic memories over the course of trauma therapy, she was able to distinguish between her emotions related to her memories and her current relationship with Nick and she was no longer triggered.

Eventually, Sue no longer felt jealous and she had no need to engage in mate guarding behavior. Over time, after she and Nick reunited, they were much happier together.

Conclusion

When a person knows there are no objective reasons to feel jealous in their relationship and yet they still struggle with jealousy and mate guarding behavior, there is usually underlying unresolved trauma that is getting triggered. 

Trauma therapy can be very helpful in processing unresolved memories that trigger irrational jealousy (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Although the clinical vignette presented above was focused on a woman who engaged in irrationally jealous behavior, this story could have just as easily been about a man because both men and women engage in these dynamics.

Getting Help in Therapy

Irrational jealousy and mate guarding behavior can ruin a relationship.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to overcome problems related to irrational jealousy so you can free yourself from this dynamic and have a more fulfilling relationship.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP and EFT therapist.

I work with individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding in Relationships - Part 1

Most people would agree that being abandoned by a spouse or a romantic partner can be heartbreaking.  This is especially true when a partner leaves to be with someone else.  However, even in relationships where there is no objective threat, jealousy and mate guarding behavior can be the destructive element that drives a couple apart (see my article: Overcoming Jealousy).

Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding in Relationships

What is Mate Guarding?

Mate guarding occurs in both the animal kingdom and among humans.

Mate guarding can involve:

• keeping constant tabs on a partner
• checking that a partner is where s/he says she is
• going through a partner's phone or personal items to look for suspicious calls, texts or email, letters, hotel bills, etc.
• secretly listening into phone calls
• installing a tracking device in a partner's phone or car
• stalking/spying on a partner
• asking friends or other individuals to keep tabs on a partner
• questioning a partner about friendships, coworkers and other people
• constantly questioning a partner's motives about engaging in separate activities
• wanting a partner to give up certain social activities 

And so on.

The Effect of Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding in Relationships

Irrational jealousy that turns into mate guarding can have a very toxic effect on a relationship.  The partner who is engaging in mate guarding can lose objectivity and become irrational and accusatory.

Most partners who are being unfairly accused of wrongdoing eventually become resentful.  In addition, the partner who is on the receiving end of mate guarding behavior often feels controlled and suffocated, which creates even greater problems.  

By being irrationally jealous, the partner who fears being abandoned can actually bring about the demise of the relationship if the partner gets fed up.  At the very least, it erodes the quality of the relationship.

When someone has a history of jealous mate guarding, s/he often has insecure attachment problems, specifically, anxious attachment.  See my articles:  

• What is Your Attachment Style?, 
• How Does Your Attachment Style Affect Your Relationship?
• How to Develop a Secure Attachment Style: What is Earned Secure Attachment?

In my next article, I'll provide a clinical example of irrational jealousy and mate guarding in a relationship.  See Part 2 of this topic.

Getting Help in Therapy

It can be difficult to step back from irrational jealousy on your own.  Triggers often occur so quickly that you don't have time to reflect on your irrational thoughts.

Even if you know objectively that your jealousy is irrational, you might feel very different on an emotional level.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you get to the root of your problems to help you change your behavior.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional so you can enjoy your relationship and live a more fulfilling life (see my article: How Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Your Fear of Abandonment).

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up an appointment, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.