Are you ready for more love in your relationship?
As a marriage therapist and couples counselor, I regularly listen to couples share the pain they experience when they don’t get the love they want. Often, especially in the beginning of couples counselling, there can be a fair amount of focus on how the pain is the other person’s fault, i.e. the result of what the other person is doing “wrong” or failing to do.
Similar to J.F. Kennedy’s famous quote “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” I sometimes like to offer couples these questions:
“ How can you love more in this relationship?
How can you give yourself more love?”
It’s easy to get stuck in feeling disappointed, hurt and discouraged based on your spouse’s actions or lack thereof.
Would you agree that when you are marinating in pain, you forget or have doubts whether your partner actually loves you? Would you also agree that sometimes a simple apology is not enough for you to fully let go of your hurt feelings?
When somewhere inside your heart you’re still harbouring resentment, it’s going to impact how much love you’re willing to give.
In order for love to grow in relationship, both you and your partner have to be willing to give and receive love. Loving and feeling loved creates an upward spiralling “love circuit”. If one of you struggles with giving or receiving the “love circuit” gets interrupted or reversed.
I’m sure you have experienced this firsthand. Remember a time when you wanted to give your partner a hug and they didn’t participate – they weren’t willing or able to receive you?Most likely your emotional response ranged from mild disappointment to feeling rejected.
Perhaps you can also remember an occasion where the opposite was true. You weren’t feeling very generous and giving. No hugs being initiated by you. Your partner’s response most likely landed somewhere in between disappointment and feeling unwanted.
If you’re ready for more love in your relationship I invite you to consider the idea of forgiveness. The degree with which you have either forgiven your partner or yourself can have a direct impact on your willingness to give and receive love.
Test this out for a moment. Think of a time when you felt hurt by your partner’s actions. On a scale of 1 – 10, how much have you actually forgiven them? Please go with the first number that popped into your head rather than the number your think you “should” come up with.
Let’s say you came up with a 6. How and when does this impact your willingness and ability to love more?
Now think of a time when you did something that created pain in your relationship. Perhaps you lied, suffered a relapse from recovery, broke a promise. Perhaps you feel responsible for not being different, more or less. Perhaps you feel responsible for not being able to make your partner happy. Again – on a scale from 1 – 10, how much have you forgiven yourself? How much have you been able to let go of shame, guilt, feeling inadequate? And how is this impacting your ability to receive love? To give yourself more love?
If you are ready for more love in your relationship – practice forgiveness. Be curious and 
identify what is holding you back from forgiving yourself and others.
Difficulty forgiving can be impacted by
How can you give yourself more love?”
It’s easy to get stuck in feeling disappointed, hurt and discouraged based on your spouse’s actions or lack thereof.
Would you agree that when you are marinating in pain, you forget or have doubts whether your partner actually loves you? Would you also agree that sometimes a simple apology is not enough for you to fully let go of your hurt feelings?
When somewhere inside your heart you’re still harbouring resentment, it’s going to impact how much love you’re willing to give.
In order for love to grow in relationship, both you and your partner have to be willing to give and receive love. Loving and feeling loved creates an upward spiralling “love circuit”. If one of you struggles with giving or receiving the “love circuit” gets interrupted or reversed.
I’m sure you have experienced this firsthand. Remember a time when you wanted to give your partner a hug and they didn’t participate – they weren’t willing or able to receive you?Most likely your emotional response ranged from mild disappointment to feeling rejected.
Perhaps you can also remember an occasion where the opposite was true. You weren’t feeling very generous and giving. No hugs being initiated by you. Your partner’s response most likely landed somewhere in between disappointment and feeling unwanted.
If you’re ready for more love in your relationship I invite you to consider the idea of forgiveness. The degree with which you have either forgiven your partner or yourself can have a direct impact on your willingness to give and receive love.
Test this out for a moment. Think of a time when you felt hurt by your partner’s actions. On a scale of 1 – 10, how much have you actually forgiven them? Please go with the first number that popped into your head rather than the number your think you “should” come up with.
Let’s say you came up with a 6. How and when does this impact your willingness and ability to love more?
Now think of a time when you did something that created pain in your relationship. Perhaps you lied, suffered a relapse from recovery, broke a promise. Perhaps you feel responsible for not being different, more or less. Perhaps you feel responsible for not being able to make your partner happy. Again – on a scale from 1 – 10, how much have you forgiven yourself? How much have you been able to let go of shame, guilt, feeling inadequate? And how is this impacting your ability to receive love? To give yourself more love?
If you are ready for more love in your relationship – practice forgiveness. Be curious and 
identify what is holding you back from forgiving yourself and others.
Difficulty forgiving can be impacted by
- judgement
- fear
- low self-esteem
- guilt
- shame
- religious beliefs
- old “stories” that you were told about yourself or others when you were growing up
- your sense of deserving