How to Stop Your Relationship from Slowly Falling Apart

Whether you're married or just living together, there comes a point in every relationship when distance inevitably creeps between you. It could be because of financial trouble, sexual problems, or you simply just fall into such a routine that you start taking each other for granted. Maybe your spouse works a lot, or has other obligations like a sick parent, or maybe you're just so busy with your individual lives that you neglect to work on the life you're supposed to be building together.

The signs are always easy to spot. Your conversations are very polite, but short and perfunctory. You spend more time doing things like watching television, eating, or sleeping separately. You're both constantly worried that you're upsetting the other, when in fact neither one of you shows as much interest in each other's daily life as you used to. When you find yourself mentally tuning out what your spouse is saying, it's a sure sign that you're losing interest in the relationship. The combination of over-familiarity and the loneliness that comes from sharing space, but not really living together might lead you to wonder if there are greener pastures out there. And, if there are sexual problems as well, you may also be dealing with overwhelming frustration. While it's not the healthiest line of thinking in the world, it is human nature to wonder about other possibilities; especially if you've reached the point that you no longer look forward to coming home each night.

This is the crisis point for your relationship.If you truly love each other and want to stay together, than you need to start minimizing your distractions and focus on keeping your relationship stable. I know this is easier said than done when you feel like you have the weight of the world bearing down on you from your career, your other family obligations, money, or what have you - but the longer you keep ignoring the problem the worse it's going to get. Solving whatever external difficulties you face isn't always the key. By the time you finally get your budget balanced, one or both of you have drifted too far away from the relationship to pull themselves back in.

A good example of this would be the stories of couples who struggle for years to make ends meet, then they finally won the lottery, only to end up getting divorced a year or two later. Why? Because, they never solved the inherent problems in their relationship when it mattered most. By the time the big financial break they'd been waiting for finally came along, they were already on different paths emotionally. The old adage that: "If you love someone set them free...if it's meant to be, they'll return to you." doesn't always apply if you push each other away by being emotionally apathetic. What desire would anyone have to go back to a life where they feel like they're just a distraction, or a casual roommate?

A lot of people try marriage/relationship counseling, which can be very helpful, but not many of have the time or money to go that route. To really bridge the distance in your relationship, you have to listen to the advice your parents always gave you, "You got yourself into this mess, it's up to you to get out of it." You can't rely on a combination of outside circumstances, or some dramatic change to do it for you. You have to work at it together.

Start by working backwards; not just the things you used to enjoy doing together, but the things you liked about each other. There was a reason you got together in the first place, so try to concentrate on the good things about your partner. If you loved their sense of humor, try to make them smile more often. If you lived for the long talks that lasted into the middle of the night, then take a chance and go into work a little tired the next day. Whatever it is that you loved most about your partner, try to bring that back out of them. You have to reconnect with each other first before you can start "fixing" your relationship.

Hopefully once you start enjoying each other's company more again, you'll be more motivated not to dwell on your other problems so much. Sure, I realize that you can't ignore things and hope they'll go away, but if you're already doing everything in your power to solve the problem then you need to step back a little and not let it consume your entire life.

For example, you've got a big deadline at work. You have three days to get an impossible project finished. That's a tremendous amount of pressure and a lot of stress, but does that mean you should spend the next three nights ignoring your significant other just because you can't get it off your mind? How would you feel if they did that to you? Or, even worse, maybe you're both so in the habit of doing just that, that you don't even try to spend time together anymore.

Well, here's a little life lesson: There's always a crisis somewhere and you don't have to look too hard to find one. There's always going to be a deadline, or money problems, or stress. It's part of day-to-day life. You have to find ways to manage it along with everything else.

Think about the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Most people know that much, but they frequently forget the next two lines:

"Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;"

Life comes in big moments and small moments, but there has to be a balance between the two. You can't push aside all the little opportunities to enjoy "small moments" together based on the assumption that there will be time for it later. Because, if you wait too long, later might never come. You can't always assume that you can push each other aside forever and you'll get the same person back when you decide you want them. Neglect takes its toll on both parties, especially when it's love that's being ignored.

It's a cliché of relationship advice that you have to make time for each other, but clichés exist for a reason - because they're based on fact. No matter how bad things are, take time to be together, focus on what you love about each other, and try to start sharing your lives again instead of just co-existing in the same space. Give up some of your interests for your spouses and ask them to do the same. It doesn't have to be all the time, but at least half the time you're together should be spent actually doing things together.

Of course, the downside to this approach is that it takes both of you working at it consistently to make it work. If you can't convince your partner of what you need to make you happy or vice versa, then it's time to consider getting professional help despite the cost or time conflicts. After all, isn't your relationship important enough to you to be worth putting some extra investment in?