What to do if the relationship between a man and a woman has reached a dead end: how to understand this?

At what point does a relationship reach a dead end?

Family psychologists say that a crisis in family relationships can happen at any time. This can happen after a year of family life and after 20 years. Of course, these periods are conditional, and not all couples are subject to them. The understanding that family relationships have reached a dead end may come:

Right after the wedding. This is due to the fact that newlyweds start living together and face many everyday problems. Living together also involves the distribution of responsibilities, the emergence of obligations, and a change in daily routine. It is very difficult to accept that just yesterday you were managing your own time, but today you have to adapt to your soulmate.
A year after the relationship. Before family relationships, couples had a romantic period, which ends with the beginning of their life together. With the beginning of family life, husband and wife spend a lot of time with each other, as a result of which satiety and boredom appear.
After the birth of the child. One of the dangerous moments. The exciting wait for your first child ends, and sleepless nights begin, a period of colic in the tummy and dirty diapers. Young parents don’t get enough sleep, and moms have virtually no time for themselves. In addition, the mother devotes more time to the baby than to her husband. All this gradually accumulates, irritability and discontent appear in the family.
After 3-5 years of marriage. This is the period that psychologists characterize, that love passes, only a habit remains. There is no longer a place for romantic relationships, and there is no time. Flowers are given only for special occasions, a romantic dinner is only given on holidays. During this period, another child appears in families. Gradually, topics for conversation are exhausted, interests diverge.
After 10-12 years of marital relationship. This is the period when children grow up and more time and effort are required to raise them. Dissatisfaction with work and lack of time for favorite activities lead to spouses becoming irritable. Also, the cause of quarrels may be different views on raising children, especially boys. This period is characterized by an improvement in the financial situation, which also does not cause satisfaction in the spouses. There is a house, a car, a bank account, but there is nothing else to strive for and nothing to achieve.
After 20-25 years of marriage. Typically, this period occurs when spouses cross the 40-year mark and realize that life is ending and not all goals have been achieved yet. They begin to blame each other for unfulfilled desires. It is at this moment that the husband may begin a relationship with a young girl. In this way he wants to prove that he is still young, that his whole life is ahead of him. Such relationships usually develop according to one scenario: a whirlwind romance ends with the husband leaving for a young mistress, but as a result returning to his wife, since in the new family he is faced with differences in his views on life.

Recommendations for long-term relationships

Sometimes partners, sensing an impending problem, do not know how to solve it, but both want to continue what they started. The main thing to remember is that there is a way out of any situation. And when a turning point arises and the couple separates, it is rather the reluctance of one of the partners to overcome difficulties. So what to do if the relationship has reached a dead end?

It is necessary to correctly assess the situation in the early stages. Remember that the “flowering period” passes sooner or later, and it will be necessary to make important decisions and it is very important to cope with the life task that has arisen together.

Do not rush to conclusions about separation, discuss the problem that has arisen together; if you see the world from different sides, then come to a common denominator and only then make a conclusion.

In the end, understand yourself if you don’t understand why there is “silence” in a relationship. There is a reason for everything, and it is definitely hidden either in your perception of a man, or vice versa.

If the problem is of a short-term nature, then the best way in such a situation is to simply ignore it; do not overestimate the significance of the pressing problem.

If the two of you are not having a good relationship, determine for yourself whether you have the desire to maintain it. If yes, then learn to listen and hear your soulmate. Take complete control of your emotions and do not look for reasons for quarrels.

Application of role-playing games. If you don’t find a “golden mean” and it seems to you that a man (woman) is not fair to you, suggest switching roles so that you can feel what emotions each of you experiences. The purpose for which a loving couple continues their relationship and values each other is primal and leads to the formation of a strong family. If you set such priorities for yourself and don’t waste time on trifles, family conflicts will go away on their own.

Learn to accept your partner as he is, you do not have the right to dictate to him what he should like, with whom he should communicate, what to watch, what to do. Work together and get used to the fact that no one is perfect. But if you are not ready to put up with some of your partner’s character traits, then it is better not to injure him or yourself.

Regardless of whether you are married or not, give your partner freedom, expediently, of course. Let him go to football with his friends, if you don’t like him yourself, let’s work on the car with a friend in the garage. Don't infringe on each other's interests.

How to understand that family relationships have reached a dead end?

Couples who are experiencing a relationship crisis may observe the following signs:

Dissatisfaction with each other;
Lack of mutual understanding;
Irritability towards each other;
Mutual reproaches;
Frequent quarrels;
Silent protests;
Differences of opinion;
Problems in intimate life.

And most often, if family relationships reach a dead end, then interest in each other disappears, passion is replaced by indifference. Intimate life becomes simply a debt that must be repaid once a month. And even after learning about each other’s infidelities, spouses prefer to remain silent and pretend that nothing is happening, since scandals can lead to divorce, and you don’t want to ruin stability. Unfortunately, many married couples live like this: an apparent happy idyll, but in fact, everyone has long had their own life, and each other is connected by children and material things, such as an apartment, a car, a joint business.

Finding a compromise

The next step is to find mutually beneficial solutions for both parties. If you can’t come to a common denominator, then you need to find a third option. He may not suit the two, but at the same time he will not divide the couple into two warring armies, where one won and the other lost. To make it clear, we can consider several examples from life.

Example #1

A guy and a girl are conflicting about the topic of leisure time on Saturdays. He wants to spend these days with friends at the bar; she requires attention, care and evenings together. Which solution is considered mutually beneficial here?

You can alternate each other’s desires. One weekend the guy relaxes as he likes, and the next weekend he entertains his beloved. On the day when the partner is busy with friends, the girl, for example, plans a meeting with her friends in some establishment.

Example No. 2

Husband and wife fight over the family budget. The husband believes that we need to be more economical and save extra money for a new car. His other half has his own point of view and is sure that it is more correct to live without infringing on himself with new clothes, travel and entertainment on weekends. You can understand and support both in this couple, but there must be one solution. What to do in this situation?

A husband needs to understand his wife in her desire to be beautiful, fashionable and not tormented by continuous everyday life. This is also a plus for maintaining passion in a relationship - the more a woman is satisfied with herself, the harder she will try for her loved one in all areas of family life. So somewhere the head of a social unit must cut some slack for his significant other. But it is better for the wife to realize that money does not come from nowhere - the husband earns it through his own labor. The tenth skirt may remain in the store, but women’s beauty will not suffer from this.

Of course, the question of what to do if family relationships have reached a dead end requires a separate discussion, since the level of responsibility and depth of mutual understanding in the family move into another framework. Here, worry about children, property obligations, and the influence of relatives - everything leaves its mark.

Example No. 3

You can take as a basis a situation in which one of the relatives adds fuel to the family fire. Mostly these are mothers-in-law and mothers-in-law who consider their sons and daughters simply gifts of fate. Well, the husband’s mother doesn’t like how the daughter-in-law takes care of her grandson, and the husband is either indifferent to what is happening, or takes the position of his parent - she is older, wiser. What to do?

There is no need to rush to get a divorce and leave the child without a father. There is always a way out:

Eliminate cohabitation even at the expense of the budget.
If the first is impossible, then you can more often give the reins of power to your grandmother’s hands. As practice shows, mothers-in-law who love to give advice quickly calm down when they are given every opportunity to implement it themselves.
Don’t quarrel with your husband, but quietly encourage him to move.
Wage a tricky fight: notice all the shortcomings of the restless relative and, if possible, carefully put them on display.
Having your own savings and trying to earn extra money even while on maternity leave will help maintain the woman’s status in front of her husband, and his mother or anyone else will be forced to treat her with respect.

Of course, this is just objective advice. The subjectively correct decision is made by the participants in emerging conflicts, which, if not resolved in a timely manner, lead to the emergence of an exclusion zone between lovers.

Getting out of the impasse of family relationships

It is very important in such a situation not to let the relationship take its course, since sooner or later it will lead to divorce. The following actions will help bring the relationship out of crisis and save the family:

Just talk. Perhaps if you tell each other about your grievances, and also can hear each other, then the relationship can change.
We need to take a break from each other, perhaps even live separately for a couple of weeks. This does not mean that you need to go abroad on vacation, no. You can go to your parents or relatives, or a distant friend. Or maybe a long-distance business trip will come up. During this time, spouses usually have time to miss each other and understand how difficult it is for them to be apart. But if you understand that it’s better to live alone, then the marriage is doomed.
Find a shared hobby. Common things bring you closer together, so think about what would be interesting to both of you? Mountaineering, sports, gardening, fishing, travel. By the way, wise women often share their husband’s hobbies, even if they don’t like it: watching football, freezing during winter fishing.
Make time for a friend. Go to a restaurant, an exhibition, a ballet, a theater. Just take a walk in the park, in the places of your youth, your first dates. Give a gift for no reason, arrange a romantic dinner. It is very important at this moment that the spouses are alone, without children. Children can be sent to their grandparents or to a school camp.
If you can’t find a way out of the impasse on your own, then you need to contact a family psychologist. A specialist will help you understand the causes of the family crisis and find solutions.

Unfortunately, not all couples manage to avoid the seminal crisis. But even if problems arise in family life, this is not a reason for divorce. A happy family life is routine work that requires energy and effort. Only daily work on oneself and relationships can bring mutual understanding and love to the family.

Walking through labyrinths

Over the years, grievances accumulate in any couple. Someone could not restrain himself and said a lot of unnecessary things, while another left for several days in retaliation, thereby arousing suspicions of infidelity. Some people don’t like their significant other’s friends, but all requests to be at home more often are ignored. There are many reasons leading to the maximum intensity of passions, and they are individual for each couple.

Gradually, discontent accumulates, collecting drop by drop, grain by grain, and a breakthrough of negativity occurs. It is difficult to stop this process, and the consequences are dire - people slowly kill love, and then separate.

The main task is to find the starting point when the first germs of negative emotions appeared in relationships. This is akin to walking through a labyrinth, since you will not only have to rummage through your own memory and consciousness, but also dissect the feelings of your partner. And oh, how difficult it is to do this with men! They do not like to engage in soul-searching, considering this fact a weakness. Therefore, a woman may have to figure it out for two, using cunning ways to get to the true cause of a damaged relationship.

You must always remember the good!

Even if everything has become bad in a relationship, you need to try to forget the grievances and start thinking positively. You are together, which means you fell in love with each other, lit a light in each soul, rejoiced at every minute spent together, so what happened?

Have a heart-to-heart talk, remember all the good things, concentrate not on the negative, but on the positive, start every day with a smile, not with hysterics. It is important to insist on the good and lead your partner to it.

Perhaps you need to diversify your sex life, add zest to it, stop being shy and be a joy for your husband, so that he does not allow the thought of looking away.

If you want to be together even after quarrels and misunderstandings arise, then you will do everything possible to maintain the relationship. If not, then why hold each other back, it means this is not your person, not your other half.

And you, dear men, give gifts to your loved ones, pamper them, let your dear woman feel great with new cosmetics or a dress. These are small things, but sometimes they play a key role in a relationship.

And you women, stop nagging men over trifles, give them freedom of action, let them decide what to do with the financial situation of the family, let them make responsible decisions, let them feel like masters.

What to do if the relationship has run its course?

Firstly, you need to figure out what caused all these problems, at what point the tender relationship burst and moved to the stage of disputes and disagreements. And secondly, you need to understand whether such a relationship is worth saving. Perhaps the feelings that existed earlier simply disappeared, or the man and woman changed so much internally that their entire worldview was turned upside down, and their common interests sank into the water.

Having understood yourself and the reasons that have brought family relationships to a dead end, you can begin to take action. If it suddenly turns out that the relationship is really over, there are no feelings left, then there is no need to try to save them for the sake of the children or for the sake of something else. After all, those around you will still suffer, realizing that they are the reason for the cohabitation of people who can hardly tolerate each other. Children especially feel guilty. They begin to think that they are a burden, and that if they were not there, then mom and dad would be happy.

In cases where spouses live separate lives and are not interested in the affairs of their other half, it means that between them there are no longer those reverent and tender feelings that they experienced before marriage or living together. Most likely, the lack of those emotions and those butterflies in the stomach is the cause of the discord. After all, everyday problems overwhelm the spouses, and therefore, mired in these gray everyday life, they begin to take offense at each other, either because of the lack of attention on the part of the spouse, or because of the lack of affection towards the husband on the part of the wife.

For harmony in a relationship, a balance of mutual understanding is necessary, and if a couple wants to preserve their love, then they need to stop looking at everything only from their own bell tower, and try to hear their other half.

And for this, first of all, it is better to sit down and talk calmly, listen to the interlocutor and express your complaints yourself.
The main thing is not just to listen, but to hear your spouse. Usually all disputes arise due to the partners’ selfishness and unwillingness to understand each other and compromise. Read more: How to understand that you have fallen in love

In addition, you can try to awaken old feelings and passion. For example, recreate the situation of the first acquaintance, the first date and the first close relationship. Romance will definitely help with this. It is especially important to pay attention to each other and listen to the desires of your partner. This turn of events will help restore former tenderness to the relationship, strengthen love and renew passion.

Sometimes, when trying to get a relationship back, you need to change places. For example, you can agree to play each other’s role for one day. It is this method that psychologists consider the most effective in cases where couples are wondering what to do if the relationship has reached a dead end.

If the spouses realized that they made a mistake in their choice and no longer want to live with a person with whom they argue every day, quarrel, break dishes and simply cannot tolerate a friend, then it is better for them to separate forever, putting an end to the relationship. Perhaps this end of family relationships will be the beginning of a new happy life for each of them. After all, they will probably meet true love and live in perfect harmony, spending time with their loved ones, watching the same films, traveling together, and so on.