Believe it or not, there is a science to how relationships break up. If you have ever had a relationship gone sour either with a lover, friend or colleague at work; you might want to give attention to these steps and see if you can still climb your way back to a having a healthy relationship with that person.
The four R’s of relationship breakdown
- Resistance: It usually starts here. This is when you start noticing things about
image source pms1 beyondblackandwhite your lover, friend or colleague that you don’t like. This happens to everybody but the problem, in this case, is that you are not talking about it. Instead, you start criticizing your lover, friend or colleague in your mind.
For example, let’s say your colleague shouts at you when you have a misunderstanding or your lover ignores you whenever you are in a public space. In both instances, you hate what is going on but you are either trying to make excuses for him/her in your mind or just angry and quiet.
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image source ppms Resentment: This is the stage when your quiet displeasure and anger has led you to a scenario where you start to ignore the person. Here, you experience internal anger, frustration, annoyance, and hate. Usually, the person would have been doing the same things over and over again. You also start to become emotionally separated from the person.
For example, when your colleague shouts at you or your lover ignores you in a public space, you will start cursing him/her in your mind. You might even start showing signs of displeasure with your facial expression if the person is not looking.
- Rejection: This is when you express your (all the while hidden) resentment. You
Image coutesy 123RF stop wanting to be with or around the person. You start avoiding the person. You would antagonize and go against whatever point of view the person takes. Here you now do things mechanically just to get the person off your back and have some relief. You might break up at this point.
Repression: This is the stage when technically you have ‘broken up the relationship’ but because of cultural, religious, financial or other reasons you cannot practically break up the relationship. Here you have stopped bothering about the person.
You don’t care anymore. You have repressed all the negative impression just to
maintain peace usually because of what people will say or family/societal pressures. You think it’s not worth fighting for anymore. Here is a stage of emotional numbness. From the outside, people think your relationship is fine because it appears so.
The sad truth in every society today is that many people have had to resort to being chain smokers, alcoholics,
drug addicts, work addicts and some turn to overeating (becoming obese) in a bid to deal with repressed feelings from bad relationships at home or at work.
These, in turn, lead to chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, mental health disease and untimely death.
Addressing these negative feelings timely will lead to happier homes and a more productive workplace so LET’S DO IT!
