I’ve been hearing the scenario of a person’s partner feeling like a roommate. Sometimes they barely even feel like that much! This is actually just another take on the theme of not feeling Connected to our partner… These partners feel challenged to experience their partner as their Romantic Significant Other (RSO).
Feeling Like Your Partner is a Roommate
The partners complain that they:
don’t have much time to spend with each other
don’t have any interests in common
like or enjoy different things
are no longer attracted to their partner
are no longer in love with their partner
don’t enjoy intimacy
don’t feel close
don’t know who their partner is anymore, or don’t understand their partner
believe their partner has no interest in them
believe their partner doesn’t understand or get them
believe their partner doesn’t care about them
can’t get along
can’t enjoy each other’s company or have fun together
If you are a person whose partner feels like a roommate, do any of these resonate for you? You don’t necessarily need to experience your partner as your roommate or be disconnected to be acquainted with some of these…
For you see, unfortunately, these are part of being in relationship at one point or another… Relationships are not perfect or bullet proof. It is not easy to synchronize, feel connected and sustain connection post the infatuation phase of a relationship… Once we are committed to each other and our joint life becomes more complex, it is easy for the relationship to become less of a priority and to fall to the wayside.
Most assume that love and a commitment are good enough to create a great relationship. They are disappointed later when they realize that not investing in the relationship, giving it TLC or nurturing, has a major impact on its quality. The result? First, the list above. Second, breakup or divorce.
And, to make matters worse, this is not the only factor playing a role in the status quo. What is even more significant, is that most partners bring unresolved past issues, poor habits, lack of relationship building know-how, and inadequate personal development to their relationship mindset and interactions. This plays a huge role on how partners got here, and in their ability to turn things around.
But, there is no need to panic or throw in the towel. It is never too late in my book! No matter how much of the list above feels true for you, you can turn this around. All of the above can be changed… I’m often asked, What happens if we are not in love anymore? Or, he/she says they are not in love with me anymore, shouldn’t I leave? Or, I’m not in love with him/her anymore doesn’t that mean it’s over?
It could mean those things, if that is what you want it to mean… I’ve seen couples come back from the unimaginable though. We are pretty powerful, influenceable, likeable, attractive and lovable when we own and operate from our Awesomeness (core-self, inner-being, authentic-self, higher-self)… When we are connected to our Self, we can more easily connect and stay Connected with our partner… This is the key… There is no need to give up…
If we are not Connected, in touch with our Self, how can we possibly use our self to connect with another? And, if we are not using our Self to connect with another, we are using our defenses and our noise in our interactions and in our attempts to connect. Well, then not for nothing those go south or don’t exist…
Our focus in our quest to create a successful relationship and feel the connection with our partner, needs to be connecting with our Self first. And, to own and flaunt our Awesomeness. Not cockiness, just our pure Light.
So? What’s your takeaway? Get grounded, Connect to your Self. Then, look at your “roommate” and feel the Love…
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Loving!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Explore different techniques, exercices, and activities to continue to increase your Connection to your Self.
Make this a daily practice, and a lifelong habit…
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
Did you know we are in the month of Hope? I just learned that and it tickled my heart. Who comes up with these themes? Whoever they are, I love them for it! This is just a phenomenal way of focusing our attention, intention, consciousness, and focusing on what we desire…
When we there Hope there is absence of uncertainty, confusion, chaos and noise. This is a great thing for if we have a confused mind and (split) energy, we can’t be a very good designer and creator of our amazing life and relationship…
I’d like to encourage you to look at having clarity as knowing what you desire, knowing how you want things to be, and knowing how you’d like to feel. Usually we think of clarity as knowing what we don’t want. And, as soon as we focus on what we don’t want, it becomes even more prevalent… What we resist persists… Yuck!
Did you ever hear a woman who is not married or pregnant yet but wants to be, complain about how everybody around her is getting married or how many pregnant women are walking the streets?! This is uncanny. I’ve been privy to many of these as you can imagine. Focusing on what we don’t have just makes it more so…
Did you ever notice how the lucky people in your life just keep having more and more luck? How things always seem to be working out for them? How they seem to have it so easy? How good fortune follows them? This is because they live in expectation of things working out for them…
They do not have an underlying script of being a victim, being taken advantage of, being alone, having to suffer, having to fight for things, and such. They have a very different mindset… They can be extremely annoying to their counterpart in their “positive outlook”…
These are the people who don’t get ruffled by problems. These are the people who find the solutions. These are the people who others look up to for leadership. These are the movers and the shakers. These are the people who create results.
These people don’t just dream, they make dreams come true… They have Clarity about who they are, what they want, and how to Be to get it… They don’t muscle the dream to the ground. They Dream. They dream with Clarity. They own it.
In the owning of it there is Knowing, and with the knowing and certainty come outcomes, results, realizations, manifestations, creations and with such the Amazingness we seek.
So, let’s make Hope and Clarity our focus of our attention this week. Where do you need more clarity in your life? Where have you been ambivalent? Where have you have one foot in and one foot out? Where have you shown interest but not commitment?
Where have you dabbled without going for it? Where have you been wishy-washy? Where have you made empty promises? Where have you dared to dream but riddled it with doubt? Where have you tricked yourself in thinking you are going for something but you are really not because of your approach? How do you hold yourself back?
If you found multiple areas, don’t freak yourself out. Stay chill. Pick one that feels the most important right now. Tap into Hope and Clarity around this topic by being very, very gentle in how you think about it. Don’t go from zero to a hundred. Don’t get mired down in the details.
Just feel your way into your Dream. What does it look like? How does it feel? Feel the awesomeness as best you can. Keep at it cleaning your script and resetting your energy. Keep coming back to it for more, stopping as soon as the struggle creeps in. Don’t entertain the uncertainty or negativity…
Keep Clarifying and feel the Knowing… Design your desires, and Know you CAN create the life and relationship you desire…
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Clarifying!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
For the next few days write about a word from the below in your journal or piece of paper… Start by writing out the word a few times and let inspiration flow…
Hope
Clarity
Joy
Peace
Fun
Appreciation
Alignment
Synchronicity
Abundance
Love
Notice what comes up, how you feel… Repeat as desired, with the same word, other words from this list, or any word that beckons you… Enjoy!
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
We had a very early Spring Break. Our daughter’s school was off the two middle weeks of March. It‘s strange to have Spring Break so early specially when it brings snow storms with it. It loses the feel of “Spring Break”. Regardless, the break was very nice with its own rejuvenating flavor if not necessarily involving sunny activities. Any time that involves rejuvenating, recharging, renewing is a plus in my book!
And, we certainly are in the season of renewal. Spring and this time of year is just so glorious as we witness the end of hibernation and the coming back to life in a lot of areas in our lives. The most obvious one is nature as it prepares to start blooming anew. I already see some hints of life in our garden and can’t wait for my bulbs to sprout, and hydrangeas and peonies to come to life.
Being in expectation of this beauty is rewarding in and of itself. Love the feeling of waiting for the burst of life to manifest. Love the feeling of knowing something beautiful will shortly grace us with its appearance. Love the feeling of knowing I will soon enough have my own freshly cut flowers adorn our indoor spaces. Ahh, so much bliss… And, with this sentiment comes a sense of recharging… It’s that simple…
Rejuvenating, recharging and renewing don’t necessarily need to take the flavor of being off for two months in seclusion off the grid… Though that would be nice too! Rejuvenation, recharging, and renewing can take on any type, shape or form. Rejuvenation, recharging and renewing can be as simple as pausing action, becoming present, taking a deep breath and feeling our aliveness… Yes, it is that simple…
Our Breath has life giving properties… In being aware of our breath we become aware of our Aliveness. This intention is rejuvenating for as we focus on our breath we pause the chatter, clutter, and chaos of our mind. As we pause the noise, we reduce the stress the noise usually produces…
When we reduce the stress, our body/brain rewires itself and changes its chemistry and composition… We reduce cortisol and adrenaline that when rampant create havoc in our organs, tissues, and molecular structures. This is what depletes us, dis-eases us, and ages us…
So, when we take a moment to pause, become aware, clean and Align our energy we infuse ourselves with life giving force… Now this is Renewal…
How can you build in more awareness into your lifestyle? How can you pause more and enjoy the peonies? What reminders do you need to set for yourself to bring yourself into awareness more frequently? What routine changes do you need to make to support and sustain more intentionality? What processes can you add to your repertoire to enrich your life/relationship?
Embrace increasing awareness, welcome the rejuvenation, enjoy the Aliveness!
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Renewing!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Integrate three (3) simple Renewal activities to your daily routine… Here are some ideas to inspire you:
Appreciation Journaling™, Appreciation Shares™
Guided meditating, visualizing
Attention to breathing at given frequencies
Observing nature, Being in nature
Playing with nature, gardening
Playing with pets, playing with children
Being playful with your partner
Being flirtatious with your partner
Dancing, walking, cycling, swimming, and such
Doing Yoga
Painting, drawing, sculpting, playing instruments, and such
Coloring
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
I am off this week for spring break, and in celebration of my birthday. Yep, took the week off to celebrate me. Ha! I learned a long time ago that I don’t prefer to work on my birthday and to honor that feeling. This goes for not working on my husband and daughter’s birthdays (seeing clients on those evenings).
So, I’ve had a week of pampering and working on personal projects and interests. So fun! This is one aspect of what I call “minding my business”, and love it.
Part of “minding our business” is owning our life, our personal experience. We Create this moment by moment… We have a choice in how we feel, what we eat, how we look, how healthy we are, how our house looks, how we relate to others, what we do, how we use our time, what we produce, how we use our finances, and everything else… It is our life and we are the creators of it, ALL of it…
We create our life with every single decision throughout the day:
What time we get up, do we meditate, do we exercise, do we eat nutritious foods, do we safe guard our work/productive time, do we have beauty in our surroundings, do we spend time in nature, do we connect with the influencers in our life, do we connect with our loved ones, do we stay connected with our Higher Self and our Spirituality, do we have healthy and efficient daily routines, do we have a gratitude practice?
It is very easy to blame our circumstances and the people in our life for not having the life we desire… It is very easy to react to everything during our day, as opposed to intentionally going about it… It is very easy to waste our time, our day, our life… We have to make every moment count!
And, making every moment count doesn’t mean a free for all and living it up, or being stuck in the grind and slaving ourselves. Making every moment count means we choose how we use it. We can choose to work, to volunteer, to play, to lie around, or anything we want… The creation is in the choosing… If you don’t see the choice, therein lies the first shift needed to create the life you want…
Everything is a choice. We make decisions based on our upbringing, script, programming, values, level of self-worth and self-esteem, skills, health, finances, personality, and such. But note, we actually have choices and options in these as well! ALL this is changeable… Even your upbringing… You can choose how you view it and how you let it impact you… Nothing is set in stone. You create YOU. You create your Life. You are the master of your business.
When we don’t mind our business, our business suffers… Our health, relationship, finances, home, work, all of it suffers. It is our Job to mind our Business. It is imperative that we take charge, own and mind our every moment. It is imperative that we create a life by design, that we choose what makes us happy, and that we focus on that pursuit. Living our life by default is not living our Life. It is wasting our life.
Another aspect of minding our business is not getting involved in other people’s business… This is harder for some to do than owning their own business! People love to have an opinion and worry/wonder about how others are doing, what they are doing, and how they are doing it.
They love to judge and measure. They are nosey. If they spend that energy minding their own business their life would be so much better… Any frustration we experience is because we are minding someone else’s business… We think on how they should be operating and contributing differently… This is none of our business!
If our needs are not met by how someone else is being, we have a choice in how we address that. Telling others how to be is not part of it. This is where partners get into trouble in their relationship. There are a lot of misconceptions around this. Even if you are married you can’t tell someone else how to Be!
I’m sorry if I’m ruffling your feathers. If you are troubled by this concept, you might need to polish up your boundaries… There are ways for both partners to be satisfied without either telling the other how to Be… You can co-create a life that works for you both and that honors each of you. The key is in minding your business…
What part of your life can use more owning, designing, tweaking? Where in your life do you need to back off? Enjoy minding your business!
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Minding!
Copyright (c) 2020 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
I frequently witness partners’ devastation when feeling stuck in their relationship. They share about their pain and hopelessness. They believe things are as good as they are going to get, and think there is nothing that can be done to change them.
The pain is great because if this is as good as it’s going to get, then they think they shouldn’t be in it. And, with that come feelings of failure, betrayal, resentment, anger, loss, sadness and such. In this dooms day perspective they perpetuate their pain…
What’s interesting is that this happens when they are triggered. If asked at other times how things are going, it’s usually far from dooms day. But, when we are triggered it is very easy to miss the forest for the tree. Partners put on blinders and only see the episode that hurt them or threw them off track, and all the previous similar ones.
They are great historians and skilled at threading this negative pattern… They focus on this one dimension of their relationship and refuse to see the rest that’s good, or even amazing.
When partners focus on what is not working as a theme and really harp on what goes wrong, they are setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are looking for things that don’t work. They are looking for their partner’s mistakes. They are looking for things that bother them. And, find they will because nobody is perfect.
They are hyper-vigilant and on alert against their partner… Donning this lens is nothing but self-and-other-defeating, relationship sabotaging, limiting and down right abusive of our Self and our Partner.
The ruminating on the events and interactions that hurt us just serve to retraumatize ourselves. It keeps us stuck in a negative thinking loop, that generates hurtful feelings and that keeps us from acting from our Authentic and Highest Self… This promotes nasty behavior towards our partner and neglectful behavior towards our Self. It is very difficult to set effective loving boundaries and maintain our self-care practice when we are in this place.
We are reactive, and sometimes don’t even realize it… If we continue to nurture our grouch, our lens gets dirtier and dirtier to the point where we lose our sight period. We lose our perspective completely. Then of course it’s hard to imagine there is coming back from the current experience or that something different is possible…
The first item of business here is to suspend all judgment, slow down the recursive thinking, and put ourselves on a time-out. Imagine you can hit a pause button where the movie can stop playing, do that… Do whatever it takes to stop ruminating, analyzing, fact-finding and the like…
This squirrely activity is just like you drinking the poising and expecting your target to die. Stop poisoning yourself! Do any activity that releases positive chemistry in your brain and helps you change your state. You are responsible for how you feel…
From this place you are more resourced and are now able to address your trigger. But don’t go at it until you are able to see your partner’s experience. If you can’t or as soon as you start thinking about it you get retriggered, then you are not ready to address this with your partner. Keep at this until you are ready. Otherwise, you’ll keep hacking at your bond and creating more damage that becomes harder and harder to repair.
Do whatever it takes to see things from your partner’s viewpoint and experience. Understand what is happening for them and the pain they are also in. Access your compassion for their side. Then you’d be ready to effectively and productively address the initial trigger.
Your job is to keep yourself in a resourced state as much as possible, or more and more, for your relationship to work. If you are intent on being right, being resentful for how you’ve been wronged, and upset then there is little chance to make changes in your relationship. Might as well quit now and save yourself a lot of aggravation. But, please know that this does not have to be your outcome! You CAN push through this veil and enjoy the Light on the other side…
> Boundary setting and getting needs met:
The boundary in this instance is of containing yourself. If we refuse to take the hook our partner is casting and if we refuse to take ourselves on a ride, we minimize the damage we usually do. When a trigger happens, take a moment to regroup, change your state, gather what’s happening for you and for your partner, put it all in perspective and then you are ready to go back.
From a less escalated, regrouped, and resourced place you can more easily repair, get back on the same page, and move on. A key element here is that when you take your leave from the situation, that you still remain connected… Otherwise, the triggering continues…
How do you usually keep retraumatizing your Self? Make a commitment now to stop that! Give your Self a lot of love and compassion.
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome and radiant relationship, and authentic and meaningful life…
Happy Regrouping!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Escalation-proof your relationship to prevent stuckness and hopelessness:
Make an agreement with your partner on how to implement time-outs to prevent escalations, and discuss how to reentry.
Identify items that easily put you in a positive state and integrate them into your routine.
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health profession in varying capacities for the past 20+ years. She is the Founder and Director of metrorelationship.com a psychotherapy and coaching practice specializing in working with busy professional and entrepreneurial couples who are struggling getting on the same page and feeling connected. The work helps couples create a radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life by becoming a strong partnership and increasing their connection, intimacy, and fun. Emma is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Relationship Strategy™.
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