Hello ….how are you today?

Thanks for the DMs and emails about boredom at work. How much has come out and how much more needs to be developed! I’d promised I’d write about feeling bored with our significant other so, here I am trying to shed light on this topic.

If I said, "raise your hand if you never felt bored with your partner", I don’t think anyone would raise their hand. Hang on a minute ... on second thought; couples who are just starting out or who have been together for a short period tend to have butterflies in their bellies all the time. Anyway, let me clarify to all the sensitive souls with a more anxious tendency that you can be in a new relationship and not feel happy all the time. We’ll get back to this point.

You can listen to the podcast with this player, or if you prefer reading you have a written version below. Enjoy it!

Me

I’ll start by telling you what happened to me. When I was very young, I quickly lost the initial enthusiasm I’d felt with my ex-boyfriends. I can’t explain it accurately but I suddenly found them handsome but predictable, without a good sense of humor or without initiative. What did I do? Do you remember when I told you that the brain responds to stress in three ways - fight, flight, or freeze? Ok, I first paralyzed. I buried my head under the ground and continued in the relationship ignoring my fear. "After all, he's a good boy," I said to myself. The problem is that I couldn't stop my head so, after a while, I ran away with terror. The possibility of talking to the other person in that anxious state was intolerable to me. Accepting that perhaps I was the one who was passively waiting for them to amuse me was impossible. If there’s something that I’ve always bragged about is my sense of humor. However, I should admit that I was more relaxed with my friends than with my ex-boyfriends.

There is another point here that’s key. When I began to doubt whether to go on in the relationship with my exes or not, I took that doubt as a sign that something was wrong. It never occurred to me that I was projecting my fears onto them. I had the false idea that when you were with the right person, you’d have no doubts and everything was going to be perfect, and, as I said a gazillion times there is no such thing as perfection, and I'm certainly far from it. Nevertheless, it was easier to question the other person and to avoid looking inside myself.

YOU

I’m telling you this because you might identify with what happened to me. You can listen with curiosity and see what resonates with you and what does not. I can clearly hear the voices that tell me "Georgi, but my situation is different from yours, I can't go on like this anymore, I can't stand him when he’s near me" or "She's always tired, she’s apathetic about everything, she’s boring, this routine is unbearable”. And then these follows "I’m so anxious, I think it is time we separate. I have a lifetime ahead of me, I deserve to be happy" or "I spend all my time looking at other people, I’m distracted, that has to be a sign that this doesn’t work anymore".

Pause

I’m listening to you; I’m holding your hand, but now, let's pause and breathe. Yes, of course there are red flags in relationships, the kind of flags that say, "Get out right now." Any type of physical or verbal violence, emotional blackmail and manipulation, and irreconcilable differences in values ​​are reasons for separating. Period. Now, here we’re focusing on something completely different. We’re talking about two people who love each other but feel afraid because things are no longer the way they were at the beginning when they used to laugh, go out, talk for long hours and have great sex.

What happens when after a while the magic seems to be lost? As I went through this so many times with my exes and my husband, and because I talked about this so much in my own therapy, I feel that it’s my duty to tell you that you have to work on yourself first. You might have been expecting something more original from me, but I'm sorry, you have to take care of your own "demons" first. You need to work on your fears, anxiety, and the origin of the impossible expectations you’ve placed on the other person. Think about the beginning of your relationships, isn’t it true that at first we feel curious, raw, open, willing to explore, know and share with that person we like so much? The sensation ranges from churning guts because one wants to be longed for by the other or with our heads in the clouds because we’ve been put on a pedestal. Time passes and the relationship mutates, which is completely natural. Once a therapist told me “at first you saw lights and shadows and the unknown attracted you. Now you see him more clearly. What are you going to do? Are you going to run away in search of a new relationship that gives you the uncertainty of the unknown? Are you going to stay here with this person that you chose and now know better and who loves you back?"

It’s not you, it’s me

Routines, our everyday lives, must be spiced because if not, we get bored. That is as true for couples as it is for life in general. If you ate the same thing every day for months or years, wouldn’t you get sick of it? If instead of analyzing your significant other so much with a magnifying glass, you looked inward and wondered what is preventing you from taking the initiative, what is pushing you to repeat yourself, what’s going on that you don’t spice up the relationship with a little salt and pepper? And now I'm hearing the "I don't know Georgi, he changed, he was different before he's even seems sad" or "time showed me that the sweet woman I knew has now turned into a witch who criticizes me all the time". Let's pause again, ok your lover is withdrawn, but what happened to him/her? What may they be going through? What did you add to their state of mind? Ok, she was sweet and now she criticizes you. What do you do or don't do that you used to do? Have you asked her what is making her upset and what would help her? These are questions to play down what seems to be written in stone. I once shared with a therapist that when my partner came close to me, I became tense and distant. She asked me "don’t analyze it so much mentally. If you put your hand on your heart what do you feel?" At that time, I was going through a tough time and it was hard for me to open up. As I didn’t understand what was happening to me, I took those body responses as a sign that my relationship was wrong. I understood that my body reacted that way not because there was a problem with my husband but because I was going through a challenge that was mine and mine alone.

cultivate your commitment

Boredom and apathy in the couple appear mainly when we have something to solve in our own lives but we do not take charge of it, and when we expect our lovers to make us happy without doing much ourselves. It’s almost like a stubbornness in which the other person needs to pass a test to make us happy otherwise “goodbye my love”. Wow, how many expectations put on the other. Tony Robbins, my Coaching teacher, taught me something wonderful about this. He said that beautiful relationships are not the result of good luck or great chemistry between two people. Extraordinary, long-lasting, and healthy relationships are the result of hard work, determination, and taking time to appreciate what makes the other person unique and wonderful. He emphasizes:

“Always put your lover first, it's not about you! When you develop the skill of sincere understanding, you become aware of your partner’s inner life. Instead of being an observer and a critic, feel what they feel and you’ll discover the deepest pleasure in your relationship. Don't just be physically present, be fully present, giving your partner your undivided attention. Every time you lose trust, interest or commitment, you will develop behaviors of criticism and rejection towards the other. Stay connected! Cultivate your commitment as you would with a precious flower”.

Tony Robbins

I hope this has helped you, and as I usually tell you, if you know someone who can benefit from this blog, forward it to them. Thank you.

A big hug ❤