Your Partner’s Changing, and You Keep Getting It Wrong.

You’re not sure what’s going on, but things are just… different. Tense. Volatile. Distant. You used to be able to joke around, have a laugh and now, it just pisses her off. Sometimes it feels like you’re always in the shit, it’s just the depth that varies and it’s wearing thin. But, you love her. You’re committed, you’ve tried talking, you’ve tried backing off, you’ve tried taking some of the load. Yet, you still get it wrong.

You’re literally out of answers.

Around middle-age, women experience a significant change in their hormones. Estrogen and progesterone levels can seemingly fall off a cliff wreaking havoc on a woman’s wellbeing.

You’re getting smashed at work, the ground at home has shifted, and you have no visibility on your dashboard. You can’t see your own gauges and warning lights, and you keep running into situations you can’t get a handle on. You say something, it doesn’t land like you thought it would. She reacts. You fire back, or walk off.

You didn’t even see it coming. That reaction, it felt like it came from nowhere, but when you really think about it, there were signs. You were motoring down the freeway at 100kph. Hands gripping the wheel. Life flashing by. That tense feeling, being overly critical and snappy at work, pissed off more than usual in traffic, waking up at 3am every night with a dozen things spinning around in your head. Redlining. The move to 101kph and blowing a gasket was almost imperceptible.

If only you’d glanced down at the tacho. Noticed you were revving dangerously high, and changed gear or taken your foot off the pedal. The thing is, you can. Knowing to look down at the dash is easy, feeling the revs climb takes practice. Yep, you have to do some work. There’s no way around it.

The only thing you can control is your response. Knowing when you’re revving high and adjusting so you can choose a better response is how you stop reacting to perceived threats. You can now turn towards your partner as a safe and understanding team mate, instead of away.

You start to see your partner as the person you fell in love with and the person you want to do life with. In coming back to that, the instinct you often have to defend, to plead your case starts to fade. In its place you stop bracing for something to go wrong, your shoulders relax, and you start to breathe normally again. The relationship you once had becomes the relationship you have again.

If this hits a spot, you can go it alone or get some guidance. I’d be happy to have a chat either way. Reach out here.