In my last blog (posted on 3 January 2024) I wrote about how your relationship might have broken up around the time of Christmas or New Year and how you could deal with this. Even if you were the one instigating the breakup, it’s rarely an easy thing to do. This leads onto the question of how do we know if we’re with the right person. We all like to think that we have a good relationship but it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that it’s not always perfect. So does that mean that you’re not right together or that you should split up?

Sometimes, questioning what you have together is normal, even healthy, but what about if you’re having thoughts about someone else too? These sort of questions can consume you if you let them but, rest assured, that they’re pretty normal even if you feel guilty and confused about them at times.

It’s inevitable that we find other people attractive at times but whether you act on it or not is a different thing. Sometimes it’s because we think, subconsciously at least, that the other person outside our relationship might fulfil something that isn’t being fulfilled by our partner. This could be affection, love, sex, talking more or shared interests.

Also, something might have happened recently in your relationship that means you feel a disconnection with your partner. This might be the birth of a baby, a new job or a commitment that means you have less time to spend with one another.

If you’re serious about the relationship that you’re in, give yourself time and then try to address what’s been happening. Sometimes though, we just fancy someone else even though we know that taking it further would be disastrous!

If the other person is someone that you don’t see all that often, try to avoid running into them when possible, tempting though it might be to be around them. If it’s someone at work, or a neighbour (even a cousin or relative of your partner), it’s worth thinking about the changes you need to make, like not seeing them quite as regularly, or avoiding certain communal areas at work. It’s easier to focus on what you have already if the other person isn’t around so much.

Does this seem rather contrived? Possibly, but as a counsellor and psychotherapist I saw the misery caused by one partner acting on an impulse and ruining their relationship, if not forever, for many months ahead.

However, thinking about someone else endlessly is a signal that something needs to change, either in you or in your relationship so start talking to your partner, even if you’ve tried this before and things stayed the same. It’s an opportunity to make things better.

If you DO want to continue with your partner, ask yourself if you still have fun together, do you spend as much time with one another as you used to and have you been taking one another for granted. Can you be your true self with them? Now is a good time to look at how you might improve things between you.

At the beginning, falling in love was probably easy – it’s a heady feeling and one that enhances our lives hugely. But we often don’t have all the information about that person at the start and as time goes on, our partner’s faults are often all too easy to see. You have to balance what you know about them, positives and negatives, against the life you have and what you want. If that’s moving on together, it might need more work but it doesn’t mean that your relationship is doomed by any means. It’s flawed at times, but that’s because we’re all flawed as human beings and every relationship ebbs and flows. Also, lastly, we have a lot more expectations of a partnership now than people appeared to have years ago (some people might refute this!) so it’s hard to get it right all of the time.

What do you think? Let me know if you have any thoughts on this – maybe you’re going through something like this at the moment. Hopefully this blog has helped you sort out some things in your mind.

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