With Rois Ola

 

ARE you growing apart in your relationship? Or do you feel you are drifting away from your spouse? You are not alone. A lot of couple’s experience this disconnect. And so have I. But it’s how you respond and what you do about it that matters.

Because the worry or fear of becoming strangers can easily add unwanted stress to your relationship. And the worst part is when your spouse denies that you are growing apart or is not even aware something is changing or has changed.

I have and still see couples who had grown apart after years of being together and contemplated how they became so distant from each other. How did we ever get here?

This is something couples must work hard against because the effects can damage what you have built together.

One may ask why do couples grow apart? What could be the reason?

Growing apart in a relationship doesn’t happen overnight. It happens slowly over a period of time, which could range from a few months to many years, eventually it will become obvious to first one person and maybe later the other partner.

It can be the small everyday decisions you make or the fact that you stop doing little things like showing appreciation for your spouse.

From my experience and several conversations even with other couples, the biggest reason for drifting apart from your spouse is because you stop life. And when life gets really busy, family conflicts, work obligations, health issues, loss of balancing friends and your marriage, etc. can also contribute to drifting apart from your spouse.

There are so many signs and areas to drifting apart we can mention here today, but first let us start with the signs, which may be obvious to one or all parties involved.

You may be drifting apart from your spouse, but might not know that is what’s happening. The signs below will show you whether you are growing apart from your spouse or not.

1. You may not really care to sit and talk/discuss with your spouse.

You don’t feel like you can communicate with your spouse about everything because you may feel at some point, that  they don’t care about you. As such, you don’t take out time to schedule a time to just talk with your spouse.

In addition, you feel like your spouse will not understand you, or what you may be trying to say, or be there for you physically or emotionally. They might even turn the conversation into a fight or argument, so why bother. Let’s save ourselves the stress.

You are happier when you do things without your spouse. In fact, your spouse is pretty much the last person you want to share any exciting news with. You dislike them and don’t care about what they do.

2. You feel a disconnect in an area of your relationship.

For instance, after the birth of a new baby, a lot of couple’s experience this disconnect because they find it difficult adjusting to the new change. Plus, all the new responsibilities that come with taking care of a new child, most especially the first baby.

For some couples, this disconnect can happen in the sexual area of their marriage, while others may feel that their emotional connection is lacking. This is normal and can be addressed. Of course communication is key.

3. Sex with your partner is…

A sexless marriage certainly shows that you are growing apart from your partner. The exception is when it is for health reasons. Otherwise, you are just roommates. The longer it lasts, the further you will grow apart. You may not have sex, have sex infrequently, have no real connection during sex, dread sex as a chore/duty or you are not sexually satisfied with each other sex is almost as important as food in any relationship, if the sex is not working it will create a crack in the relationship, if both parties are sensitive enough it can be fixed. All it takes is commitment and the will to make things work.

4. You get irritated or annoyed frequently with your spouse.

You fight and criticize each other so often that you really don’t care to spend time with your spouse. You prefer spending more time apart than together, because every minute and every day is filled with exchange of words and battle. It tears you apart emotionally and physically.

Your partner’s presence or anything they do irritates you, what they say, how they act, speak, move infuriates you or ticks you off. Whenever you receive a text message or phone call from them, you feel like they are disturbing you. in fact you get to a point where you can exist in your thoughts without them.

You feel angry and sometimes want to throw the phone away. On some occasions, you even muster the courage to ignore their phone calls. And when they ask why, you lie about it.

5. You miss doing things with your spouse.

Some couples do not realize that Spending quality time doing an activity with your spouse is one of the things that helps you both get to know each other and to connect on a deeper level. So much so, you decided to stick to each other. The moment you stop doing things together, that connection begins to fade away, which will make you miss those activities.

Read Also: Should spouses tell each other everthing?

 

For example, you used to eat together, but now, you don’t have time to enjoy a meal with each other. Another example is if you used to have a day off to watch a movie together and now you find a way to always get out of it.

Another example is if you used to play a board, card, or dice game together, or some other fun activity, but now you don’t seem to have the time. those activities are gradually not existing again. You don’t have any memories to share together.

6. You feel something is missing in your marriage.

Every relationship has an exciting stage and when you start drifting apart the excitement you once felt starts dwindling, you need to rediscover it.

Make effort to rekindle the passion you had for each other when you first met.

7. You feel your relationship is coming to an end.

Your spouse is not giving you any attention or you are not giving your spouse any attention

You both no longer have any common interest. And there isn’t much you can do about it.

Your hope is gone and seeing eye to eye is now a thing of the past. You can’t even have normal conversations without a fight.

Is it normal to grow apart in a relationship?

The answer is yes. It’s sad and a phase a lot of people go through, but it is a phase that can be overcome, so don’t lose hope. As humans, we are naturally going to get pulled in different directions as we move through life. We are always growing and changing, change is constant in life. Our interests, priorities, strengths, weakness, what we like, what we don’t like, what we can tolerate and opinions also change over time.

Your partner will not remain the same person forever, you will evolve through life and so will they.

You simply have to be intentional and committed about choosing, learning, and discovering new things about your spouse. So you can grow together, and not apart. keep trying to understand those new things you like and the ones you may dislike or even hate. with good communication the ones that can change will change, the ones that can’t don’t sweat about it.

In fact, growing apart in a relationship is probably one of the silent things that could destroy your relationship.

Be intentional about doing everything you can to grow together with your spouse. Even if it is something small like giving each other a passionate hug or kiss every day.

What to do if you have grown apart from your spouse

In other words, is it too late to repair the damage done?

No it is not, however there is work to be done.It may not be so easy. There are a few suggestions on what you can do to help the situation. The good thing is, if you and your spouse are on board to making changes in your marriage and are intentional about connecting with each other every day, you can change the situation before you grow too far apart.

The simple things you can do

Children are God’s gift no doubt, they also add more stress and consume more of our time. Children need so much of your time can make you and your spouse feel like housemates, instead of soulmates.

That is why we intentionally purpose to spend at least thirty minutes every single day together just talking about life.

Try to talk about what you both are interested in, new interests, what we are learning, goals, plans, our family, whatever we feel like talking about that night after our girls are asleep.

And now, it’s one of the things to do every day so we don’t drift apart.

Also, create interesting weekly and monthly activities to do together as a couple like watching movies, creating family budget etc.

The truth is if both of you are not growing together in your relationship, you can’t be on the same page about your life together and this means you will also not have the same goals, aspirations or interests. You need to create these together. Find time because time waits for no one, communicate, express yourself in Love as much as possible. I wish you all the best!

By Rois Ola

For some people they are of the opinion that couples who cohabit before marriage tend to have less-satisfying marriages and are more likely to divorce than couples who live apart before marriage. This I believe is a matter of opinion or religious belief.

I am not here to tell you what is right or wrong, but share my view and experience on what I believe the effects of cohabitation can be for relationships.

While I was in university, there was a couple who lived together for a few years. Unfortunately, the boyfriend was not even a student of the school. They professed to love each other. Meanwhile, the girl got constant beating from her boyfriend.

At a point when she could not bear it, her brothers stepped in and tore the relationship apart. Will we say cohabitation in this case caused the break-up, or encouraged the beating and maltreatment she was receiving?

Cohabitation has been a hot topic of conversation for many years and may remain so till man exists no more. In the 60s and 70s, a  few couples lived together before marriage. Today, research shows that  more than 60 per cent of couples cohabit before marrying.

Numerous reputable studies, however, find that couples who cohabit prior to marriage significantly increase their risk for divorce. In case you have no idea, cohabitation is the state of living together and having a sexual relationship without being married.

On the other hand, it is also suggested that times have changed from when cohabitation before marriage signalled higher chances for divorce later. More and more, it appears that cohabitation plays a smaller role in predicting divorce than it used to.

Some people believe that cohabitation helps to stop more people from getting married blindly, testing the car engine before you zoom off. Some would argue against this point of view, especially when religion is involved.

So does cohabitation harm your chances of marriage? Does it increase the risk of divorce?

It is advisable for people to be cautious before they run out and encourage friends to cohabiting, because the truth is that even if you feel cohabitation is ok, it does not mean the negative effective will disappear. It will still exist and can affect people in a relationship.

For example, smoking cigarettes was not only socially acceptable in the past. In fact, it was the cool thing to do for years. Then research revealed that smoking, and even second-hand smoke, causes lung cancer. While not everybody who smokes gets lung cancer, the risk was great enough to make people think twice.

If a lifelong, healthy marriage is your goal, consider the evidence. There is more than enough of it to support that living together before marriage may put your relationship at risk.

WHEN researchers ask cohabiters these questions, partners often have different, unspoken — even unconscious — agendas.

Read Also: How to cope with being lonely in your relationship

 

Women are more likely to view cohabitation as a step toward marriage, while men are more likely to see it as a way to test a relationship or postpone commitment, and this gender asymmetry is associated with negative interactions and lower levels of commitment even after the relationship progresses to marriage.

One thing men and women do agree on, however, is that their standards for a live-in partner are lower than they are for a spouse.

Sliding into cohabitation wouldn’t be a problem if sliding out were as easy. But it isn’t. Too often, adults enter into what they imagine will be low-cost, low-risk living situations only to find themselves unable to get out months, even years, later.

It’s like signing up for a credit card with 0 per cent interest. At the end of 12 months when the interest goes up to 23 per cent you feel stuck because your balance is too high to pay off. In fact, cohabitation can be exactly like that. In behavioural economics, it’s called consumer lock-in.

Lock-in is the decreased likelihood to search for, or change to, another option once an investment in something has been made.

The greater the set-up costs, the less likely we are to move to another, even better, situation, especially when faced with switching costs, or the time, money and effort it requires to make a change.

Cohabitation is loaded with set-up and switching costs. Living together can be fun and economical, and the set-up costs are subtly woven in. After years of living among roommates’ junky old stuff, couples happily split the rent on a nice one-bedroom apartment.

They share so many costs and enjoy shopping for new furniture together. Later, these set-ups and switching costs have an impact on how likely they are to leave.

Cohabitation is here to stay, and there are things young adults can do to protect their relationships from the cohabitation effect. It’s important to discuss each person’s motivation and commitment level beforehand and, even better, to view cohabitation as an intentional step toward, rather than a convenient test for, marriage or partnership.

It also makes sense to anticipate and regularly evaluate constraints that may keep you from leaving.

I am not for or against living together, but I am for adults knowing that, far from safeguarding against divorce and unhappiness, moving in with someone can increase your chances of making a mistake — or of spending too much time on a mistake.

I am strongly of the opinion that The best time to work on someone’s marriage is long before he or she has one or is actually married and this means before cohabitation. I wish you all the best.

 Rois Ola

 

AT some point in time, everyone would have experienced what it feels like to be lonely. No matter how strong you are, loneliness can come any time. Being lonely is not just an emotion reserved for those who are single or alone, it is experienced by single, married, divorced, man, woman, child, young, old in fact everyone.  But there are ways to work through it and not just to work through it but survive it.

Do you know that even people on long term relationships experience loneliness? Oh yes, I have been with my husband for over two decades and YES, I get lonely sometimes. It’s very common that people find themselves in long-term relationships feeling lonely.

There are many reasons why people in a relationship can be lonely because something isn’t working in the relationship itself or because they look to their partner to fill a void that they’ve been carrying within themselves even before they met the person or started the relationship. The fact is no one can completely make you happy but you yourself.

Whatever the reason is , here are a few pointers as to why you may feel this way, explain why you might be feeling this way and provide ways to address the root of the loneliness you may be experiencing.

What makes people feel lonely in their relationship?

This is a phase I have been through and from experience one reason for feeling lonely could be that your relationship is not working as well as it once did. When people   are dissatisfied with their family lives, private lives with partners they feel lonely all or most of the time. It also appears as if more and more people are unable to close the void with material things anymore.

This sense of loneliness can often take place when a couple has lost their emotional connection, to each other, not very healthy, but it happens and you can overcome it, it’s a matter of tracing why you are lonely and getting to know the cause on time.

Let me add here that even in the very best of relationships, there are going to be those times when one or both partners may have drifted apart and feel somewhat distant and estranged from one another, you know why? Because people change and when they don’t grow together unrest sets in.

When a partner is also to be vulnerable or does not have the capacity to be, this can also contribute to feelings of loneliness within romantic relationships, when you want to be macho or show strength and you use that as a reason not to communicate or express your feeling, share things hurting, this can be very risky. Do you know it’s possible to claim to be close to someone yet they know nothing about you? Think about it.

There is also the problem of the way social media has been allowed to put so much hype and pressure on relationships.

Comparing your relationship to ones you see on social media is pure suicide! And this alone is a major factor these days.

When you see couples celebrate each other’s birthday, valentine, or something, you see the way they spend, flash wealth and use loving poses. You on the other hand may feel it’s all real, meanwhile its FAKE. So why allow yourself feel this way?  And then to add insult to injury, you or partner spend the whole day on social media, how will it work? WHO will do the work? Why won’t you feel lonely?

Of course I have also discovered that there are some people who have what is called a “heritable trait” and these sets of people may be genetically predisposed to feel loneliness throughout their lives. No can take away your loneliness only you can. If you keep relying on some feeling or someone to come and wipe away the loneliness, that will be hard. You need to find the way to acquire inner peace.

How do you know if the loneliness stems from you or your relationship?

It may be difficult to determine the root of your lonesomeness especially if your emotional state of mind is clouded with so much.

Read Also: Key truths to help any relationship survive

 

But the first step should be to talk to your partner about how you feel, while making this conversation, your partner is able to point to concrete and clear examples of ways they regularly or have been trying to make you feel emotionally fulfilled and yet you still can’t shake feeling lonely, probably due to insecurity or self-confidence issues then it may be safe to say it’s probably more something within, rather than coming from the other person. The problem may just be YOU.

If that is the case, take a closer look at your past relationships to determine if the feelings you are experiencing are a pattern rather than isolated to this particular relationship, if you talk to your partner and they’re also experiencing feelings of loneliness, it’s likely that the relationship is the culprit and the issue needs to be fixed or else the lonely feeling will never fade. strange to say that loneliness is contagious.

Take a look at the feelings within your relationship, is it more  when you are together? Do you feel this when in a new relationship or after a long while? Check the connection between the both of you and be sure you are not drifting apart

How do you overcome feeling lonely in a relationship?

If after the talk or discussion and you discover the loneliness stems from your relationship and you’re hoping to get back on track, it’s time to have another talk with your partner immediately. I would advise that the very first thing to do is to become self-aware of what you are feeling and then to approach your partner and begin what will probably be a series of conversations, it may be an emotionally stressful one, but you need to say what needs to be said.

You may wonder how you can have this discussion yet again without making your partner feel judged or defensive? It’s important to come from a place of vulnerability when you’re explaining how you feel and to use a non-accusatory tone and language, let’s say for instance you have to really start this conversation, you can start with, Femi I want to trust you with what’s happening with me right now — I’ve been feeling somewhat neglected recently, and I don’t want you to hear it so much as blame, as just more my experience.  And take the conversation from there.

Then, listen to your partner’s point of view. If they are on the same page about wanting to mend the relationship, you can have a series of conversations geared towards figuring out what may be damaged in your relationship and how to fix it.

And if you need a little extra help with communication or coming up with solutions, maybe some counselling from trusted friend or experienced counsellor will help. You greatly need wisdom and skills that can diffuse the situation rather than worsen it. Be WISE.

If, however, your partner really is doing everything to make you feel fulfilled and the loneliness is something that exists within yourself, you might be someone who tends to look for external ways to quell your loneliness, THEN it means you have to be disciplined enough to first of all admit, accept and get help for it.

While it may seem counterintuitive, the solution for loneliness is not necessarily to surround yourself with people. The key to handling it is to confront it, as said earlier admit, accept and handle. When you confront it then that is the first step to getting the root cause and addressing it, for a better, happier and more fulfilled life. I Wish you all the best.

With Rois Ola

 

It’s not new for some of us that have family members who cannot resist asking you questions about your love life. It is yet another holiday season of celebration( even if you don’t feel like it)and you have to rekindle your relationship with various members of your family and friends, extended family members are not left out of this.

It is that time to make up excuses for intentionally ignoring the several WhatsApp messages, phone calls and sms you didn’t respond to or missed some time back in the year.

Not to even mention the endless messages harassing your peace about your love life and sometimes sex life.

To help you maintain your composure this Christmas without going crazy, here are a few things I would personally like to advise you to try in order to deal with the awkward feeling of inadequacy of self-confidence that may befall you while being bombarded.

Joke, when will you find a partner and settle down?

It is your responsibility to explain to your family and maybe friends that it is ‘your liking’ that you be single. They need to understand that settling down isn’t only about when you do it but also who you do it with.

You can reassure them that you appreciate their love and that they should not rush you into a relationship before you are ready.

Aderemi, can we set you up on a date?

Since they feel you should not be alone, your family members will try to hook you up, with or without your permission If you are ok with it, you can go on the dates but if you don’t want to be set up on dates without your permission, then you may need to set up boundaries.

You need to let them know that piling pressure on you to settle down isn’t making it any easier, but only complicating it for you and causing more confusion.

Read Also: How to survive a broken relationship

 

Segun, how about that your  ex-girlfriend, Funke?

There are times you may bring your partner to meet your family for the first time, it is embarrassing when they, your family, keep bringing up your ex every now and then into the discussion, most especially if they were fond of your ex.

It would be prudent if you gave your family, beforehand, the limits within which to keep their small talk, let them know you are bringing someone and explain to them boundaries of such discussion so that you don’t embarrass yourself or partner.

Even if they say they are cool, listening to your family talk about your ex will sure make your partner uneasy, especially when they are doing it second after second, that may end the relationship as well. So be prepared!

Gbemi, why did you and Dotun even break up sef?

There are times we don’t like talking about breakups that we have invested a lot on especially when we are still in the healing process.

Breakups generally make people sad and your relative or family friend constantly making reference to your breakup won’t be nice at all. Just tell them that asking or talking about your ex causes you more pain and you need support to heal and not to worsen the pain.

Facing a firing squad is not funny and every one’s space should be respected. facing questions like when will you get married? This new relationship we hope it will last? but Femi is better than this new guy, what did you even see in him? How come you let Omolara go, wasn’t she good enough for you? The thing is self-assured answers will go a long way in getting nosy family members off your back.

So Bisi, anyone special in your life, or don’t you know you are not young again?”

This statement repeated year after year by mothers, grandmothers, and over sabi aunties, sometimes even uncles the world over.

Of course, there are definitely relatives out there desperate to see you quickly married, they take your lack of a spouse and children personally, and who can’t understand why you haven’t found “The One” yet, most especially when they feel you are getting old.

Just try to keep the annoyance in check, knowing that they may be truly concerned, an ideal answer will be God’s time is the best right? 

What you should say: The tactic here involves a quick, honest, and upbeat response, followed by a change of subject.

With a breezy tone of voice, offer a simple statement like “I have a great group of great friends, and I feel really blessed to have them, and of course you, supporting me all the time.” Then ask mum or grandma about her next church women’s meeting. Clean, clear, and drama-free change of topic.

“Dupe, don’t you think it’s time to rethink your priorities?”

In this case family members want to know why finding a partner hasn’t taken precedence over every other activity in your life.

Although they sometimes mean well, but when they ask you these questions, it makes you want to run and hide What you should say:  The fact is you don’t owe anyone an explanation for Whatever happens in your life.

Although you may feel tempted to dive into a long discussion or explanation, about your most recent dating disasters and the fulfilling nature of your career, it’s not necessary. Just respond with “I am very happy with my priorities at the moment”

A pleasant but firm tone, confident body language and solid eye contact, with a warm facial expression read as friendly rather than hostile, so it doesn’t make you look defensive, it helps you assert yourself with maturity and respect. I wish you all the best.