Soulmate Relationship Problems: A person who finds themselves in a dysfunctional relationship will either try to make their soulmate “perfect” by changing them or try to change themselves to be the “perfect” partner.

Here is the truth:

Everyone is imperfect.
You can’t change someone.
Therefore, you must love an imperfect person that you can tolerate – or even appreciate.
With that said, whoever you choose to love, realize that you also choose to love a host of problems. There are no problem-free candidates.

Problems are part of any relationship, and you’re going to have some kind of problem no matter who you love.

For example:

Lacey is married to Andrew, who tends to be a noisy person at parties. Lassie, the shy one, hates it.

But if Andrew had married Molly, he and Molly would have gotten into a fight before they went to the party. It’s because Andrew is always late and Molly hates waiting. If someone is late, Molly feels taken for granted; Something made her sensitive about it in her childhood. If Molly had confronted Andrew late, Andrew would have thought her complaint was an attempt to control him. This is something he quickly gets annoyed with.

If Andrew had married Leah, they would not have made it to the party, as they would have quarreled over Andrew not helping with the housework. This makes Leah feel abandoned, which makes her stomach feel sick. And Andrew would see Leah’s complaint as an attempt to control him.

Since we are never perfect and our soul mates are never perfect, our imperfections are bound to cause two types of problems: solvable problems and unsolvable problems.

Resolvable conflicts can be as simple as setting up a relationship ritual like a five-minute coffee conversation to feel more emotionally connected. Resolvable conflicts reach resolution and are rarely brought up again.

Soul Clash

Meet John Gottman. He is Muhammad Ali from relations. In more than 40 years of researching happy couples, John has managed to create a set of techniques that have produced an absurd 90% knockout rate in predicting whether or not couples will divorce in 10 years.

His heavy title showed that the happiest couples have constant, unresolved conflicts.

In each of John’s books, he points out this: The idea that couples should work out all their problems is a fairy tale.

In fact, conflict in relationships is normal and has both functional and positive aspects. When we fight and argue, it teaches us how to love better, how to step back from the “problem” to better understand our partners. It teaches us how to work with change in our relationships as they evolve. It reminds us why we choose our soul mate and allows us to renew our relationship over time.

The endless fight

According to John Gottman, couples disagree over unresolvable and never-ending issues 69% of the time.

These perpetual conflicts are a byproduct of the fundamental differences between soulmates. Differences in personalities, needs, and expectations that are central to their basic definitions of self.

Although we want to solve problems, they never will.

Emotionally blocked relationship

If couples cannot begin to talk about the unsolvable problem in a healthy way, the conflict can clog up the relationship emotionally. Unable to drain the tension between the soulmates.

The subject matter of the conflict does not matter in terms of knowing whether the problem is blocking the relationship or not. It could be anything. To an outsider, it might seem like a very small problem, like not vacuuming the house. But inside a relationship, it feels like a beast in the closet; Very scary to open.

When the relationship is dead end, the partners feel rejected by their lover. They feel like they can’t get over it as if their soulmate just doesn’t care or like to talk about the issue.

Ironically, the more partners ignore conflict, the more they will have the same conversation over and over again. It’s like a dog chasing its own tail. Over time, soulmates become more and more entrenched in their positions and friction grows between them. You may reach a point where there is no possibility of compromise.

Conversations turn into a perfect storm — no sense of humor, affection, or shared appreciation. Just wind and rain of frustration and hurt. If the storm lasts long enough, people start slandering each other.

Their thoughts become negative. They turn on each other. They see each other as selfish.

All this blockage eventually leads to a blockage of trust.

Breakdowns in trust tend to push soul mates away from each other. It doesn’t take a couple’s therapist to realize that the potential for infidelity and divorce is directly proportional to how miserable the relationship is.

Talking about this issue is like taking a plunger to the toilet. It releases all the accumulated emotional tension. As bad as the never-ending issue may be, happily ever after couples are able to talk about the issue with plenty of positive emotions—laughter, affection, or even appreciation.

Lack of security = lack of communication

Many times these enduring issues are never talked about because one or both partners never feel safe enough to bring them up. Sometimes it’s because of past experiences in our relationships (even childhood) and other times it’s because partners feel left out and lack connection. This can prevent partners from being vulnerable enough to open up.

When a relationship achieves a certain level of security and one soulmate communicates clearly that they want to know the underlying meaning of the other partner’s situation, the other partner can finally open up and talk about their feelings, dreams, and needs.

The goal is for each soul mate to understand the other’s dreams behind the situation on the issue. For example, one partner may want to save for travel during retirement. Others may want to spend that money on an exotic trip now.

You can keep talking about the same issues, sometimes improving the situation for a little while, but the problem will always reappear.

There is value in realizing that when choosing a long-term partner, you are choosing a set of problems that you will face over the next 10, 20, or even 50 years.

The whole goal shouldn’t be to solve every problem. Working with each other to improve the relationship should be such that you are left with an unsolvable set of problems that you and your partner can learn to tolerate and even cherish.

You don’t have to feel the need to change someone or yourself in order to love them. Nor should you let some disagreement stand in the way of a healthy and happy relationship.