EXPERT ADVISE ON THE
A "love cycle" has been proposed by a relationship expert as the reason why so many relationships end in divorce.
I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but most relationships fail. Heartbreak can result from an encounter that starts feeling wonderful, tender, and joyful and makes you feel things you've never felt before.
It's a powerful argument to say that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but it can be difficult to understand why so many relationships fail.
Relationship coach Stephan Labossiere stated he believes he knows the solution, even though each may feel like it falls apart for different reasons.
First love experience
According to Labossiere, everything was a result of people's "first love experience" and how it affected their subsequent relationships. He described women in their first relationship as "at their most loving, they're just out there, they go all the way in," and explained how this starts the "unhealthy love cycle."
"However, that usually occurs when men are younger, not yet mature enough to manage those kinds of emotions, that degree of commitment, and so on."
So step one on the 'love cycle' is experiencing first love when you have no prior taste of it or context for it, and sadly at an age where you're unlikely to have the wisdom to navigate that properly.
Getting hurt
The hurt that follows the breakup of the first love represents the next phase of this cycle. He stated: "After she is hurt, she has a moment where she tells herself, 'I will never let this happen to me again.'"
"So now, the woman begins to intentionally or unintentionally select men who are, to put it mildly, beneath her—that is, men who essentially do not elevate her."
"He's decent enough to be with, but I don't feel as vulnerable with him as I did with my first love."
According to Labossiere, this then sets up the subsequent phase and the issues that arise.
I can fix him...
According to the relationship expert, this "dynamic usually leads to picking a person I can fix," which frequently fails. This is an attempt, he said, to find someone who they can 'improve' so that others will 'value and respect them'.
He continued by saying that because "you chose a man that you could never be the woman that he needed" and "he can never be the man that you needed," the man could end up cheating as a result of this love cycle.
Labossiere said that once a partner you've been trying to fix 'gets what he needs from you to build himself up' or when the 'smoke clears from being infatuated with you' you're left with a relationship that's not giving each other what they want.
It's all over but the crying...
The podcast host asks how to know when it's time to end a relationship, which brings up the last and final step: recognising when the relationship is over. According to Labossiere, "society needs to change their thinking" about relationships ending, but that doesn't mean they couldn't succeed in other contexts.
"It's not always that it can't work out later; it's just that it can't work out in these particular circumstances," he said. When someone says, "I think they're the one," perhaps they are!
"However, perhaps now is not the right moment and letting go will free you up to take care of your personal affairs so that you can reunite and create something even more incredible."
If you're trying to make a relationship work and your partner is "unwilling to put in the necessary work," that's his main warning sign that it's time to end it.