7 Signs of a Troubled Relationship

When couples wait too long to ask for help, the relationship may be beyond repair. The sooner help is sought, the better chance there is of recovering, saving and actually strengthening the relationship. This includes issues dealing with affairs or other types of betrayal.

The longer we wait, the more entrenched we get in destructive patterns and resentment and all hope for change is lost. At a certain point we don't even want change... we just want to be done.

The seven warning signs that a relationship is in trouble are:

1. Fighting has become the rule rather than the exception to the rule.

2. You find yourself looking outside the relationship for comfort, care, and understanding.

3. You can't remember what attracted you to your partner in the first place.

4. There is little or no intimacy in your relationship -- sleeping in different rooms or different beds, lack of interest, anger, and hostility so that intimacy is out of the question.

5. Spending very little time together, friends seem to be more important than your partner.

6. Reactions to situations are disproportionate to the content of the disagreement (i.e., feeling your partner doesn't love you because she/he didn't like the meal you cooked).

7. Feeling helpless and hopeless to change anything. Feeling done with the relationship, but unclear as to where to go and what to do. Feelings of anger, resentment, pain, and desperation are predominant.

If any or all of these describe you in your relationship, your relationship is in trouble and it won't be long before something more drastic happens, such as an affair, arguments get worse and inflate with intensity, increased jealousy, silence for longer periods of time, and sometimes even physical and/or verbal abuse.

Before your relationship reaches that critical crisis point, look at the warning signs and do something before it's too late:

1. Seek psychotherapy
2. Read books
3. Talk to a spiritual/religious adviser
   

Without help, the relationship will never get better with time; once a certain level of resentment, anger, and hostility hits, it will simply get worse and worse. Avoiding a total crisis and saving the relationship is done by knowing when you're in trouble and taking immediate action.

Invisible....

Do you really believe in your head
That takes that long for me to find
What you have been looking for
but you've been just too blind?
Are you really closing the door,
That will keep you satisfied?
You can look but you can't touch...
I don't think I like you quite as much...
All I wanted was to be pacified.
So what if I'm in love?
How much longer for the cure?
It's hard to say what I see in you...
Words can't explain and I can't do.
I just know it feels so genuine, so pure...
What to make to end it faster?
But then... what comes after!?
I wanted to burn out bright!
To be levitated, be out of sight.
But you... you are like a drop in the ocean...
... collapse with so much motion
But then taken with the waves sway.
You're like a feather flying away!
You fall in and out of love, do you hesitate?
You make me look at you as a mistake!
If it never started it can't be done,
If I never had you, you can't be gone.
If we are all different,
How can two make a whole?
Well, you don't need to be too intelligent...
Love of two is one:
Two hearts and one soul.
And this is my state...
Thinking: "Oh well, it's too late!"
I got a hole in me now...
I got a scar in my heart!
How is it going to heal, how?
If you are the missing part.
I wish I was made of steel
Or just as invisible as you make me feel.