After the holidays, more people struggle with relationship limbo–whether to stay in their relationship or not more than any other time of year.
While the two of us are all about helping couples create more love, passion, and connection in their relationship or marriage, we can’t ignore the reality that many people are living in “relationship limbo.”
These people want more love, passion and connection but are stuck in trying to figure out whether there’s any hope or not that they can have it in their current relationship.
In fact, over 500 of our newsletter subscribers told us that they’re living in this “limbo” of whether to stay or go and don’t know what to do next.
If you’re happy in your relationship and not in this limbo, congratulations–and keep doing what you’re doing to create more of what you want.
However, if you’re someone who is living with the question of whether to stay or go, we want to help you…
Of course we always offer individual coaching (both in-person and by telephone ) to help people living with difficult questions and situations in their relationships but for the person who is living with the question of whether to “stay or go”…
What we’ve discovered is that some people can (and do) stay stuck and live in “limbo” without truly making a decision about their relationship for years.
You see…
The challenge for someone who’s living with the question of whether to “stay or go” is not knowing whether to take a step and risk being “wrong” or whether to continue in limbo and see if your relationship rights itself and gets better.
The thing about being in relationship limbo is this…
Being in limbo makes that it’s impossible to have the depth of love, passion and connection that is truly possible.
It’s like having one foot on the gas and one on the brake at the same time while you’re sitting in your car in the garage with the door closed.
The carbon monoxide fumes will choke you to death and you might not even realize it.
Okay, so maybe our metaphor is pretty dramatic but you probably get what we mean and how living in limbo can possibly kill your relationship.
When you take a good look at relationship limbo, there are conflicting beliefs that won’t allow you to make a decision.
These conflicting beliefs can be anything that’s an internal unresolved conflict for you.
Some of the most common ones people tell us about are:
1. “I’ll be happier alone” VS “No, I won’t be happier alone”
2. “I see a glimmer of hope” VS “My situation is hopeless”
3. “I deserve to be loved” VS “This is as good as it gets for me”
4. “If I wait a little longer, he’ll (she’ll) change” VS “Nothing will ever change”
Because of your conflicting beliefs (as well as your partner’s), there’s very often gridlock and nothing seems to change.
While we can never tell you what’s right and what’s wrong in your situation, we can help you make sense of it.
We can help guide you toward staying for a while and totally recommitting to your partner or to start to make an exit plan that feels right and doable for you.
When you are faced with conflicting beliefs that are keeping you in gridlock and limbo, here’s one thing you can do…
You can change your story.
Before Otto, when Susie was going through trying to decide whether to end her marriage of 30 years or not, she had a story that she was swinging on a trapeze and if she let go of her marriage, there was a question whether there would be anyone to catch her or not.
Before Susie, when Otto was going through making his decision whether to end his marriage or not, he had a different story.
His story and belief was that there would be a woman who would want to be with him and want the same kind of relationship he wanted.
In order for Susie to “let go” after her divorce, she had to change her story to one that looked more like Otto’s (that she deserved the relationship she wanted) rather than her trapeze story which was based on fear.
Just because the two of us went through divorces before we got together, it doesn’t mean that that’s the only route to happiness.
There’s a possibility that staying in your current relationship is what’s best for you.
There’s NO WAY we can know what’s best or right for you in your specific situation but here’s what we can do…
We can help you sort out the questions that you’re living with and help you get out of limbo.
We can help you look at your thoughts, attitudes and beliefs.