You wake up one morning feeling kind of crummy. You’ve got a slight fever, and your throat feels like sandpaper. Didn’t someone at the office have strep last week?
Crap.
You go to your doctor, fully expecting him to diagnose you with the strep throat. Because the throat-swab came back positive for Strep.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he tells you to take a cold shower for the fever, and he recommends mints to ease the pain in your throat.
Mints?! You need antibiotics for a bacterial infection like strep!
If that happened, your doctor would just be treating the symptoms without ever addressing the underlying cause. Crazy, right?
And yet, we do the same thing in relationships all the time.
When things are off in a relationship, it’s exhausting. You’ll feel drained and emotionally raw, like a romantic version of the strep. It sucks.
And it won’t get better if you just treat the symptoms.
Treating the symptoms of a “relationship bug” can take on many different forms. You might pamper yourself with a shopping splurge. Or respond to his frustrating behavior with some passive-aggressive jabs. Or even disconnect emotionally by avoiding real conversation and intimate moments.
The relationship will stay sick, and you’ll only feel marginally better. Rather than just treating the symptoms, why not deal with the disease?
I have three suggestions for getting over a relationship ailment.[i] If you’re feeling fatigued in your current romance, the cure is likely in one of these three places.