Afraid your relationship is heading in the wrong direction?
What if I told you you could prevent a breakup before it even happens?
Hi, I’m Brad Browning, breakup coach and relationship expert. I’ve helped
thousands of people around the world get a second chance after a messy breakup.
If you’d like help through this difficult time,
don’t hesitate to like this video and comment below. I love hearing what you have to say.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that you’re much better off taking steps to
PREVENT a breakup than you are trying to REVERSE a breakup after it happens. I know
it’s definitely possible to get your ex back--I am the author of The Ex Factor Guide after all--but
breakups are a huge headache that you should avoid if at all possible.
So let’s go over the seven steps you need to take to prevent a breakup, right now,
starting with number one...
1. Address the problems
If you’re watching this video, it means you think your relationship
might be almost over. If that’s the case then I’m guessing your relationship has some serious issues
that you’re not properly addressing. I’m sure you’ve made attempts to talk about them but it
always feels like the wrong time. Or maybe one of you will bring up the issues and the other
will deflect or try to sweep it under the rug, only to find that it never really goes away.
Well that stops today. If you want to have ANY chance of preventing your breakup,
you need to take steps to get this issue out in the open
and start working on it. As Mr. Rogers used to say, “If it’s mentionable,
it’s manageable.” Any problem can be solved if you’re willing to face it head on, together.
What this looks like will depend on your particular relationship,
but in any case, you need to set aside some time to sit down with your partner
and have a frank and open discussion about what’s coming between you.
I’m not saying this will have a 100% success rate but if you don’t get this monkey off your back,
you won’t be able to prevent your breakup.
2. Commit to working it out
This goes hand in hand with number one on this list. Often we feel reluctant to discuss our
deepest issues with our partners because we’re worried that they won’t stick around
once they know the truth. Let your partner know that you care about them and that you’re in
this for the long haul. You’re not here to fight with them or find a reason to leave.
You want to settle this conflict so that you two can be happy together, moving forward.
In that same spirit, don’t put any ultimatums on the relationship. This includes statements like,
“If you don’t do this, I’m leaving you.” or “Either we should get married or we
should break up.” These rarely get the result you’re looking for and only serve to create
more tension in the relationship because they tell your partner that your love for
them is 100% conditional. Instead, tell your partner how you feel when they do
certain things and offer alternatives that would work for both of you.
Which brings us to number three on this list...
3. Compromise
Relationships are about compromise. It’s not sexy, but it’s true. The goal
is to create a relationship where your needs and your partner’s needs are
equally important for both of you. Many people defend their own desires above
all else and, somehow, what they want always seems to slip out of their grasp.
Remember this is a partnership, not a war. If you can compromise and allow your partner
to have their way more often, you’ll start to find that they’re willing to extend the
same courtesy to you. Here’s a little exercise that I suggest to all couples who are constantly
butting heads. When you disagree about something small, you both need to decide how important it
is that you get your way in this situation. Give it a rating out of ten. Then, at the same moment,
say your ratings out loud. Whoever has the higher rating gets to make the final choice.
This can avoid the constant bickering that’s the death of so many otherwise happy relationships.
And by making this concrete, you and your partner will start to come to an understanding
of what you really care about and how you can better compromise going forward.
4. Be Affectionate
When a relationship is struggling it’s perfectly natural for affection, sex,
and touch to fade away. It stands to reason that if you’re constantly fighting, you’re not going
to be very inclined to be romantic. But this is actually when people need affection the most.
There have been DOZENS of studies that show how affection and physical touch
are linked to higher relationship satisfaction.
You need to get to a place in your relationship where conflict doesn’t get in the way of
affection. I’m not saying you should go in for the hug in the middle of a screaming match.
It’s all about making space for genuine affection to shine through,
despite what else may be happening in your life and your relationship. This will help you both
to remember that you’re on the same team and, at the end of the day, you still love one another.
5. Take a breather
Many couples don’t realize that you can take a break while you’re fighting. Many people see
this as “running away” or they get offended when someone leaves the room during a fight but it
turns out this can actually be a much healthier way to deal with conflict. As I always say,
the idea that you shouldn’t go to bed angry is actually TOTALLY wrong.
Sometimes the extra time you spend thinking on an issue can make all the difference.
This is especially true if you’re someone who says things they regret in the heat of the moment.
Think of it like “taking a time out” for adults. If you have kids you know just
how effective this can be to cool them down and prevent further escalation.
So next time you find you’re getting drawn into a shouting match,
take a deep breath and then suggest putting a pin in this discussion until
you’ve had awhile to think about things. You’ll be glad you did.
* Improvised Coaching CTA blurb here (instead of the quiz promo originally planned)
If you’re worried that your relationship might be broken,
you should head over to BreakupBrad.com/quiz. My quiz takes five minutes, is totally confidential,
and gives you an easy to understand score so you know EXACTLY what your chances
are of saving your relationship. That’s BreakupBrad.com/Quiz.
6. Break the cycle
Relationships can easily get caught in a negative cycle where one problem creates another, and all
of a sudden something simple has spiralled out of control. It goes like this. Say your girlfriend
or boyfriend isn’t fulfilling your need for love and attention because they’re too busy with work
this week. In return, you feel less inclined to give them the positive validation they want
for some career achievement they’ve just reached. Now you both feel like you’re
being mistreated so the next time you have a date night, neither one of you puts in effort,
and spends most of the evening looking at your phones. Now this time that could have brought
you together only serves to highlight the problems in your relationship, and so the cycle continues.
If you can recognize this process in action, you can be the one to break this cycle
by treating your partner right DESPITE how they may be acting in the moment.
This may feel unfair, but remember that you’re trying to make this relationship
last forever. I’m sure there have been times, or will be times,
when you’ve been selfish towards your partner and they’ve still managed to put your happiness first
and avoided falling into this negative cycle. And, as I’ve said, the more you’re able to go above and
beyond for your partner the more they’re going to take notice and start to do the same. This is
the kind of cycle that you WANT to create: one where your happiness feeds off of one another.
7. Stop avoiding conflict
Fighting with someone you love is never a good time. That’s why we’ll often avoid conflict at
all costs. But rather than creating peace and harmony in a relationship,
this usually just allows the problem to fester and become bigger and more unmanageable. This is why
you need to embrace conflict rather than avoiding it. Let me explain. You see, conflict isn’t just
about the thing you’re fighting about. Because we often tie conflict to our own self worth.
Meaning that fighting with a partner makes us feel bad about the relationship, our partner,
and ourselves. This is why we need to change the way we look at conflict. Conflict can actually be
a method for understanding another person. Think of it this way: wherever two people interact,
conflict is inevitable because no two people are identical. We all have different behaviours,
wants, needs and expectations. If you can keep calm and discuss this problem with that in mind,
not only will you be able to come to a compromise, you’ll be able to use this conflict to understand
what’s most important to you and to your partner. In the end, conflict is really as valuable
as peace because it reveals our character, allowing us to fall for them all over again.
8. Focus on yourself
This may be counterintuitive to so much relationship advice that you hear these days,
but focusing on yourself can actually SAVE your relationship in certain situations. For example,
many women I talk to feel like they’re the only one putting effort into a relationship and yet
their partner is still pulling away from them. This is a common pattern in modern relationships.
The answer isn’t to continue treating the other
person like gold in hopes that they’re going to realize how much
of a catch you are and start doing the same. In this situation it’s actually advisable
that you pull away and start putting that energy into treating yourself properly for a change.
In other situations, it’s not quite so concrete. The truth is that, at the end of the day,
the only person we have control over is ourselves. So if we find that we’re constantly butting heads
in a relationship because we can’t get our partner to behave the way we’d like them to,
then the solution is not to get more aggressive with them or play some kind of mind game.
No, the best course of action is to focus on the one person whose actions we can control:
ourselves. This means putting your own mental and physical health first
before you try tackling issues in the relationship. It’s easy
to become so fixated on our relationships that we lose touch with other parts of ourselves.
Turning inward just a little can help break this cycle and put everything into perspective.
That just about does it for this video. I hope you found some tools that you can use in your
own life moving forward. If you did, why not hit the like button so that I know to make more videos
like this one in the future. And while you’re at it, head on over to BreakupBrad.com now and watch
my full video presentation there. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you again soon.