Painful Relationship? Here's Pain Relief

Dear Reader, your almost-to-be ex-partner has treated you badly. You have been neglected, unappreciated, rejected, not communicated with. You may have been cheated on. You have been unsupported. You have been abandoned. You have been reacted to badly over and over again. You have been forced into agreeing to and doing things you have resented. You have been forced to ask for the love you used to get and clearly deserve. You have been frozen out and avoided. You have been asked for space when no more space could possibly be taken. You have been asked to have neither needs nor wants. You have been asked to live without intimacy and yet be willing to meet your partner’s needs when he or she wanted you. You have been put low on the priority list. You have been asked to put up with unacceptable behavior and accept it. You have ended up in a relationship that is painful, when all you wanted was love, kindness and happiness.

The above may sounds drastic to you. You may be about to say that you have put up with almost nothing from the above list. Perhaps you are right, and your relationship is not this bad. Still, if you have found yourself unhappy in your relationship, I would like to give you advice and coaching to help you cope, be happier and more at peace regardless of what's going on in your relationship.

On the other hand, you may say your relationship is or has been much worse that the above, that you suffered greatly and are still suffering. To you I say, there is a way to let go of your pain and be happy again, whether you are still in that relationship or it's long gone.

When your partner hurts you, you want pain relief from him or her. You want him or her to take it back, to say he or she is sorry, to tell you that you are loved and that the hurt was a mistake. To most people that is the only conceivable form of relief for pain caused in a relationship.

But here is the thing. If your partner is hurting you, chances are, he or she knows you are being hurt. He or she may not care that the pain is being caused, may not know how to stop causing the pain, or may even be causing you pain on purpose. In any of these cases, your partner is incapable of doing the things you want, i.e., making the pain go away. No matter how much you want the pain relief from your partner, in most cases, you will not get it at the time you want it.

So what do you do when you feel pain in the relationship? What do you do when you have just had a fight, when your partner won't see your point of view, when you are feeling unloved and misunderstood? Do not turn to your partner first when you feel pain, because again, he or she will not be able to give you relief. Instead, do the following for immediate relationship relief from fresh hurt and pain, as well as from long-term chronic and old relationship pain:

Option 1: Write your partner or ex-partner a letter that you will never send. In the letter you may use foul language, talk about the hidden pain that you may never reveal to him or her, talk about your disappointment, your hurt, your sense of abandonment. Honestly disclose everything you feel. Delve deeply into the incident and dredge up all of your emotions. Write about them ad nauseam, to the point where there is nothing else inside of you that wants to come out. Write to the point that even if you could express more, there would be nothing more to express.

Option 2: Find a picture of your partner and set it up somewhere where you can be alone and undisturbed with it. Talk to the picture as if it were your partner. Talk about the pain you feel at great length, while imagining that you are being respectfully and attentively listened to. Go on and on until there is nothing left to say. Take a long time to do this, even if at first the words are slow to come and even if you feel silly.

Option 3:(takes much longer) Long-term therapy or friends who are willing to listen endlessly without making comments or giving advice. Take a long time to tell your therapist or friend about your relationship pain. Make sure no advice is given and you are allowed to vent and delve into every nuance of the issues in the relationship.

If you take the steps in the options 1 and 2 above, you will find immediate and deep pain relief from what's bothering you about your current or past relationship. You will also lose the urgency to reach out and get your partner to fix the pain he or she caused. This is a very good thing. Let me explain.

Just because you don't need to go to your partner for pain relief does not mean that you will do nothing or get complacent about the situation that caused you pain. What you will gain is choice – choice about your actions regarding the incident and the relationship and about how you want to talk about it with your partner.

If you don't need your partner for pain relief, you gain the following choices:

• The choice to calmly tell your partner that it is no longer OK to treat you in particular ways, and if certain events happen again there will be consequences.

• The choice to calmly end the relationship, if that is what you would like to do

• The choice to stay in the relationship and be calm and skillful regarding what you will do when hurt and pain come your way again.

• The choice to calmly speak your mind and effectively get your point across, perhaps having your partner clearly hear you for the first time

• The choice to move on from a past relationship and heal, to get your life back

• The choice to get personal pain relief at any time relationship pain arises, regardless of who is causing it or what they are willing or unwilling to do about it.

These freedom-based choices are only available to you if you seek relief from relationship pain through processing and writing or speaking out your pain completely. To completely write and speak out your pain will give you emotional freedom. And emotional freedom in the relationship gives you the power to get what you want and to be happy.

Are you experiencing relationship pain in your current relationship or from a past relationship? Love Coach Rinatta Paries gives you practical ideas for gaining fast pain relief.