What to do if conflicts arise in your love relationship? What to do if you and your loved one begin to quarrel often? What to do if you don’t want to lose the relationship, but in disagreements and discontent you have reached a dead end? Are you afraid of your partner's distance, your cooling towards him? Have you started to trust less and the relationship has become less close? Are you afraid of losing love and want to regain your former intimacy? Conflicts arise in any close relationship. Conflict is the difference between people's needs, desires and thoughts. This difference always exists, so conflicts cannot be avoided. Another thing is HOW TO BEHAVIOR DURING CONFLICTS. You can sacrifice yourself and give in to your partner out of fear of a quarrel, disapproval and resentment of a loved one. You can blame your partner, criticize him, encourage him to change. You can withdraw into yourself, distance yourself and isolate yourself through work, TV, reading books, food... And all these methods do not lead to love and intimacy. They lead to a struggle of characters, a lack of spontaneity and joy in relationships, coldness, alienation and boredom. For it is not possible to achieve intimacy by alienating yourself, closing yourself off, not clarifying, imposing your point of view. HOW TO BE THEN? CONFLICTS CAN'T BE AVOIDED, HOW TO SAVE LOVE? In a conflict, we can defend ourselves (as I already said: give in, fight or pull away) and strive to change our partner. We protect ourselves in order not to feel: rejection, disappointment, resentment, guilt, fear, irritation, sadness. And this is a downhill road. But we can also open up to our partner and try to understand him. And this is the path to intimacy. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO OPEN UP TO A PARTNER? Opening up to a partner means becoming vulnerable (ready to rejection, misunderstanding, humiliation), feeling your real (non-defensive) feelings: grief, sadness, disappointment, fear, shame, guilt, resentment - and revealing them to your partner. Opening up and strive to understand the feelings and motives of your partner - not with the goal of changing your partner, convincing, proving to him, getting your way. And in order to take a step towards and try to understand him. You should not expect your partner to immediately make a reciprocal step towards you. But after a while you will see that your openness allowed your partner to also open up a little and take a step towards you. If you are used to defending yourself, then you won’t be able to open up right away. You will always slip into defensive behavior. And the first step for you is to track: am I now defending myself or opening up, am I now manipulating and trying to change my partner, or am I trying to understand him and help him open up. And also, what scared me and why am I defending myself again? What helped me open up? To be continued...