The word “resilience” may not be part of our everyday vocabulary. However, it implies a concept most of us may find familiar. Resilience is a term derived from the physical sciences that refers to a material’s capacity to regain its original shape and characteristics after undergoing pressure or stress. Building resilience in a relationship has been widely adopted in all areas of life to mean the resourcefulness and determination to overcome difficulties and the capacity to adapt well to challenges.
In the psychological sphere, the contemporary resilience concept seeks to understand the processes and resources the human being uses to recover and to reassert his personal and social balance when faced with life’s inevitable stresses. While it is impossible to live in today’s world without experiencing some kind of pressure or stress, marriage and religious vocation both assume an element of partnership.
All of us have heard the old saying that nothing is permanent except change. And we have, of necessity, become familiar with the ups and downs, the continual fluctuations, in our daily lives. Sometimes things run smoothly. At other times, we hit obstacles and things just don’t seem to work out the way we expected. Our plans don’t come to fruition; our efforts fail; good fortune becomes bad luck. Not surprisingly, this is reflected in the language we use every day. There are times when we say we are “in good spirits,” at other times “fed up” or even “down in the dumps.” At some stage or other of building resilience in a relationship, everyone experiences a fluctuation in mood. Indeed, not surprisingly, the majority of us often feel “frequently” or “always” tense because of the pressure imposed upon us to complete the numerous duties we have voluntarily accepted.
IDENTIFYING CHALLENGES IN A RELATIONSHIP
Think about it. You’ve established a “forced trust” living with each other. You have to rely on this person not to kick you out or dump you, and you have to do the same in return. In the process of a relationship, your walls are naturally breaking down and you open up more to your partner. Men tend to hold back talking about their emotions.
You know, the ones that caused your lunch date to run five hours over into the next day or allowed you to cop a few experienced tips from their playbook. Some individuals are so wary of getting close to anyone again due to past relationships, they feel it’s better to keep their wall up. But during your period together, whether jokingly or by force – that wall has to come down. Sometimes a person will manipulate them, and even though I’ve never personally experienced this, throughout my observation – I do understand exactly what it entails. Emotional abuse is bound to happen, and varies from one partner being another’s constant punching bag as means to heal personal wounds, or a person mistreating one partner, but not the other.
The GASP horror of it all is that it’s nearly impossible to detect, and the time it takes to identify it could cost you years of your precious life. The infrastructure of your worlds are connected in every way. When the poker falls, watch the glass. When you don’t feel well and can’t make it to your doctor appointment, they’ll take you. You’re living together, and this life is just as much hers as it is yours, without the possibility of applying for a divorce or break-up. You’re moving together. You’ve both tackled the phases of identifying the other’s habits and insecurities, and are learning about those you couldn’t uncover by the time spent in a romantic setting.
Keep in mind, relationships go through a transition period, just like the actual act of moving does. In the beginning, everything seems light and exciting. You’re just getting to know each other, and the future looks promising. But after you’ve really been around this person, when you start getting into little disagreements about who’s dirtying up the house, whose turn it is to cook or clean, or who’s going out to buy the bleach, tough things start to happen. This is the Vortex. This period is so crucial, as it sets the momentum for the foundation. If you all can get through this facing the challenge together, this ability to draw on collective strength will be incredibly beneficial in helping you get through other tough times in the future. However, if you fall apart and get frustrated and then escape to the nearest exit; that stands as a monument to an imbalance of individuals.
The longer you stay with a person, the more apparent imperfections become. It’s just like when you have a favorite dress, and at first, it’s so fresh and represents life, then after wear-and-tear, it just becomes another piece of clothing. Relationships come to a point where the person just becomes the person, they aren’t an idea anymore and you see their habits, flaws, and insecurities. When you’re living together, that’s a whole brand-new world. It’s just like that fresh loaf of bread you said you’d eventually eat, now you’re ants in the kitchen.
STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE
Our research highlights for building resilience in a relationship; the fact that the boosted confidence and bolstered approach necessary to build resilience in any domain do not stem from simple willpower alone. If one looks for where the willpower truly came from in a situation, the resounding message is that confidence decreases fears and allows individuals to tap into the potential that they have believed was always present. When confidence is bolstered by forces inside or outside the holiday, these positive thinking spells are typically catalyzed. If a relationship can tap into these factors, the strength and positivity that comes into fruition can help its trajectory become less a rollercoaster of emotions and more a gradually-cognizant ascent towards the promised marathon finish line.
Fostering the skills that allow for the continued development of resilience in a relationship will greatly enhance the quality of the bond and give a sense of fulfillment to the individuals who stick through thick and thin and actively seek to keep their relationship flourishing. Ensuring the vitality of one’s relationship is perhaps the most important investment that any individual can make towards personal satisfaction, since the relationship is typically the base upon which numerous other aspects of life weigh and take stock.
In order to building resilience in a relationship, a partner must cultivate numerous protective mechanisms that will shield them from the shocks and stresses that are an inevitable part of a long-term relationship. This includes developing personal flexibility, accepting and growing from what cannot be changed, identifying and enacting lingering repairs on once-damaged areas of the relationship, recognizing and utilizing supportive networks, and accepting the numerous costs and benefits that are sure to accompany a long-term investment.
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COMMUNICATION AND EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE
We argue that strengthening resilience is the middle construct because it adds value to various positive aspects of both singlehood and intimate relationships. Personal and interpersonal value in resilience is derived from the four clusters of intervention, personal resources, romantic relationship quality, and positive individual mental health characteristics. While education may have a weak impact, emotion regulation, positive personality characteristics (e.g., hope, optimism), cognition, support from partner, and conflict resolution are personal resources that contribute positively to a relationship before and after marriage.
Research from the United States generally supports the relevance of conversation and positive emotions when discussing difficult topics between romantic partners, whether heterosexual or same-sex couples. While conversation is positively related with forgiveness, negative affect decreases with positive emotion in a sample of established heterosexual couples.
Beyond personal benefits, building resilience in a relationship also adds value to intimate relationships, such as dating, engaged, and married relationships. Emotional resilience was statistically and positively associated with, and statistically predicted, the variable well-being in a sample of black and Hispanic relationship quality and attraction among Latino adolescents. Emotional resilience of Mexican-origin youth has been positively and statistically related with fewer depressive symptoms and higher relationship satisfaction in the context of friendships or romantic relationships.
Emotional resilience also played a positive and statistically significant role in promoting committed dating relationships among Puerto Rican individuals living in the mid-western United States. Reflecting the structure and kinship patterns of family relationships in the United States, resilience in family relationships was given salience over resilience in peer relationships, intimate relationships, and school relationships among various categories of adolescents, including Mexican-origin and other ethnic groups. Nevertheless, extant research in general lends strength to the argument that emotionally resilient individuals can reinforce an intimate relationship.
NURTURING EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE TOGETHER
Occasionally, hardships can offer increments to the amount of happiness found in the marriage. A similar benefit has been reported in a study of families of ill children, wherein subscales of relationship satisfaction predict levels of poststressor growth in both spouses. Such growth can also involve permitted reprioritizing of activities or reaching closer recognition about life objectives or vulnerabilities that serve to keep the marriage strong.
After the initial shock, the stressor event will be viewed as positive because the other partner supported trust, reassurance, and a sense of security, facilitating confidence in themselves and thus in themselves and the partner. In turn, this growth generally leads to increasing relationship clarity, with the couple now adopting a more mature level of perception in their evaluation of their marriage.
Given the central role of resilience in anticipations and reactions to stressors while in a relationship, we believe that resilience should be jointly fostered by partners. Communication style and relational adaptability are both bolstered by awareness and insight; therefore, the relationship’s resilience and growth should be maximized through shared interpretations, feelings, and coping strategies.
Previous research on Building Resilience in a Relationship has shown that both partners’ evaluation of relationship satisfaction and strength are predictive of each other’s physical and mental well-being. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that relational resilience might also be furthered by the reflective interpretation and discussion that might occur when both partners are motivated to enrich the relationship by addressing its hardship.