The second mental trap is that you may feel like there are just too many steps to achieve these “wild” dreams you have. The thought of getting started even feels overwhelming. Or when you try to have that hard conversation for the 200th time, you lose steam and give up. The effort required to be “the person who stops the fight” or “gives the trust again” seems too daunting. The dream of feeling secure in your relationship, building trust while still hurting, or resolving any conflict when you’re still angry seems impossible. The work of making this dream a reality feels too hard. This tends to turn into a magical thinking that makes you a victim to doing nothing.

You have subconscious assumptions that if you want something “hard enough” it will magically appear. This kind of thinking undermines logic. The distinction between seeing it logically and trying to will it into being is that our emotional response to the idea of change stops you from seeing the logic. You cannot act out a new process if we don’t think that the desired change takes a new process.

The good news is that you are not alone in this relationship. You can ask for your partner to be your teammate in this process. You both can work together to fight the common enemy of being defensive. You can tag-team the role of healthy boundary setting to create mutual respect and care.