4 Reasons Stress is Affecting Your Love Life & Relationship – 2024 Guide
Stress affects our relationship even more than we pay attention to it. It is so woven into our daily lives that we do not notice the symptoms and warning signs before we completely ‘burn out’. We often ignore stress and try to get rid of it in various ways, but it is often ‘contagious’ or very easily transmitted to our partner, and until we turn around, we find ourselves in a cold relationship, and we cannot define the cause or reasons. According to this article, there are also hidden reasons our partner is stressed out all the time.
Too strong or too weak, ie. inappropriate stress response can lead to various physical ailments and mental disorders.
Today, everyone is talking about stress. It is discussed in everyday communication, on television, and the radio, it is written in newspapers and magazines, there are more and more scientific conferences, congresses and courses dedicated to this problem. Therefore, our age is marked as the age of stress, although it has always been a faithful companion of man and all living beings.
Everyone seems to talk about stress in their way, and many don’t even try to set a clear definition. For business people stress is frustration or emotional tension, for a flight controller a problem of concentration, for an athlete muscle tension, for biochemists and endocrinologists stress is a biochemical phenomenon. For many, the notion of stress is something negative, dangerous that leads to illness, which should be avoided at all costs.
What is stress?
Stress is a term that denotes different types of life experiences, but also bodily reactions to them. It is very important whether the reaction to stress leads to better adaptation (adaptation) of the organism or, on the other hand, to wrong adaptation (maladaptation) and disease. In both cases, there is a change in the brain, bodily functions, mood, and behavior. When stress has negative consequences, we speak of distress, and positive stress or eustress brings with its positive excitements and enables growth and development through adaptation to new requirements and environmental conditions.
The state of threat to physical, mental, social, and spiritual balance is marked by stress, and the factors that threaten balance are called stressors. In other words, a stressful situation is any that requires adaptation of the organism. Stressors stimulate a different reaction in each individual, but also a general stress response inherent in all. A man reacts by fighting, fleeing, or immobilizing (killing).
According to Seyle, the creator of the concept of stress, we distinguish three phases in stress response: alert (alarm), adaptation (adaptation), or exhaustion. The alert phase is manifested by a reaction of struggle, flight, or immobilization and is an immediate response to the action of stress. These reactions, when successful, lead to adaptation, which is a prerequisite for health, mastery of new abilities or skills, thus enabling the growth and development of personality.
With long-term stressors or due to unsuccessful adaptation, the organism can be exhausted and the disease can develop because the organism becomes irresistible. The too strong or too weak, or inappropriate stress response can lead to various physical illnesses and mental disorders. For example, an increased stress response is associated with the development of high blood pressure, heart attack, or gastric ulcer. Weakened stress response due to immune system disorders favors the development of chronic inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis.
It is very important to emphasize stress also affects your environment and is very often transmitted to your partner or relationship. According to Riverfronttimes, stress can also cause erectile dysfunction. Here are only some of the reasons how stress negatively affects your relationship.
1. You conclude too quickly
It’s easy to take your thoughts in the completely wrong direction after your partner doesn’t answer your phone or answer your message right away (especially today when we’re all 0-24 on cell phones and they’re constantly at hand). These are exactly the moments when you have to slow down a bit. Take the time to understand what is bothering you and why you feel this way, and work on resolving some ghosts from the past that may be sabotaging you.
2. You attribute your anxiety to your partner
It’s very easy to assume that your partner is to blame for your anxiety, but it’s not fair to blame someone else for your own fears if that person isn’t doing anything wrong. You are an adult and you need to learn to control your own emotions and learn how to make yourself happy. It’s not your partner’s job to try to alleviate your anxiety – it’s solely your job.
3. You think you can handle everything yourself
Stress can be caused by a struggle for survival, setting unrealistic goals, emotional stress (due to an important life event, the loss of a loved one or pet, etc.), and tired and overwork. It’s important to understand how all of this will one day be behind you and how it’s not worth spending too much nerve around it. What bothers you simply needs to be left behind, but if you have no choice (you have to stay at a job that makes you unhappy for existential reasons) at the moment, look for support from your partner. You will quickly agree that he will have to take over some chores at home or be moral support at all times until you recover at least a little from the stress.
4. Lack of joint activities
After a few years of relationship, we start to take our partner for granted – we know that we have won him over and that there is no need to show attention and love as before. Unfortunately, this is what leads to a large number of divorces. This further leads to distancing and you do not feel the need to tell each other how the day went and whether something is bothering you. However, recovery from stress and problems will be much more successful and faster if you have joint activities, whether it is walking, cooking, running, or some other sport or form of entertainment.
