When I am having problems in my relationship, I stop being able to function in other areas of my life.

When we fall in love, our relationship and everything that is connected with it become so important that everything else gets deprioritized and becomes insignificant and unimportant. All our thoughts wander around the object of our love, we have a slight smile on our lips and can easily postpone work and communication with other people… And all this is quite nice when love carries us on its pink hormonal wings. Later, love releases its grip a little bit, and life enters its normal rhythm. ☺

But what if it’s not about a joyful feeling, but about problems in the relationship? What if thoughts and feelings about them take up literally all of your time? You can’t concentrate on work, you don’t want to take care of yourself, you can’t have fun – nothing pleases at all. What’s going on? In truth, this situation is very similar to the first one – your relationship becomes “dominant”. Let’s discuss it in more detail.

Your relationship is dominant – it means that it has a very high priority. It is the most important thing for you, and everything else, by comparison, is fading and gets deprioritized. It is as if you have a red light bulb in your brain – while it is on, nothing else is important to you. Your dominant thoughts affect all processes and activities in your life. If you want to eat – this is your dominant thought until you satisfy your hunger. You will only think about eating. And not only think – you will put a lot of effort trying to find out where you can get something to eat.

When you are very worried about what is happening in your relationship, it becomes just as dominant. And while it grips your attention, it is not easy to just switch to something else. This phenomenon has been scrupulously studied in classical psychology.

First, the dominant is stable over time and cannot change overnight. This means that even if you understand all the mechanisms, a certain amount of time must pass before it can be displaced from its top spot.

Secondly, the dominant is capable of pushing us to take certain actions and to produce new ideas that arise unexpectedly and as if by themselves. That is, you can sit at work and seem to be solving completely different problems, but suddenly you grab your phone and write a long message on WhatsApp to the object of love or complain to your friend… about them.

Thirdly, only one dominant can be present at a time, not allowing others to enter its territory. Depending on the situation, this can last from a few minutes to several years.

And now, the most important question – what to do about it? You don’t want to be a slave to one unproductive idea for several years!

1. Give yourself time. Think about the problem, be sad if you feel like it. If this period gets too long and it is impossible to think about anything else – define the boundaries for your dominant. For example: now I need to work, but in the evening I will cuddle up in my armchair, make jasmine tea, and for 30 minutes I will think only about this. And don’t forget to keep this promise!

2. Try to create another strong dominant. For example: take on a new interesting project that will take all your time and all your thoughts: go dancing, start learning Chinese cuisine and create a new dish every evening, start preparing for a marathon, take part in a challenge with daily reports on… whatever is interesting to you.

3. Analyze in which areas there are obvious blockages: which desires were suppressed by the dominant, and how to reanimate them. Suppose a specific need is blocked – you need to find it and satisfy it in another way since the usual way is not available. For example, we broke up, and I feel useless and that nobody needs me. You can go and volunteer and thus start feeling relevant.

4. Write a list of things that were interesting to you before the dominant captured you. Maybe start writing poetry, or, for example, learn Italian, or perhaps go to the mountains… The main idea is to take a little energy from the dominant and distribute it to other areas, “cutting off” its energy supply.

When we understand the mechanisms of what is happening to us, we have a much better chance of providing ourselves with the support we need!