First Step Toward A Second Chance

                                                                     
                                                                    
                                                                    

                                            
 

First Step Toward A Second Chance

The first thing you need to do if you've lost the love of your life is communicate – with yourself. You need to get clear in your own head on what is really going on by ignoring all the noise. Forget the arguments, forget the fights and just get to the heart of the matter.

You'll have to be brutally honest with yourself here because what you're searching for is the truth. You want to dig past the clutter and the excuses and pinpoint the true reason or reasons your relationship began to go south.

Don't gloss over the little things, because often it is simply a combination of so many little things piled one on top of the other with no one ever going back to apologize and make things right that add up to one seemingly unmovable Big Thing.

Many times these small mountains of little things, too long ignored, make a relationship start to sour. If they keep adding up, things go bad a lot faster. So really think about the life of your relationship, and be honest with yourself about what really happened. What were the core events or words that put a hitch in the smooth turn of the wheel?

Once you've pinpointed all the things you feel are the likely culprits for pushing your relationship to take a turn for the worst, your next step is to communicate with your ex. Let him or her know that you want to sort out all the problems, get them out in the open and talk about them so you can figure out, together, what went wrong in your relationship because you never want to repeat these mistakes again.

Here's a valuable hint to remember during these communications: Discuss does not mean argue. If you can't act like a mature, responsible adult for the duration of a simple, single conversation to help make your relationship better now, how can you possibly expect to have a meaningful, long-term relationship?

So the next step is to find out what he or she thinks started the damage to your relationship. The point is for each of you to know what the other feels caused the relationship to go bad so you both will know exactly what needs working on – by both parties – to fix the relationship.

Next, ask if your partner feels your relationship has a chance, if they are interested (like you) in trying to change things for the better, working together to build a better life together, and then decide if you're both willing and able to do what you now know it will take to make the necessary changes and put the relationship back on track.

Communication is one of the cornerstones of all meaningful relationships. If you haven't been communicating with your partner, that could be one part of the problem. Make sure he or she knows you now understand this and that from here on out, you will definitely want to discuss your problems with each other, as well as possible solutions.

Why? Because by doing this, by communicating openly and honestly with each other about your hopes, fears, expectations and whatnot, both of you will be better equipped to make your relationship much better than it has ever been, to make your relationship the kind that lasts forever.