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Marriage

How To Handle Deal Breakers In Your Relationship

What do you do when you’re trucking along with your partner, everything’s fantastic, you love everything about them, and then all of a sudden you smack face first into a big wall of something that you absolutely cannot live with.

Let’s talk about it.

Hey! While you’re here, check out my video on How To Handle Deal Breakers In Your Relationship.

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Relationship Road Bumps

We all have things that we will and will not tolerate about life in general. Why would it be any different when it comes to the man or woman that you’re thinking about getting married to?

Today we’re going to talk about what happens when you hit one of these road bumps and the strategies that you can take to see if you can get around them.

Now unless you and your partner were both born and raised on the same stock of corn, on the same farm, in the same county, in the same state, in the same place in the world, you are probably going to find something that you disagree about. And it’s just possible that one of these things is going to be a deal breaker.

This might not even be something about the person you’re with. It could just be something in general- something in life that you won’t tolerate, such as, “I won’t tolerate being married to a Democrat.”

Three Simple Steps

So what do you do when you run into one of these roadblocks on the path to marriage? I’ve got a pretty simple three-step method for dealing with these deal breakers. So let’s get to it.

Step One: Confess

Tell the other person what your problem is; what this big deal breaker is. Be non-confrontational, be non-judgmental, but be honest. Say, “I just can’t live with X”, or “I need X to be a certain way”.

Once you’ve confessed, that might solve your problem right there. They may say, “Oh, I agree with that,” or, “I can live with that,” and then you just move on. If that’s not the case…

Step Two: Drill Down.

Try to dig into the subject and figure out if you can find a path around this obstacle. Maybe it’s not such a big deal after all?

Step Three: Make A Decision

You need to decide, based on your drill down or your partner’s response, whether YOU can or cannot live with their response.

Let’s Work Some Examples

Example One: The Name Change

You want to get married and you want the other person to change their last name to match yours. You tell them this is a deal breaker for you. You confess now.

They could say, “Sure, that’s no problem.” Done.

One the other hand, maybe they say, “I don’t want to change my last name.” Whoa! You just broke my deal breaker. I can’t live with that, that’s no good. I quit! I’m out! Get out of the house!

No, no- we’re going to drill down.

Well, why is it they can’t change your name? Maybe they can’t change it because they’re known professionally under this name. It’s important for their career advancement., which will be your career advancement once you get married, because you’re a team.

Maybe they won’t change their name right away, but they could change their name some time in the future if you have kids. Will they let the kids have your name? Whose name will the kids have? Talk about all these things.

Decide whether you can live with what they’re telling you. Decide if this really is a deal breaker or, now that you have a greater understanding, can you live with what it is they’re telling you?

Example Two: Having Children

Let’s talk about kids. Kids are a big deal breaker nowadays.

You want to have kids, the other person doesn’t want to have kids. Boom, that’s a deal breaker right there.

We’ve already talked about how you need to assume that you can’t change your partner, so let’s just assume that they’re never going to have kids. You need to confess this problem- “I want to have kids. You don’t want to have kids. Okay, why don’t you want to have kids?”

Maybe they say, “I came from a broken home and I just don’t want to put kids through that”. Maybe they’re not able to have children? Maybe they saw Alien and they’re afraid of pregnancy? Maybe they think you want to have ten kids and you just want to have two? Maybe they would adopt? Who knows what the problem is?

Talk about these things. Talk it through. Drill down into these questions and then make a decision. Decide if you can live with their response. Once again, this entire process comes down to communication and decision making.

Make A Decision!

You’re going to have to actually make a decision, but once you hit one of these deal breakers don’t just throw in the towel. This is the person that you’re considering spending eternity with. Don’t just discard them immediately.

This might also be an interesting time to think about your ethics and your morals. Think about what is important to you.

If you declare that this name thing or this kid thing or “this way we’re going to live” or “what your job’s going to be” or “you’re going to stop working” is a deal breaker- where are you getting this idea?

Are you just parroting these things because that’s what your parents did? Is that what you saw on TV? Is that really important to you? Are you willing to walk away from a person for this thing?

It could be maybe it’s just intolerable. Maybe you found out something about this person that you’ll never live with because you can’t change them.

You’re going to have to decide.

Don’t just throw in the towel. This person is valuable. They’re obviously important to you. Be honest with them. Give them the tender, loving consideration that they deserve and work this out together.

Let me know about your deal breaker process. Let me know the route that you’ve taken to solve some of these deal breakers and hopefully that it worked out for you. I love to hear positive things.

If you find reasons why it would never work out for you being married with these deal breakers, then that’s probably positive too. You’ll have saved yourself a whole bunch of heartache in the future and that’s what we’re trying to figure out here.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. There’ll be more.

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By Alex Blasingame

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