How do I reconnect with my partner? 5 things to do when the emotional connection has died in your relationship.

After years of being together, tons of responsibilities, stresses, and maybe having kids, it’s common to find that the emotional connection may have been left by the wayside. 

So what do you do about it?

Here are 5 things to do:

• Stop gaslighting yourself about how distant things feel

If you’re feeling flat, emotionally empty, and like you’ve been beaten down with sticks over the years - then please do not pretend like this is okay.

It might be normal, sure, but it isn’t okay - nor is it healthy.

The problem is, in my experience high functioning people often normalize emotional neglect.

Largely because it’s been the conditioned experience from an early age. Feeling a bit…well, unseen and unheard. And focusing more on doing, being responsible, providing, building, and so on.

The emotional aspect, meanwhile, feels empty.

And if no one is screaming at each other or being explicitly violent or abusive, it can feel like it’s ‘not that bad’ and maybe you just need to ‘suck it up’.

But that my friend, is normalizing chronic disconnection - which is just as damaging. 

You cannot fix what you’re still pretending isn’t a problem, so stop pretending this disconnection isn’t a problem. It is. Now let’s deal with it.

• Identify what’s yours, and what’s the relationship.

In any relationship there are three entities at play:

You’ve got YOU, your partner, and the relationship itself.

If you’re emotionally numb or checked out, it may be that you are playing a role in the problem you’re experiencing, and likely old patterns are showing up. This isn’t your fault - you didn’t choose to install these old patterns, and they likely stem from childhood before you were even conscious and able to do anything. But you ARE responsible for these, now that you’re an adult. 

Which means taking stock of where your behaviors and actions may be inadvertently contributing to the problem, and solving for that.

Equally, if you’re walking on eggshells, craving intimacy, and always initiating… it might be the relationship that’s not meeting you.

Which doesn’t mean that you start blaming your partner, mind you. But it does mean that the structures of the relationship likely need shifting and you want to apply some different strategies here.

There are also questions around how you even got into this relational place in the first place, which is likely stemming from your old patterns, so either way, you’ll want to tend to those.

Ultimately, before you blame your partner or throw the towel in on the relationship, get clarity. 

You can’t reconnect or fix things if you aren’t seeing the issues clearly, or if you’re trapped in projection. Blaming solves nothing.

• Get granular about what you actually need.

The reality is, you don’t just want “more connection.” Even if that’s what it feels like. Deeper, beneath that, you want to feel desired, supported, safe, seen, understood, and so on.

Until you name the exact need that’s going unmet, you’ll keep reaching for superficial fixes and wondering why nothing changes.

This is where most people get stuck. They think they want one thing - sexual variety, for example. And start solving for that by getting attention from others, before realising that they have a deeper need for adventure which hasn’t been getting met. 

Always, always, always find the deeper need, and start solving for that FIRST.

• Stop waiting for your partner to guess.  

One of the biggest mistakes we can make is expecting our partner to mind read. They are not able to do this.

Most disconnection stems from unclear or unexpressed needs.

If you’ve never said, “I miss the way we used to talk after dinner,” then chances are they haven’t registered what you’re craving.

Moreover, if you haven’t said explicitly what about the way you used to talk after dinner that you miss - what that sort of talk gave you, then they will never know.

Clarity creates connection. But clarity starts with you.

And solving for it, ALSO starts with you, too.

• Decide if the version of this relationship you’re in is still the one you want.

Reconnection isn’t always about going back. 

More often than not, it’s about redefining what intimacy and partnership need to look like now and seeing whether your partner is willing (and able) to meet you there.

You can only do that once you have cleaned up your side of the street, which means clearing out your patterns and old way of being, at the root cause level, and then being super clear on what you need…and then communicating that to your partner. 

As well as applying various behavioral strategies to actually improving the relationship on a practical level.

Only then, once you’ve done these things, can you see if your partner has responded favorably, and is stepping up to meet you where you’re at.

It’s not a quick decision you can make - it has to be something that you lead with and start on your own, and see how they respond.

Because, you see - most high-achievers will try to “fix” disconnection with more effort.

More date nights. More communication tools. And so on, so forth.

But if you’re feeling like the punching bag and like you just have to grin and bear it, then you can bet that there’s deeper patterns at play here that are keeping you stuck in the status quo - and these need resolving. 

If this feels like something you’re experiencing, I have space for another private client this quarter.

Message me today to discover more about how the Successfully in Love® method can help you, and how we can start solving for your disconnect today.

We will have an initial conversation, and I'll share more about the method. We need 90 days to transform the dynamic - and I will walk each step with you.