[wanderlust16]

Hello, me and my girlfriend, were both 19, have been dating for almost 2 years. I know that is so young, but we have one of the greatest loves that ive ever seen. We are so compatible and love each other immensely. However, as time has drug on, weve become more and more comfortable with each other, as couples do. We used to never fight, but recently we’ve noticed little pointless spouts that have caused a great deal of stress in the relationship. Weve never actually fought about anything of such great importance, but weve drug on the fights and get so sad about them every time. We dont fight that often at all, however our last fight changed us somehow. It was Valentine’s Day weekend and we just could not stop getting in petty agruments. We made up, of course, but were still sad about it. For some reason, nothing has felt the same since. We were still happy, but weve noticed our outlook and hope for our relationship to last has dwindled. We’ve become more comfortable with each other recently so weve tried less in certain aspects, which makes us feel bad about not giving our all to each other. Were both aware of the void we feel in the relationship but we just dont know how to get it back, whatever that feeling is. I don’t know if we even can get it back. We dont want to give up on each other, but we dont want to be causing each other stress and not being focused on the relationship wholly. What do we do?

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I think you’re saying that after dating for two years, you’ve been arguing about petty things lately and you’re both becoming tired of the relationship because of this fighting.

I can tell you that the old cliche, “relationships take work,” is true. The way you can get out of a pattern of arguing is to change your behavior. 😉 Just because you have a feeling doesn’t mean you should express it. So if you’re annoyed with her for something she does, you don’t have to tell her, which will probably start an argument. Same goes for her. Another trick you can try is break your pattern of being together and what you do together. If you feel that you’re in a rut, then shake it up. Take a trip, do different things together, invite friends to join you, volunteer, plan a project — whatever works for the two of you, do what you need to do to get out of the rut that has led you to fighting. And third, try giving the relationship some perspective. You don’t have to be everything to each other. You can have a healthy, happy relationship where you spend time with same sex friends and doing your own things as well as regrouping to do things together. Balancing time together and time apart may help.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Member]

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