You had the best sex of your life last night.

You had dinner, watched a silly rom-com together, and laughed your heads off.

Today you’re barely talking to each other. You’re acting like strangers and finding it hard to sit in the same room together. This “awkward” pattern is common in most relationships. Regardless of how hard we may try to avoid it, it will eventually manifest…and it will recur.

Sudden shifts from warm to rude are often shocking in relationships. To be honest, they’re exhausting. If only we could enjoy love without its disadvantages. But we can’t…

Love is a peculiarly divine package. When we say yes to it, we say yes to many other things that may not align with our long-term goals. We consciously say yes to growth, connection, and intimacy, but we also, in a way, say yes to many external and internal stressors that will pull us off course and disrupt our whole reality.

It’s only normal to want constant happiness. Happy moments in relationships keep us going and remind us how raw, humble, and exquisite love is. But joy and disappointment are often two sides of the same coin. We can’t accept one side and dismiss the other.

And so we spend a significant amount of time worrying about the challenging, uncomfortable moments. Even when we’re in the middle of happy times, the fear of sudden emotional shifts hunts us round the clock.

Frankly, I don’t think we can keep pretending that this harsh truth doesn’t exist. We can’t keep steering our love boat toward shore where peace and safety are guaranteed. For love to thrive, we must be ready to navigate in rough conditions. We must stay on top of the waves without getting lost or disoriented.

The first step is acceptance. We need to make peace with the fact that relationships are unpredictable because we are unpredictable. Our emotions and thoughts are constantly on the run and bombarded by hundreds of events, changes, and fluctuations every single day.

So we can’t expect an emotionally stable relationship when most days we are unable to regulate our own emotions effectively. Our relationship mirrors us; it mirrors our internal nervous system. Seeking a perfect relationship that is free from negativity means we are seeking personal flawlessness—which is impossible to reach.

But the good news is that we can’t possibly grow without emotional turbulence. The same goes for our relationship; it only thrives and lasts when it goes through different ups and downs. Conflicts reveal underlying needs and desires that we can’t always discuss openly.

The second step is transformation. Once we accept the reality of relationships, we can move to transforming our viewpoint to see the lows in our relationship from a different angle. Ask yourself, how do temporary lows in my relationship make me feel? When conflicts or mood swings occur, do they make me feel unsafe? Do I feel that my relationship is threatened or doomed?

If you get anxious during the low periods, it means there’s a dormant issue that may be impacting how you view the cycles of highs and lows in your relationship. You may struggle with a fear of abandonment, failure, or rejection. You may have difficulty trusting yourself, your partner, or the relationship. Once you figure out what’s scaring you during the low periods, you can start working on changing your perspective.

We can see the lows in our relationship as normal instead of problematic. When we think that problems are a failure, we might actually fail and let the lows sabotage the connection we have with our partner (which raises our cortisol levels and leads to a dysregulated nervous system).

However, if we choose to see the low periods as opportunities, we can express our needs calmly, listen to each other, and strengthen the communication patterns that may have been previously weak or toxic.

Regardless of what your relationship may go through, remember you’re a team. This idea alone makes everything easier to handle. Work together—not against each other.

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