The lack of patience can be closely linked to that constant imperative of the adult role marked by messages of haste in a society conditioned by productivity and the search for immediacy. However, patience is that attitude that allows you to define your own time in love to think, reflect, feel and observe.
There is no magic recipe to train patience, however, if you really want to exercise it, this learning depends on you. How to learn to be patient in a relationship? At Psychology-Online, we give you the keys to achieve it.
5 tips to train patience in love
- Identify those situations that recurrently become a focus of conflict for you. To track these reactions, you can write an emotional journal focused on reflecting on those moments for approximately ten days. Through writing you will have the necessary material to remember aspects that you might otherwise forget.
- What thoughts fuel your impatience in those moments? In relation to the previous point, it is important that you delve into the type of message you send to yourself. The impulse of impatience is so strong that by being so focused on your emotion, it is likely that you have not realized what the words are that define your internal dialogue. However, through this and conscious reflection you can identify that message.
- Generate alternative messages. Once you have identified which thoughts are those that accelerate your impatience, specify other ideas that help you put that situation in its context. You can find inspirational messages in the statements of famous authors on this issue. However, it is preferable that you create your own phrases with your own words to feel internally the strength of those reflections of yours on patience.
- Patience is love. There are words that can sometimes be interchanged. Love is a constant demonstration of patience because when you love you also wait while the rhythms of the other are not perfectly aligned with your internal rhythm. To perform an empathy exercise, try to identify in which situations you notice and feel that your partner is patient with you. How does this make you feel? And how do you think your partner manages to transmit that calm to you? This attitude can serve as a reference for you.
- Think long term. Impatience is that energy that leads you to think about the immediate moment, however, its fruits are very unproductive. On the contrary, patience is an attitude that may require greater present effort, however, its future potential is immense. When something makes you lose patience in the relationship, reflect on how almost nothing is so urgent or so transcendental as to exaggerate the situation. And how to change the inertia of impatient drama for hope? Through a sense of humor.
Being patient is not just knowing how to wait
However, even one’s patience has a limit. Otherwise, a person runs the risk of nurturing a bond of dependency in which they put themselves in the background before the desire to please their partner. The limit of patience is found in your own common sense and your internal well-being. When waiting for a change that never comes affects your self-esteem or your level of happiness, then reflect on it.
When patience becomes a relationship philosophy in which you are the one who waits eternally for your partner but you do not receive this same attention from them, then there is an internal imbalance in this bond.
Define what they are your limits around the principles of a happy relationship. And he remembers that love is not always enough, that is, loving someone is not the guarantee that that relationship will be hopeful. When, by being with a person, you feel that you have to stop being yourself, then listen to those sensations. Patience by itself is not a magic ingredient. The true effects of patience are those that are accompanied by other skills aimed at achieving certain couple goals.
When you feel that all your vital efforts are aimed at feeding your ability to be patient in the face of a situation that overwhelms you, make a change of approach. Especially if it is a situation that can be modified through the will of both.
How to control impatience and cultivate patience
To learn to have patience in a relationship, you must be clear that this should not be confused with a role of passivity in which the person seems to resign themselves to a certain situation. When you are patient you are the protagonist of your life because this attitude offers you a sense of calm from which you can think and reflect more clearly than when impatience clouds your reason.
What to do from now on in those situations that are a test of your patience?
- Plan a new response. Visualize that reaction in your mind because this anticipation increases your chances of creating that reality.
- Mark yourself specific objectives. In relation to that situation that represents an important test for you, specify a challenge that you want to set for yourself. For example, if your impatience arises as a result of your partner’s lack of punctuality on appointments, design a strategy to better deal with those moments of waiting.
- Express your ideas and requests clearly and in a friendly tone. The risk of complaining is getting carried away by reproaches and criticism that only fuel distancing. Without a doubt, the effect of the words “please” and “thank you” is more constructive in active listening. In these cases it is very important to pay special attention to.
As a cinema forum, the film “Sin Rodeos” starring Maribel Verdú is an excellent pedagogical example about patience and impatience in love. The actress plays a woman who is so used to constantly putting herself in other people’s shoes that she has already forgotten what it means to be herself. If you feel like reflecting on this topic, this plot is an interesting reference.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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