How to Work on a Strained Relationship

If you have a strained relationship, your heart aches all the time. It’s challenging to have a relationship with someone who doesn’t reciprocate with you or possibly makes life more difficult for you. The good news is that a caring Christian counselor can help you navigate a strained relationship in your life.

Why Do We Have a Strained Relationship?

Strained relationships can come from different sources. Perhaps you had a relationship that was close at one point and misunderstandings put a strain on the relationship.

On the other hand, you may have a relationship that never got off on the right foot and is now in a worse place than when you started. Relationships can also become strained if they carry a heavy load of criticism and defensiveness over time, or if the relationships are not maintained well by growth and support.

These strained relationships can exist at home, in an extended family, at work, in friendships, and even in community groups or churches. They cause a lot of discomfort, usually for both people involved in the relationship, and even for people surrounding that relationship.

Strained relationships sometimes happen because the other person is almost entirely at fault. Sometimes they occur because we have blind spots, and we don’t recognize our contributions to the problems.

However, even if the reason for the strain is only one percent your fault, you can start working on that part with the help of a trained counselor. Even though you may not be able to completely change the strain in the relationship, you can start building up your strength to handle it.

Examples

You may see a mirror of the strain in your relationship in one or more of these scenarios.

• Due to constant conflict, a dad is at odds with his teenage son.
• An adult daughter distances herself from her mother, who doesn’t understand why.
• A woman refuses to deal reasonably with her ex-husband.
• A mother-in-law causes strain in her relationship with her new daughter-in-law.
• After a series of unresolved misunderstandings, two coworkers have a hard time getting along.
• Two committee members have different leadership styles, and the tension between them spills over onto the rest of the group.

Every situation is different, but some of these dynamics may be at play in your strained relationship. You can gain helpful insights and practical steps for moving forward when you meet with a compassionate Christian counselor.

A Story of a Strained Relationship

In Luke 15, you can read Jesus’ parable about the prodigal son. While his father was still alive, the younger of two sons demanded his inheritance. This was an act of disrespect unheard of in the first century.

Even more unbelievably, the father let his youngest son have his portion that would normally have been given after his death. The youngest son’s actions put tremendous strain on his relationship with his father and with his older brother, who decided to stay on his father’s property.

The Bible tells us that the younger son, known as the prodigal son, went and wasted all his money on wild and reckless living. But, when a drought came, the son lost all his money and had to go work in a humiliating job for a Jew – feeding pigs.

In the pigsty, even the pigs’ food looked good to the starving son. That’s when he came to his senses and decided he would return home to his father, begging only to be let back in as a servant.

This is where the story gets very interesting. The father was already watching the horizon for his lost son, and when he saw him, he ran to him and kissed him. He not only restored him to his full place in the family but also through a huge banquet of celebration in thanks for his return.

Though the father fully accepted the prodigal son, the older brother still held on to strain in the relationship. He felt self-righteous and judged the younger son and was indignant that he had received no party for all his hard work. The older son had been faithful to the father, but he had allowed bitterness to settle in.

We can learn a lot from looking at this story. Maybe you feel righteous anger and grief because someone turned their back on you. Maybe you are holding on to judgment and bitterness in reaction to the unfairness of the situation.

Perhaps you want to become more like the father in the story, letting go of the hurt and the pain to be able to repair a broken relationship. In any of these situations, you can gain guidance and wisdom by meeting with a Christian counselor.

What to do about it

You may feel stuck and hopeless in your strained relationship, but you can find help and healing by dealing with all your emotions and building a plan for moving forward. A Christian counselor can meet with you and discuss the specific details of your situation. Here are some tips to help you in the meantime.

Pray without ceasing.

Praying about your strained relationship can initiate huge changes that aren’t possible only by your own efforts. God works mysteriously through prayer, and he is always happy to hear from you. Pour out your heart to him about what frustrates and saddens you about the relationship and ask him for his help. Every time you pray, he will give you greater peace about the situation and show you what to do.

Ask others to intercede.

Your prayers can become even more powerful when you ask trusted people to pray with you over the relationship. It’s important to choose people who can be trusted. Once you find them, ask them to pray regularly for the relationship to heal or for you to know how to handle it better. Combining their prayers with your own will help you feel uplifted and strengthened as you seek God’s will in the matter.

Set boundaries.

A strained relationship is intense. You need to set boundaries around how much you pray, think, and talk about the problem. It’s good to dedicate some time and energy every day to the problem as long as you don’t let it overtake your life. A Christian counselor can offer you a safe place to vent and teach you what you can do to handle the problem with greater wisdom.

Keep hope alive.

The devil wants to discourage you over the problems in the strained relationship. He wants you to think there’s no hope. But when you draw close to God and cling to hope that things can change and get better with God’s help, you can move forward with more confidence.

Grieve your losses.

Grief isn’t only for physical death. It’s also needed when relationships don’t turn out the way that we had wanted. By going through the stages of grief over your strained relationship, you can heal faster. You can meet with a Christian counselor who can help you walk through those stages of grief in your unique situation.

Give your feelings to God.

A strange relationship stirs up many different emotions. But none of those emotions are too difficult for God to handle. You can offer the full range of your emotions to him in prayer, crying out whenever you need his help or comfort. The more you pour out your emotions to God, the less internal pressure they will put on you.

Practice self-care.

A strained relationship can be very draining. If you prioritize self-care every day and every week, you can refill your cup so that you can deal with the problems more effectively. Essential elements of self-care include exercise, healthy eating, creative activity, and quality rest.

Invest in other relationships.

It can be tempting to focus only on the relationship that is strained in your life. But when you focus on the other relationships that aren’t experiencing as
many problems, you can be filled up and encouraged. Make sure to spend time with people who love you, support you, and make you feel good about yourself.

Reserve judgment.

Like the older son in the prodigal son story, you may be struggling with feelings of judgment toward the other person in the relationship. But if you choose to guard your heart against condemning and criticizing them, you will keep bitterness from taking hold. You can surrender the other person to God as often as necessary and leave the judging up to him. He is the only one who can do it perfectly anyway since he knows all angles of the situation.

Reconcile carefully.

You will need to have a plan in place for what will happen if you decide to reconcile with the other person. A Christian counselor can help you understand how to welcome the person back while still maintaining healthy boundaries against dysfunctional behavior. Without those boundaries in place, you could get hurt again. But counseling can help you be better prepared to know how to respond if the other person is willing to reconcile.

Help for a Strained Relationship

Strained relationships are complex. Your situation has unique nuances that must be unpacked for the relationship to truly heal. You can reach out to our counseling offices to schedule an appointment with a compassionate counselor who is trained to help you navigate your strained relationship.