When Love Feels Like Chaos: Finding Balance Amid Extremes

"I feel terrible about this relationship, Hannah. I don’t understand what we are doing together. I feel like I cannot love him. Sometimes I even feel repulsed. I feel we have no common ground. Over the past week we have talked a lot about breaking up," Judith said.

"Yes, but Hannah, we also have many periods where we truly enjoy being together. We have a strong partnership. We manage the household with respect and success. We share many moments of closeness and times when we genuinely enjoy one another. That is why we decided to delay making a final decision," Daniel added immediately.

"Yes, but I feel that the bad is much stronger than the good. So maybe I need to be brave and follow what I feel," Judith continued.

The Missing Element in the Relationship

"Let us bring some order here. It is clear that the decision whether to separate or stay is yours. But first I want to explain what I believe is missing. Your relationship lacks a balancing force.

"When this balancing force exists, a relationship can contain very high peaks. There can be exhilaration, a sense of destiny, and deep happiness. At the same time, there can also be low points, moments of sadness, crisis, and serious doubt. Yet the relationship remains stable, because everything balances out.

"When the balancing force is weak or absent, difficulties begin. The relationship cannot tolerate emotional extremes. Partners feel forced to remain within a narrow range of emotion, trying to stay calm and controlled. Whenever they reach intense places, whether positive or negative, the relationship feels as though it cannot contain them.

"The stronger the balancing force, the more freedom there is to experience life intensely. There is trust in the relationship’s strength, trust that it will not collapse under emotional movement.

Understanding the Inner Movements

"The positive movement you feel is the longing to unite, to dissolve boundaries, to feel complete oneness. It is the soul’s desire to rise beyond limits.

"The negative movement you feel is the repulsion that arises from a natural fear of losing yourself within the relationship.

"When there is no balancing force, these movements become extreme. They can create a sense of inner contradiction, almost like two opposite experiences existing side by side. This leads to confusion and emotional chaos.

The Three Stages of Repair

"There are three stages in repairing a fall within a relationship.

"The stage of surrender occurs when partners return to the high place from which they fell and were broken.

"The stage of distinction occurs when partners realize that the high place they reached is not truly their place, even if it felt elevated. This recognition allows them to return to a more authentic and balanced space.

"The stage of sweetening occurs when partners understand that they were searching for absolute unity. To truly find that unity, they must return to the ordinary rhythm of life and discover connection within routine, within simplicity, and within what may appear dull. This is the corrected form of unity.

Finding Hashem in Every Place

"Scripture says, ‘If I ascend to heaven, You are there, and if I make my bed in the depths, behold, You are there.’

"When you experience upliftment in your relationship, when everything feels illuminated, elevated, and almost heavenly, your inner work is to remember that Hashem is beyond you.

"You must remember this so that you do not lose yourself in the feeling of ascent and become intoxicated with your own experience.

"On the other hand, when you descend into a painful and broken place in the relationship, when you feel as though you are in darkness, your work is to recognize that Hashem is present there as well. Hashem is with you even at the lowest point.

"Our sages teach that when a person lies on their deathbed, the Divine Presence is with them.

"It is often in moments of ascent that the greatest danger of falling exists. When a person feels they have already reached the destination, the fall can come swiftly. The awareness that Hashem is always beyond us protects the ascent and allows it to continue with humility and stability."

This article was inspired by the book Nefesh Beriah by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh.