Hello and welcome back to the Therapy Spot! This week, let’s talk about those times when our relationships go topsy-turvy. Have you and your partner reached the point where you can’t tell up from down or left from right? Have things just stopped making sense? Chances are, you’ve stumbled into a mystery spot.

From Santa Cruz, California to Rose City, Michigan, America has a smattering of locations known as Mystery Spots. Usually advertised on attention-grabbing road signs, strange things happen in these spots.

• People stand at impossible angles
• Water flows backwards and balls roll uphill
• Tall people appear shorter

For anyone taking a road trip, these mystery spots offer a short detour into the silly and confusing. If you’ve found yourself in a mystery spot in your relationship, however, you have all of the confusion and none of the silliness.

Uneven Footing

What does it look like when you start circling a mystery spot?

• First, you notice that something is off balance.
• Then the arguments begin — but these disagreements don’t make sense.
• Finally, anger and meanness linger long after those arguments.

Relationships have a clear objective: for both parties to work together to create harmony. Working as a team, you can uncover what is negatively influencing your conversations. What you need to do is step back and get the bigger picture.

Although they’re fun to visit, Mystery Spots aren’t actually magical — they’re really just optical illusions that disorient us with a lack of vertical references. As a result of building these houses on tilted land, the interior structures confuse our point of view. A new perspective is all you need to reorient yourself.

The mystery spot can keep a loving couple in disagreement and meanness, until you change your perspective. Look for the bigger picture. Remember, a relationship is only as happy as its unhappiest member!

Image Credit

“9238” by Flickr user Panegyrics of Granovetter, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.