Those of you who are or have been in a relationship can relate to how wonderful or excruciating it is/has been, depending on your situation. Some relationships that are seemingly incompatible can instead become life-long partnerships, while seemingly perfect ones can unexpectedly turn sour.
While there’s not a single factor that can break every relationship, there nevertheless are signs that you can be on the lookout for to minimize the chance of yours going south.
Here are 9 of them.
1. Lack of Open Communication
If sharing is caring, then keeping everything to yourself and expecting your partner to understand what’s going on is not caring. Both you and your partner need to have things that you can openly share with each other, especially things that you need to get off your chest.
Not sharing, on the other hand, can easily lead to misunderstandings from both parties since you’re basically expecting your partner to be a mind reader.
2. Blackmailing or Causing Emotional Guilt
Guilt-tripping your partner is never a good thing because of the emotional burden that it creates. It also makes you a pathetic human being for lowering yourself to such standards to get what you want.
Similarly, be on the lookout if you are frequently being guilt-tripped by your significant other. It could be a sign that something in your relationship is broken and needs fixing.
3. Constantly and Blatantly Criticizing Your Partner
Being in a relationship involves having to deal with a human being who has their own habits, thoughts, and reactions. It’s far different from dealing with an inanimate object or a pet since these won’t fight back. You can thus expect yourself to be critical of your partner some of the time.
Criticism isn’t always a bad thing and is most welcome when it is constructive, like when it’ll help make the other person better.
Why?
It’s because it degrades your partner’s worth as a human being by destroying their self-esteem. You’d think that anyone who constantly criticizes their partner would find it easier to just drop the relationship and look elsewhere.
4. Not Taking Responsibilities
The beginning of most, if not all, interpersonal relationships is infatuation instead of love, no matter how one spins it. True love, however, only comes about after a period of time of being familiar with each other. This is also when responsibilities start to appear.
Responsibilities are, unfortunately, often an overlooked yet unavoidable part of being in a committed relationship. They can include things like walking the dog, doing laundry, and making the bed. All commitments come with responsibilities, so it’d be in your interest to not shirk them.
5. Sweeping Things Under the Rug
It’s smarter to put out the fire instead of covering it up with more straws.
Take, for example, a bad habit that you cannot stand about your partner. It’d be best that both of you sit down and have an open discussion about the issue for everyone’s long-term benefit.
It also makes it one less burden that the both of you have to deal with.
6. Keeping Secrets From One Another
Everyone has secrets, and that’s fine. It’s the matters that need to be shared with your partner but aren’t that are the most destructive to everyone involved.
Holding a secret, especially if it’s a dark one, can eat away at your soul a little at a time until you no longer recognize the real you.
Revealing your secrets can be just as painful. The upside is that you no longer have to carry with you that invisible burden any longer than is necessary.
Give this article a read if you want to know how to tell the truth even if it hurts.
7. Dwelling in Negativity
Nobody is perfect and there will undoubtedly be times when you get annoyed by your partner. Constantly dwelling in the not-so-good parts of your relationship is just dumb because negativity invites more negativity.
8. Keeping Score
Keeping tabs of your relationship the way you keep tabs of your bills is a recipe for disaster.
For example, just because you got flowers for your partner’s birthday doesn’t mean they should do the same for you.
It’s like playing tit-for-tat wIt’s like playing tit-for-tat where your actions and reactions depend on another’s. This may be fine if you’re dealing with a competitor, but acting in this way when it comes to your partner isn’t going to do anyone any good.
9. Lack of Freedom
Everyone needs some time by themselves, no matter what. You don’t want to surround your partner 24/7 because that would be no different from imprisoning them.
Similarly, you’d want your partner to give you time to do things like going out with friends or pursuing your hobbies.
