From financial insecurities to physical abuse, there are all sorts of reasons romantic relationships don’t work out. But if you find yourself stuck in a pattern of relationships that don’t last, there may be some subtle psychological reasons why.
Over past two decades as relationships and fertility coach, I’ve observed 10 common patterns that sabotage people’s long-term relationships over and over again.
If you can learn to see them and work through them, I dare to say your chances of finding a satisfying long-term relationship will increase dramatically.
1. You’re afraid to ask for what you really want
Being a coach means I hear all the requests people wish they could make with their partners but are too afraid to:
- I wish we had more sex, but it’s a weird thing to just say. Plus, I don’t want him to feel bad…
- It’d be nice if we went on more dates – like we used to when we were dating
- I want to spend more time with my friends, but he gets so insecure anytime I do things without him
Yes, sometimes it’s hard and embarrassing and scary to be direct and ask for what you want, but what’s the alternative… Just sit around hoping things get better and all of a sudden your deepest wants and needs start getting met by magic?
Your relationship won’t work if you’re not willing to work for yourself.
Unfortunately, many people are taught to be overly polite and respectful and considerate of other people’s wants and needs to such an extent that they ignore their own. And when you chronically ignore your own legitimate wants and needs, you’ll end up seriously resentful – and very likely, find yourself sabotaging the relationship.
The solution is to become more assertive – to communicate your wants and needs in a way that’s honest to yourself and respectful of others. Like anything, it’s difficult, but with practice it is a skill you can learn and improve.
2. You’re afraid to say ‘no’ to what you don’t want
This one’s the flip side of the previous point: If you can’t say no to what you don’t want, you’ll end up just as unhappy and resentful as if you don’t ask for what you do want:
Can you say no when your partner suggests getting burritos for the third time this week?
Can you say no when they want to have sex but you don’t?
Can you say no when they want to take that new job that requires working an extra 30 hours per week?
Obviously, all healthy relationships require some compromise, but if you’re habitually compromising on everything – or on things that are deal-breakers for you – how healthy can your relationship be?
The willingness to say no is about standing up for yourself – it’s about giving yourself the same level of respect you give to others.
If you can’t do that, how could the relationship not become one-sided, unhealthy, and eventually fall apart?
3. You’re not willing to enforce your boundaries
It’s one thing to set healthy boundaries. The hard part is enforcing them:
You can say you’d like your partner to remember to take out the trash on Tuesday evenings, but what are you willing to do if they don’t?
You can say you’d like Thai food instead of Italian, but what good is it if you give in and “just go with it” every time because they make such a fuss?
Healthy relationships depend on healthy boundaries, but here’s the pitfall:
Boundaries are worthless if you’re not willing to enforce them.
And actually, it’s worse than that – if you chronically set boundaries but don’t enforce them, you’re training your partner to not take your wishes seriously, which only makes the problem worse.
It may feel uncomfortable, but it’s crucial that you get used to setting and enforcing boundaries early and often in your relationships. Because despite our best hopes and desires, it’s very hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
4. You depend on your partner to feel better
Classic love story:
Insecure, self-doubting Partner A meets overly-confident, quasi-narcissistic Partner B. Initially, things feel great: Insecure Partner A brings every worry and concern to confident Partner B who makes everything feel better with definitive reassurances of every kind. But quickly, things fall apart: Insecure Partner A realizes that confident reassurances don’t actually address the core insecurity. All the while, overly-confident Partner B starts to resent Partner A as “too needy” and “fragile.” Gulfs form, resentments fester, trust disappears, and eventually the relationship dies – sometimes with a bang, often with a long, drawn-out whimper.
Moral of the story:
Your emotional wellbeing is your responsibility. Don’t make it your partner’s.
Obviously, other people do matter for our emotional health and wellbeing, but if you go into a relationship depending on the other person to feel okay, you’re setting up the relationship to fail from the beginning.
5. You overrate the importance of complementarity
Opposites attract…and then they explode.
Initially, it feels good to be with someone who’s very different from you in key areas because it feels like they make you better by complimenting you:
Your extroverted partner makes it easier for you to say yes to social events
Your confident partner makes you feel a little less insecure
Your organized partner helps you avoid big-time errors running your business
But those compliments quickly devolve into resentments:
- He’s such a bore… He never wants to go out or socialize
- They’re always telling me how I should feel and how silly it is to worry
- She’s so rigid and controlling… It makes me feel like a kid in school
While tempting initially, basing your relationship on complementarity is often a recipe for disappointment, distance, and resentment.
Here’s a different way to think about it:
Healthy relationships happen when you and your partner are compatible, not complementary.
Compatibility means because of what you share, you’re able to work together as a team. And to feel as though you’re a team. Because like any team, your similarities outweigh your differences.
When you’re deciding to get into a relationship, differences are appealing because they give the illusion of filling in our own psychological needs. But in the long run, it’s the things you agree on and share that define the strength and happiness of your relationship.
6. You don’t have good models for healthy relationships
We all like to think of ourselves as mature and intelligent decision-makers who make important life choices rationally and objectively, based on good reasoning and solid evidence.
But in reality, we’re all far more influenced by unconscious patterns than we like to admit.
And this is especially true of our relationship decisions: The relationships we choose are heavily influenced by the relationships we grew up around and the ones we see on a regular basis, which means…
If you’re surrounded by examples of unhealthy relationships, it’s very difficult to swim against the grain and choose a healthy one.
Instead of naively assuming that you can stand above all the social influences in your life, better to try and change the type of people and relationships you spend time around so that those powerful unconscious models work for you instead of against you.
7. You have low standards for emotional maturity
I’ve probably heard this story a hundred times:
“…But he was so handsome and funny and smart… How was I supposed to know he had the emotional maturity of a 14-year-old?”
The problem here is that we assume people’s level of maturity is consistent across different areas. But as you can probably tell when you stop and think about it, just because someone is mature in one area of life doesn’t mean they’re equally mature in all areas of life:
He may be older and more socially sophisticated than most of the boys you typically date, but does that mean he’s emotionally mature and capable of, say, admitting when he’s wrong?
She may be incredibly well-educated and intellectually mature, but does that mean she’s emotionally mature enough to handle stress well and be resilient in the face of failure?
No matter how smart or successful or charming they are, if they’re not emotionally mature, your relationship will be unhappy.
Unfortunately, most people have incredibly low standards for emotional maturity. And while your partner’s defensiveness in difficult conversations or avoidance of talking about feelings may not feel like a big deal when you’re dating, I guarantee it’s going to feel like a big deal when you’re raising kids, or trying to buy a house, or dealing with the loss of a job.
Just say no to emotionally immature partners. Your future self will thank you.
8. You gossip about your relationship
Relationships are built on trust.
Yes, it’s a cliche, but it’s a true one that we’d all do well to think more carefully about.
Specifically, it’s worth looking closely at where you tend to lose trust in relationships. And one of the biggest places I see lack of trust coming from is something that seems innocent and harmless to many people: Gossiping about your relationship with third parties.
Of course, this seems natural enough:
You and your partner have a big fight, so you meet up with your buddies at the bar and vent for a while
Your partner says something insensitive that really hurts, so you instinctively call up your mom to complain
You’re having trouble conceiving, so you “process” your worries and insecurities with your best friend
Now, I’m not saying any of these are bad necessarily. But if you’re talking about your partner or your relationship with a third party, and there’s a good chance your partner wouldn’t want you to, that’s problematic.
You and your partner need to be crystal clear on what’s okay to talk about outside the relationship and what needs to stay in the relationship.
If you find yourself habitually talking about relationship difficulties outside the relationship, maybe you need a better way to talk about relationship difficulties inside your relationship. Or maybe you just need a different relationship.
9. You have unrealistic expectations of your partner
Most people get into long-term relationships too quickly or without good judgment. As a result, they often find themselves stuck with partners who simply aren’t a good fit.
Understandably, this is a painful realization. And rather than confronting that painful reality and dealing with it, they avoid it by living in denial. They assume that if they work really hard, and if they convince their partner to work really hard, everything will be okay. Sadly, it probably won’t.
But one of the ways people maintain the illusion of control over their relationships is high expectations. When you tell yourself someone should act a certain way or be a certain way, it gives you the illusion of control and certainty. But just because you really expect someone to be a certain way, or you expect your relationship to be a certain way, says nothing about whether it’s possible.
Unfortunately, it gets worse…
Not only do your unrealistic expectations not make things better, often they amplify an already bad situation because they make people feel bad for not being something else.
Everybody suffers when you expect people to be more than they’re capable of.
The best way to avoid unrealistic expectations and all the conflict and resentment that comes out of them is to choose your partner wisely from the beginning.
10. You don’t know what your values are
I’ll keep this final section short and sweet:
How can you expect to find a partner who’s right for you if you don’t know what’s right for you?
Values are the things that matter most in our lives. They’re our highest principles and the things we aspire to. The problem is, for many of us, we simply inherit our values without much conscious deliberation about whether they’re a good fit for us.
So, if you choose a partner based on values that aren’t really your own, is it any surprise that you attract people who aren’t a good fit for you?
If you want to find a partner you’re deeply compatible with, make sure your values are really your own.
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