10 Ways to Ruin Your Relationship

Ever feel that your relationship suffers from a unique brand of frustration, tension, distance, or any number of other troubling feelings?  

1. Be critical. Even "constructive" criticism can make your partner defensive and reduce the feeling of safety in a relationship. Being harsh and judgmental when angry can trigger a "flight or fight response."

2. Insist your partner be exactly the same as you. If you insist your partner have the same feelings and perceptions as you do, it can lead to despair and misery.

3. Flee from intimacy. If you habitually avoid being physically or emotionally close with your partner through escaping into work, hobbies, television, or other activities, you risk creating a divide between you and your partner that may become impossible to breach.

4. Play the blame game. Using "you" language when upset will make your partner put up their defenses. When your goal is to communicate in a way that fosters intimacy, use statements that begin with "I feel" instead.

5. Bargain. They warn against doing something for a partner only when you want something in exchange.

6. Be casual about romance. No relationship can be spontaneously joyful forever. Once the initial excitement of a new romance wears off, some couples think their relationship is over and give up trying. They risk missing out on experiencing a deeper kind of love.

7. Focus on the negative. If you constantly think and talk about your partner's flaws it can amplify your discontent. Hendrix points out that a paradox of most forms of couples therapy is that you spend your sessions complaining about your partner—something that can actually be detrimental to your relationship.

8. Refuse to listen. Thinking you are the right all the time and engaging in a one-way monologue is a great way to end up in a relationship.

9. Hide your needs. If you don't express what you need and want to your partner, you'll constantly feel deprived and frustrated.


10. Expect a fairytale romance. Fairy tales are just that and eventually we all have to come down to earth. Demanding the fantasy go on forever prevents your partner from ever being their authentic self and fosters resentment and distance.