How is your relationship with your partner right now? Everything is a bit messy because of the pandemic, but that’s not a reason to let your relationship go downhill.
I mean, sometimes we can get too used to a person that we stop caring about the little things that we used to do at the beginning of the relationship.
Don’t let your relationship fail. Pay attention to the things that aren’t working very well and try to fix them before it’s too late.
Now, let’s talk about the 5 relationship killers and toxic behaviours that’s leading your relationship to the ruins.
Check it out: How to Make a Man Fall in Love With You
1 – Having a controlling behaviour
Do you know that most people enter a relationship with a deep fear of rejection? And this fear motivates various forms of controlling behavior.
Controlling behavior falls into two major categories – overt control and covert control.
Overt control
Overt control includes many forms of attack, such as blaming anger, rage, violence, judgment, criticism and ridicule.
Convert control
Covert control includes compliance, enabling, withdrawal, defending, explaining, lying and denying.
Often a person at the other end of attack will respond with some form of covert control in an attempt to have control over not being attacked.
Controlling behavior always results in resentment and emotional distance, bringing about the very rejection that it is meant to avoid.
And this could be one of the relationship killers if not treated in time.
3 – Relationship killers: resistance
Many people enter a relationship with a deep fear of losing themselves and feel controlled by their partner.
So, the moment they experience their significant other expressing some form of “control” over them, they respond with resistance – withdrawal, unconsciousness, numbness, forgetfulness, and procrastination.
When one partner is controlling and the other is resistant – which is really an attempt to have control over not being controlled – the relationship becomes immobilized.
Partners in this relationship system feel frustrated, stagnant, and resentful and sometimes even rejected by their lover.
This alone can grow stronger and later become one of the relationship killers that would break your relationship to the bones.
3 – Be overly needy with your partner
Many people enter a relationship believing that it is their partner’s job to be the hero of their lives, fill all the empty gaps in them, solve all their problems and make them feel good about themselves.
When people have not learned how to take responsibility for their own feelings and needs, and to define their own self-worth, they may pull on their partner and others to fill them with the love they need. It’s sad but it’s true.
Can you imagine the weight on the shoulders of this type of relationship? You kinda feel that you are babysitting your significant other throughout their life.
This can be exhausting.
Substance and Process Addictions
Most people who feel empty inside turn to substance and process addictions in an attempt to fill their emptiness and take away the pain of their aloneness and loneliness.
Alcohol and drug abuse, food, spending, gambling, busyness, Internet sex and pornography, affairs, work, TV, accumulating things, beautifying, and so on, can all be used as ways to fill emptiness and avoid fears of failure, inadequacy, rejection and engulfment.
And they are all ways of shutting out your partner.
Eyes on Partners Plate
Many people are acutely aware of what their partner is doing that is causing relationship problems, but completely unaware of what they are doing.
For example, you might be very aware of your partner’s resistance or withdrawal, but totally unaware of your own judgmental behavior.
You might be very aware of your partner’s anger, but completely unaware of your own compliance.
You might be very aware of your partner’s addictive behavior, but very unaware of your own enabling.
As long as your eyes are on your partner instead of on yourself, you will continue to believe that if only your partner changed, everything would be okay.
Relationship killers: how to fix them
All relationship killers come from fear – of inadequacy, of failure and of rejection. But most importantly, it comes from the idea that your partner can fix all your problems for yourself.
As long as you are coming from any of these fears, you are pretty much likely to be behaving in one or more of the above ways.
The way out is to develop a loving adult self who knows how to take full responsibility for your own feelings and needs.
It’s easy? Of course not. But it’s completely possible.
The most important thing you have to do is to focus on yourself and try to be a better person everyday.
Only then, you will move beyond controlling, needy and addictive behavior only when you learn how to fill yourself with self confidence and define your own worth.
Conclusion
When you stop focusing yourself on your partner and turn your eyes fully on yourself, you will start to notice that not only your romantic relationship has improved but also your relationship with yourself.