What Every Couple Absolutely Needs To Stop Doing
(WellnessPursuits.com) – Maintaining long term relationships can be challenging, because we adopt some habits we continuously repeat without realizing how destructive they may be. Habits have power. We try something, it brings some kind of satisfaction, so we repeat it. If we repeat it often enough, the behavior becomes comfortable to us… it becomes a default position that we automatically go to.
The danger is, what may be comfortable for us may be extremely uncomfortable for our partner.
For example, let’s say a situation occurs… maybe our partner forgot something that we saw as important. We pointed it out, they apologized. The next time it happened, we again pointed it out, only this time we added some critical jab. They apologized.
Over the course of time this pattern repeats, and instead of just reminding them, we’ve gotten into the destructive habit of adding criticism too. So, instead of just getting past the situation, our criticism builds up in our partner and they feel attacked and unappreciated.
What started out as a passing ‘mistake’, becomes a situation where a destructive wedge can come between the couple over time.
Criticism is only one of 10 things we may find ourselves doing that can erode a relationship. I found several enlightening articles on the Web to help me with this, and with what I knew and what I learned, I compiled a list of 10 destructive habits that I hope will be useful to you.
I used this list of 10 as a check-list for my own relationship. I’m for sure paying attention to #1 (Being distracted and only “half” listening), and #2 (Talking over them).
Here’s the list of things Every Couple Absolutely Needs To Stop Doing:
1. Being distracted and only “half” listening
2. Talking over them
3. Being disrespectful in public (or private)
4. Not following through with commitments
5. Overspending and hiding it
6. Attacking with criticism
7. Making the relationship a low priority
8. Trying to change one another
9. Lying
10.Keeping score
As you read this list and make mental notes about your own relationship, if you think of any other ‘bad’ habits that couples get into, please share in the comment section below. Wellness Pursuits is a site where we can learn, enjoy and share our life experiences with one another.
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