Managing a romantic relationship can be very tricky at times. Even if we believe we want it to work out, often if you take a look beneath the surface, you’ll realize that you’re actually sabotaging your own relationship subconsciously. You may try to blame your partner, your friends, or your family for your unhappiness, but sometimes the problem is really just your own self-sabotage. Here are some signs that you might be secretly sabotaging your own relationship without even realizing it.
1. You frequently put other people ahead of your relationship.
The most important person in your relationship should be your partner. Not your best friend, not your mother, but your man. If you want your relationship to last, you have to give it priority in your life. This means that you can’t always put other people and things ahead of your relationship. If you are constantly rescheduling plans with your guy because something you think is more important came up with your girl friend, or if you’re always taking someone else’s side instead of supporting your partner, you might be sabotaging your relationship without even knowing it.
2. You’re afraid of getting hurt so you avoid getting too close.
It can be scary to let someone in. The closer you are to someone, the easier it can be for them to hurt you if they decided to. When you are in a relationship, though, you have to trust that they won’t. By avoiding letting your man in too close, you show a lack of faith in him and this isn’t good for your relationship. You’ll never get anywhere with him if you keep putting up barriers. If you want to stop undermining your own relationship with a lack of trust, it’s time to take a leap of faith and let your man fully enter your heart.
3. You have unrealistic expectations of your man in the relationship.
Modern romance movies tend to give us unrealistic ideas of what love should be,and it can be easy to project these unrealistic expectations into what we want out of our own relationship. It’s not fair to expect too much from your guy, especially if he’s already putting as much effort as he can into the relationship. You can’t expect your guy to bring home huge bouquets of flowers every week and take you horseback riding in the rain after a midsummer ball. This is real life and he has real responsibilities–bills to pay, family relationships to maintain, health to worry about–just like you do. He doesn’t pressure you to be a real-life version of the women from movies, so try not to burden your guy with unrealistic expectations yourself.
4. You go to your friend when having relationship problems, not your partner.
When you’re upset with something about your relationship or something that your partner has done, who is the person that you turn to? If your answer is anyone else besides your man, you got a problem. You cannot work out a problem that’s between you and your guy by venting about it to your best friend instead. You need to talk to your partner when you’re having issues so that you can work on it together. When you go to someone else instead of him, not only are you doing nothing to work on the issues at hand but you’re also self-sabotaging in the form of putting someone else ahead of your man. While it’s great to have your friends as support, you have to solve the issue with your man.
5. You focus only on the bad, forgetting to appreciate the good.
One of the easiest ways to sabotage your own relationship without intending to is by always focusing on the bad. Of course, if there are more bad moments than good, then it might be time to end things anyways. But sometimes, it can be easy to overlook the good and focus only on the bad moments. While you’re frustrated that he keeps leaving his laundry on the bathroom floor even though you’ve asked him to stop 12 times already, don’t forget about how he cooked you dinner last night when you were dead-tired without even being asked to. Don’t take the good things that your partner does for granted; an unappreciated person in a relationship won’t want to stay forever.
Now that your eyes have been opened up to some of the ways that you might be unintentionally sabotaging your own relationship, maybe it’s time to reevaluate. Don’t forget that a relationship is a two-way street–there’s just as much give as there is take, so start doing your part or you might find yourself alone sooner than later.