communication

The Best Ways To Screw Up A Relationship

Martin Cooney

Aug 10, 2010 — 7 min read

As Well As How To ‘Un-Screw-up’

I’d be pretty much like anyone else – knowing there’s no ‘perfect way’ to hold a healthy relationship together.

Having said that, my experience and research have given me some initial areas that I’ve worked on (and continue to work on) around my relationships with those close to me – as well as maintaining these values through the core of my being.

Given my own mental ‘profile’ and outlook, I’m always looking and researching in maintaining a healthy relationship. And it certainly seems that relationships are a human beings’ continual failing in life.

By that I mean we have successes as well as failures however, mostly, the successes are almost achieved by accident, as we stumble through life. We tend to concentrate on material things more than we put effort into ensuring our life partner and soul mate are happy and looked after in so many ways.

When your partner is happy and contented then it’s almost a mirror of what you’ll receive in return.

The old saying of ‘give and you will receive’.

So here’s a few areas that I’ve found are on the top of the list of relationship failings.

Trust Issues

Such a minefield this one.

When any new relationship starts off, there’s always going to be some underlying challenges with trust.

I mean, it’s not you, is it?

It’s another completely different human being with their own history, development, and views on things. And couple all that on the simple differences between males and females.

You know those pangs of jealousy when you’re living with someone and they go out with their friends and mates without you?

Listen … trust is going to be a leap of faith initially, despite whatever baggage or preconceptions you already have lurking in your background and history. Providing you already have a reasonably good communication rapport with your partner, you’ll know why they, as an example, they’re going out with their friends.

Women need conversation and oft times they feel a different type of comfort in the company of other women friends.

So if they have a hankering for a coffee, let them.

Resist that overpowering desire to call them – if they’re in trouble or want to talk to you while they’re out with their friends, they’ll call you!

There’s also that desire to check up on her when you have a chance to scan through her phone, isn’t there? Don’t even think about that one. How would you feel if you discovered your own phone had been searched without your knowledge or consent?

Lack of trust can certainly be a relationship killer.

Remember: Leap of Faith and your relationship will blossom.

Insecurity

Personally, I think security has to first come from within.

Do you love yourself for who you are and what you represent because you should?

Do you love your partner for who they are, what they’re about, and what you gain from them as both a person as well as your partner (or your other half)?

If the answer to those questions is ‘Yes’ then you’ve only got your own inner voices to contend with, haven’t you?

Those voices that say ‘Will she love me if I do this or that?’ or ‘does she think I’m more handsome than some other guy?’ The honest truth here is she loves you for who you are now. Seconding guessing someone else in your head is just plain silly.

Neither of you are mind readers, are you?

If you have a question in your head, pop it out of your mouth and ask your partner so you get the answer you seek and you have the added bonus of having a conversation and enjoying each others’ thoughts and ideas. And if she thinks someone else is more handsome and appealing than you are, do you honestly think she’d be with you now?

And these voices cause you to probably start fights with her as well. You might not realize it but insecurity has you constantly nitpicking over silly things just to prove your partner cares. ‘…Why didn’t you know what I was thinking, you should have known what I wanted …’ – Hello, kinda crazy to even contemplate your partner can read your mind, isn’t it?

Insecurity is like cancer in a relationship.

Starts off small and gradually eats away and grows in mass until things deteriorate and fall apart.

Jealousy

Jealousy can really screw things up. Jealousy has insecurity attached too, I think.

I’m sure you’re aware of that feeling when you’re strolling merrily along with your partner and he/she ‘checks’ out the opposite sex with a casual glance. That inner voice says ‘Christ, what’s that about? He/She is bloody well perving on them.’

What are you thinking?

It’s really kind of natural to admire a good-looking specimen of anything. Do you get that feeling if they admire a good-looking pair of shoes, a beautiful horse, or anything else that looks nice? A cool thing to do is comment on the other person that was being checked out.

My partner and I often ‘people watch’ as we’re having a coffee in a mall. People watching is fun – it’s a conversation between two people.

What kind of person is the other person
Where do you think they are going
What they’ve been doing.
Or ‘She’s got big boobs’
‘He’s got a fat arse’
‘He’s really showing off those bulging biceps, isn’t he?
What a poser’.

Do you get it?

Instead of getting jealousy in your head, turn it around to be a positive and maintain that healthy relationship, and shove those voices away, where they’re never to surface.