5 Habits That Can Ruin Your Relationship

Raymond, a member of a book club i joined early last year, recently ended his relationship owing to certain bad habits. He once threatened a female club member simply for failing to pay him back the money she owed him on time.

“I was only kidding,” Pascal said after the whole ordeal.

Even when they experience the tragedy that comes with their terrible behavior, most people with bad habits find it difficult to recognize that their practice is toxic to those around them.

Raymond ended up losing his marriage, months later. His wife, who had been coping with his habits since they married, had finally given up on him. Despite his strong exterior and aggressive demeanor, he lamented the loss of his wife, whom he adored.

Some of our practices are the root of our relationship’s collapse. Here are a few bad habits to avoid in your relationship and ways to avoid them.

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Anger

According to the Cambridge English dictionary, anger is a powerful emotion that causes you to desire to damage someone or be nasty as a result of something unfair or unkind that has occurred. Anger is a natural, healthy emotion that is neither good nor evil.

Anger, on the other hand, if not managed properly, can leave lasting wounds in the people you care about and jeopardize friendships and relationships.
Anger is a common human emotion that everyone encounters regularly. However, if you lose control of how often you get angry or how self-aware you are while you’re upset, your anger is likely to harm your relationships with those around you.
Being furious more frequently without knowing why, or even discussing it with your loved ones.
Doing things or remembering experiences that will intentionally put you in a foul mood and make you furious to utilize it as a distraction from your troubles.

Forging imaginary disputes with someone you love and care about, responding to those disagreements with angry words, which will eventually manifest into reality, causing hostility against individuals you love and care about. This behavior causes you to erupt repeatedly for no apparent reason, causing a long-term connection or relationship to deteriorate.

How to change this:

Many people believe that learning to control your anger is all there is to anger management. However, it is not a good goal to never become furious. Anger is natural, and no matter how hard we try to keep it under control, it will emerge.

The ultimate purpose of anger management is to comprehend the message underlying the emotion and express it in a healthy way without losing control, rather than repressing feelings of anger. You’ll not only feel better, but you’ll be more likely to interact with others and develop your relationship as a result.

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Blame shifting

Blame-shifting is a manipulative technique employed by the abuser in a relationship to make bad situations appear to be your fault.
The majority of individuals despise being held accountable for their actions, especially when the consequences are disastrous.

When things don’t go their way, those who have this propensity make a big issue about it.
Blame shifting is a crucial issue that has damaged many relationships because those who enjoy criticizing others for their conduct never run out of defects to point out, leaving their partners feeling teased by blames, even when they have no idea what they’ve done wrong.

People who blame shift are aware of their mistakes, but they prefer to ignore them, blaming them on others instead. Nobody wants to be blamed for something they didn’t do, so not owning up to your actions will make you believe you are great in every manner, making others look inferior to you and forcing you to blame them all the time, ruining the chemistry you had with them.

How to change this:

The most significant life lessons can be learnt from making poor decisions. Nobody is perfect, but admitting your flaws and working to improve them is a courageous start. Emotionally mature individuals accept full responsibility for their acts and seek to make amends.

Stop escaping responsibilities if you want to have a healthy long-lasting relationship.

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Dishonesty

The foundation of a healthy relationship is honesty and trust. Only when couples are completely honest with one other can trust be built. How calm and trusting your spouse may be with you depends on how open and honest you are with them.
Dishonesty destroys relationships and demonstrates a lack of regard for your partner. Some partners are afraid of constantly being truthful because they believe it would jeopardize their relationship, even though falsehoods are more detrimental. Telling the truth at all costs demonstrates how much your partner values and respects you.
In a relationship, not being honest not only destroys your partner’s trust in you but also makes you mistrust other people around you.

How to change this:

Learn to own up to your lies and tell your partner everything. Apologize for your dishonesty and promise to be more honest with each other in the future. Allow your partner to select what will rebuild trust and then commit to doing it, especially when it comes to major dishonesty like disloyalty.

Grudge

When you enjoy being enraged over something your spouse did in the past, when you always feel like getting your revenge on something your partner did to you a long time ago, when you’re always trying to show people how bad someone else is just because you’re hurt over something they did in the past, you’re more than likely to end up alone.
Grudge is a habit that not only affects people emotionally but also physically. Having a long list of grudges against others might lead to despair. This is harmful to a person’s health. Always wallowing in grief over how someone else has harmed you tends to build a long-term hatred in your heart for that person.

How to stop this:

Learn to forgive, and always feel free to let go, even if you’ve been badly injured; you’ll feel a sense of relief when you do because bearing grudges is like carrying a heavy load.

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Pride

A misguided and irrationally perverted perception of one’s value, prestige, or accomplishments is referred to as pride. So many friendships and relationships have been shattered by pride.

You get the notion that you’re better than others when you’re full of pride. We all have a little bit of pride, but not being able to control it puts your relationship in jeopardy, wreaking havoc on your love life.

People who are excessively proud of themselves believe they are always correct, thus they have no motivation to strive to make amends for their mistakes.

Though pride is sometimes confused with self-esteem, when you’re always too proud to apologize to your partner when you’ve mistreated them, you’re obviously displaying pride.

People who are very proud of themselves feel they are always accurate, so they have little desire to fix their errors. Though pride is sometimes confused with self-esteem, it’s clear when you’re too proud to apologize to your partner when you’ve mistreated them.

How to change this:

Let go of your ego and learn to apologize to those you’ve wronged. Being humble does not always imply a loss of self-confidence. Relax a little, expose your flaws to those you care about, and watch your connection grow.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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