5 Subtle Signs You Might Be Sabotaging Your Relationship

It’s exactly 4:49 P.M and Nick seems to have been done with the day’s task list assigned to him.

So he sat quietly on his desk staring absentmindedly at nothing in particular, thinking about his girlfriend.

He remembered telling her he loves her before leaving for work in the morning. (Something that’s now done routinely with almost no emotions attached to the words.)

But Nick feels quite contented, comfortable, and appreciative that his relationship with Jennifer is quite stable and things are going great.

But Jennifer? She feels entirely different.

No, she loves Nick so much and pretty wants to be with him for as long as possible.

But feel stressed from an endless search of validations for all the amazing, yet overwhelming feelings they have for each other.

She’s stressed and overly worried about the feelings of her boyfriend and the status of their relationship.

And it’s not because she’s helplessly insecure.

But because Nick’s actions don’t always align with his words even though he always makes sure to tell her he loves her.

He keeps putting up behaviors that subtly prove otherwise.

If such behaviors are done occasionally and not consistently, she wouldn’t have put much thought into them.

But it just seems like he’s deliberately trying to sabotage their happiness and relationship.

Are you wondering if you’re also sabotaging your relationship?

Here are a few signs you should consider watching out for:

#1. You always overlook little commitments

Relationships turn out to be extremely shallow and superficial, if there’s a lack of solid respect and things are always taken for granted.

And failure to always honor little commitments you make to your partner is nothing but a lack of solid respect for yourself, your partner, and your relationship.

Because when you don’t always honor the little commitments you make to your partner, it’s a message to your partner’s subconscious mind that your words don’t mean much and can’t be trusted.

That’s why you’ll be sabotaging your relationship if you endlessly overlook little commitments like promises to call, text, or show up on time, etc.

Because when it’s clear to your partner that your words aren’t trustworthy and don’t mean much, it becomes obvious that their concerns don’t mean much to you, that you’re full of shit, and that you don’t respect yourself enough to keep to your words.

For sure, we are all humans and forgetfulness is fully ingrained in our nature. Hence, it’s quite harmless and normal to fail at honoring commitments once, twice, or occasionally.

But if you tend to do it repeatedly even though your partner always complains about it each time and you keep regarding their complaints as an overreaction, your relationship is headed to the dumps.

You might consider them little but when little mistakes are made consistently, they’ll eventually become huge enough to impact your relationship in ways you may not expect.

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#2. You always have a victim mentality towards every fight

Instead of being emotionally mature enough to take responsibility for the roles they play in fights and conflicts, some people sabotage their relationships with their victim mentality towards every fight.

They constantly enjoy blaming their partners even for problems they single-handedly caused.

They lash out and make their partners feel like they aren’t good enough. Like they’re always wrong, and worse, they make them feel guilty always.

These people have this instinctual habits of pointing fingers and blaming other people or circumstances, or any other acts that help them gain pity, sympathy, and attention from others which is nothing but an act of manipulation.

That’s why their relationships always turn out to be shitty and mediocre because their unending urge to be on the victim side of every fight while blaming their partners hugely for everything, ruins every relationship they find themselves in.

If you’re constantly telling yourself that you’re the victim and tortured party in your relationship, especially during conflicts, you’ll be making it difficult for those conflicts to be resolved and that can lead to serious problems in your relationship.

You might be feeling like the world is always chasing you and like the bad things that happen in your life aren’t your fault, but deflecting blame and responsibilities that are yours to your partner is nothing but emotional abuse.

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#3. You’re always afraid of conflicts

If it ever feels like you’re always trying too hard to avoid getting mad at your partner because of a strong urge to avoid conflicts in your relationship, it’s mostly because you have a deep-seated lack of trust in yourself and your partner.

To be specific, it’s a lack of trust in your partner’s reaction that prompts you to always expect negative reactions from your partner if you assert your feelings.

And also a lack of trust in your ability to deal with possible conflicts that completely cripples you from opening up on your anger, pain, frustration, insecurities, and other not-so-cool feelings.

For example, you might be stonewalling or pretending an issue doesn’t exist and simply ignore it.
Or you might deliberately dodge conversations and endure uncomfortable situations instead of opening up and addressing the issues.

Which is nothing but a people-pleasing behavior that often stems from a deep-rooted fear of upsetting others probably due to an environmental background that was dismissive and hypercritical.

But the truth is that when you find yourself in a situation where your partner does something upsetting to you, it’s easy to think that hiding your annoyance and avoiding subsequent dramas and conflicts is the easiest way to protect your relationship.

But that isn’t true.

You can get in touch with your feelings and confidently face your fears head-on and speak up for yourself.

Because anything other than that will only hinder clear communication that’ll be needed to solve the issue.

Instead of leaving it unresolved which will eventually ruin the relationship in the long run.

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#4. You’re idolizing your partner

Some people simply sabotage their relationships by helplessly idolizing their partners and relationships.

They simply act and behave like their partners and relationships are golden prices they won despite being undeserving or unworthy of the prices.

Making them so scared that their partners might dump them any time soon which is not a healthy position to be in.

The problem of being insecure enough to put one’s partner on a pedestal and feeling unworthy or undeserving of a relationship with them is that it ends up pushing them away from you as they constantly feel dehumanized instead of feeling a deep connection with you.

What’s even worse is feeling anxious and scared that a lover will dump you and as a result, seek reassurance and validation constantly. Because it will make your fears more likely to become self-fulfilling prophecies.

But if you truly want to enjoy healthy and satisfying relationships, you need to love and value yourself enough to have a belief system that makes you feel deserving of the very best things life has to offer.

You don’t need to hold on to the notion that you are the lucky one in a relationship or struggle to believe that your partner loves you as that’ll mean you don’t equally love yourself.

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#5. You’re too comfortable in your relationship

We all know that putting less effort into our relationships causes us to drift apart from our partners.

Yet, some people simply get too comfortable in their relationships that they completely forsake trying to put in the best possible efforts they could in their relationships to ensure positive growth.

If you now take your partner for granted that you no longer care to make your partner feel appreciated …

If you now often throw plenty of cynical and hurtful comments at your partner …

Or if you now think you know your partner’s thoughts and feelings before they even say it but it doesn’t necessarily seem so, you’ve obviously fallen into complacency in your relationship.

Worse, if one, or all of the above describes your relationship, you’re headed on the path to ruin it all. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy being comfortable with each other.

But people who are contented and in peace with how things are in their relationships but are willing to work on improvements tend to enjoy deeper and more satisfying relationships.

Because they are always comfortable with their partners but not to the extent that they only discuss professional or domestic responsibilities when they’re together, neither do they forget to cherish and appreciate their partners.

Hence, if it ever feels like it’s easier to do nothing but put up behaviors that are nothing more than taking your partner and relationship for granted, your too much comfort will eventually cost you the relationship.

Because the problem of being complacent in a relationship is that it leads to apathy and passivity making everything demotivating and eventually disconnecting one from his or her partner.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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