Stop rushing your relationship before you destroy it

When love takes us by the hand, it can lead us into some strange places. Don’t let love rush your relationship into total destruction.

by: E.B. Johnson

Building a life with someone else is a delicate and nuanced process. Relationships need time to bloom organically, and we need time to get to know our partners (and ourselves) within these blossoming partnerships. When we love someone, though, we can feel as though we need to rush things, or rush toward some pre-conceived conclusion before they get a chance to runaway. Inspired by both insecurity and warped views, this rushing leads us right into disaster.

Instead of rushing yourself and your partner into a heartbreaking failure, you have to learn how to be present and cozy in the process. Find your natural flow as a couple and then figure out what you really want and need from such a relationship. Often, when we stop rushing things, we find that they become even more beautiful than before. You get to discover new aspects of one another, and your relationship, that can unveil even more fulfilling futures for you both.

Healthy partnerships take time to grow.

It’s easy to get overexcited by a new relationship. It’s just as easy to be blinded by the unreal expectations and standards we’ve been taught to believe. You may fall madly and deeply in love with someone who checks all the boxes for you. You may feel pressured by the stories and standards of society at large to build something quickly and hit certain milestones. Life is never a straight path for anyone, though, especially when it comes to love. We have to embrace the bumps, the setbacks, and even the mistakes so that we can form together honestly.

Healthy relationships take time to grow. It takes years (not days) to see the many facets of someone’s personality. Are they growth-oriented? Are they emotionally aware? Do they know what they want from their lives, or even what they want from you in the future? You can’t observe these answers overnight. You learn them by going through adversity and joy with your partner day-in and day-out.

The more you try to rush to the finish line in your relationships, the more things will become uncomfortable and disjointed. You need to see your partner as a companion, not a milestone. The life you’re building together needs to be an authentic alignment of goals, hopes, and affections. Slow things down and enjoy every moment of where you are now, so you can appreciate each other and the journey that you’re on.

What it looks like when we rush things.

Are you rushing your relationship? Are you pushing your partner too far, too fast? (And yourself even further?) From obsessive over-contact to a rebound with the past — this is what it often looks like when we push our relationships and rush them into boxes they don’t quite fit into.

Failing to set boundaries

Relationships generally have a couple of finish lines that we perceive to be critical. For most, that is marriage, purchasing of a house, and / or the building of a family with children. So much emphasis is placed on these milestones, that many of us lose sight of our relationships in the name of achieving them. We become so desperate that we’ll even completely fail to set boundaries and settle for people who don’t have our best interests at heart.

Obsessive contact

One of the hallmark signs of a relationship that’s being pushed forward too fast is an obsessive over-use or need for contact. This contact can be both in-person or over the phone. You might text them incessantly, or demand on spending all your free time with them. Often, this stems from insecurity, but it can also stem from the belief that “more is more”. You may have been raised to believe that this kind of obsessive attention demonstrates love and a desire to take things seriously (it doesn’t).

Over-focused on outcomes

How do you see your relationship? Is it a mutual journey to you, or is just another box to tick off on your to-do list for life? Some of us only want a serious relationship because we think it’s expected, or we think it will provide us with benefit. When we become over-focused on those outcomes, we lose sight of who we are and who our partner is too. We stop valuing them and appreciating them as unique individuals that bring value to our lives.

Feeling uncomfortable

Are you feeling uncomfortable in your relationship, but you can’t quite pinpoint why? Do things feel awkward or as though they might be “off”? This is a common side effect of living in a partnership that’s being rushed far beyond its natural bounds. Things become awkward because you’re trying to force together edges that don’t work. Only time allows us to grow slowly enough toward our partners so that we can better know and align with them and their needs.

Committing too quickly

Despite the “love at first sight” narrative we’ve been sold, love isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s a feeling and emotion that grows over time. Not to be confused with lust, love only happens once you’ve spent time with the good and bad sides of someone. When you say the “L” word too soon, or push exclusivity before the other person is ready — you’re over-committing yourself and asking them to make promises that they may not be prepared to make. You’re even coupling it with expectations, which creates even more pressure.

Sharing too much

There is absolutely such a thing as over-sharing, and some of us do it without realizing it. For some, we see this over-sharing as showing that we are trustworthy and open with ourselves and who we are. It can be overpowering, though, when over-sharing information about yourself or your past that someone isn’t quite prepared to process. Likewise, you can overly vulnerable. Trust, though, doesn’t come from your words…it comes with your action.

Trying to change the past

Have you recently gotten out of a challenging relationship, and now you’re determined to “do things right”?” Being on the rebound is a tricky place to be, and a common reason behind our need to rush or push things. It’s understandable. The pain of the past is hard to process and trying to build something that negates all the bad things that happened is tempting. Nothing can change what happened in the past, though. All we can do is process it and embrace the new, different, and better relationships that are waiting for us.

The best ways to slow down and embrace the process.

You can stop the rush before the rot sets in. You must first get clear on what you want from your relationship, though, and let go of your checklists (and your ego). When we drop the comparisons and get present in the moment, we can communicate more openly and appreciate the process for what it is.

1. Clear up what you want and why

Many of us rush our relationships because we’re trying to check-off certain “milestones” or perceived expectations that others put upon us. This can be the pressure put on us by families, or even society at large. We feel like we have to live up to certain standards, but these standards don’t always align with our true needs. In order to stop rushing, you need to be secure in what you want from your life and the love which fills it.

Spend some time on your own figuring out precisely what you want from a relationship and why you want it. Question your intentions, your approach, everything. What draws you to your partner? What do you intend for your lives to look like in 10, 15, 20 years?

Once you have those answers, question them. Are they the answers you feel expected to give? Or are they the answers that align with your wildest dreams? There are no right or wrong answers, but you can’t build a solid relationship if you don’t have a stable foundation. Be brutally honest with yourself, about yourself. What do you really need from a partnership to feel as though you are seen, wanted, supported, and content?

2. Let go of your checklist (and your ego)

Are you someone who has come to see a serious relationship as simply the “next step” in growing up or building the future you have envisioned? This is a toxic way to approach partnerships, and one which dehumanizes the person you choose to build a relationship with. Rather than rushing into something that isn’t authentic, pull back your ego and know that your relationship deserves more than a milestone check-mark.

Let go of the idea that your relationship will provide the stepping stone into your final level of happiness. That’s now how it works. We achieve fulfillment when we ensure that every aspect of our life is organic, present, and aligned with who we truly are. See your partner for who they are — not who you want them to be.

A relationship that “meets all the standards” isn’t always one that can bring you what you’re looking for. We have to be far more true to ourselves than that. Finding the “perfect partner” and the “perfect family” won’t make us more valuable, and it won’t propel us where we want to go. Life doesn’t have a secret code. The only way to be happy is to let go of your ego and allow yourself to explore the ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs of the world around you.

3. Drop your comparisons

How often do you find yourself comparing your relationships to that of others? Or even people you’ve seen in movie or on TV? Do you feel pressured to make your own relationships match those? Do you feel compelled to push your partnership into strange places in order to keep up with a what a cousin, a sister, or a sibling is doing? You have to put this toxic habit of comparing to bed once and for all. Otherwise, you’ll end up living in the shadow of someone else’s unhappiness.

When you feel the comparisons coming on, stop them in their tracks. No relationship is perfect. There’s no such as a partnership without flaws and disruptions. Compromising on a mutual life isn’t easy, and it’s full of frustrations. When you try to live up to the happiness of another relationship shows to the world, you’re really just trying to live up to its flaws.

Repeat it to yourself until your body and your mind know it’s true: No relationship is perfect. We don’t like to show our issues to the world, only the good things. Dismiss your comparisons as the irrational firings of your insecurities. No one else can build your relationship like you can. No one has your skills, and your ability to identify your needs. So put them to bed and allow your relationship to organically grow into whatever it needs to be.

4. Communicate with intention

So much gets lost in the mix when we fail to communicate with our partners. Sometimes, our pushing or rushing doesn’t have anything to do with standards or pressure from the outside — it has more to do with our failure to get on the same page within the relationship. You need to communicate with one another, and you need to do it frequently and with intention. That way, you can always be clear with one another, even as things grow and change.

Sit down with your partner and have an honest conversation about where you’re at and where you want to go. Talk comfort levels. Talk goals in 10 or 20 years. Get on the same page and do it explicitly and mindfully, with clear intentions that are communicated plainly and without hesitation.

Find a safe time and space in which both of you can sit down and not be interrupted. Express how you feel in the moment, and then spend some time talking about your visions for the future. Don’t overwhelm the conversation and don’t immediately dive into the deep-end of your expectations with one another. Keep it simple and leave enough room for them to express their own ideas and needs.

5. Learn to live and love in the moment

When you spend too much time focused on the future or the potential (good and bad) outcomes of your relationship, you lose touch with the present moment. It’s in the present that we truly connect to our partners. That’s where we see who they are, feel our feelings for them, and bond through hardship and joy. In order to get into partnerships that work, we need to learn to pull ourselves back into the present moment and all the gratitude that dwells there.

Make a commitment to let go of your obsession with the future and the past. You need to have a plan; you don’t need to be clairvoyant. We can’t predict the future. All we can do is create some ideas together right here and now and then work hard to ensure we are able to build those ideas with the resources that we have.

Rushing leaves so much of the experience; the beautiful parts included. You miss out on opportunities to travel together, explore one another’s needs. When you rush yourselves to the wrong finish line, you lose the opportunity to figure out who you really are as individuals. Learn to live and love in the moment. Enjoy where you are and stop obsessing over where you think you need to be. The journey is made beautiful because of the sights we pass along the way, not simply because we arrive where we thought we wanted to be.

Putting it all together…

One of the worst things we can do for ourselves and our partners is to rush our relationships right into destruction. When we get insecure or try to live up to empty societal standards, we can find that we push our partnerships into uncomfortable places. Rushing causes us to collapse our boundaries and obsess over outcomes that can’t be predicted or controlled. We have to put the rushing away if we want to build authentic partnerships that can thrive.

Clear up what you want from your relationships and your partner. Be brutally honest so that you can create partnerships that are authentically aligned to your needs and the needs of your partner. You need to want the same things from your future if you’re ever going to thrive. Let go of your ego and stop seeing relationships as some milestone you have to achieve in order to get where you need to be. Drop the comparisons and know that no partnership is perfect, we’re all doing the best we can with what we have. Communicate openly and with intention throughout your relationship. Then, be present in the moment with one another and learn how to enjoy where you’re at, instead of obsessing over where you think you want to be.