The most common mistakes we make in our relationships
No relationship is perfect, no matter what we do. Here are some of the most common mistakes you might be making.
by: E.B. Johnson
No matter how much we might love someone, it’s still possible to slip up or harm them with our mistakes. There is no such thing as the perfect relationship, just as there is no such thing as achieving perfection within ourselves. While we should always strive to the best we can, we should also understand that we won’t always get it right or do things well.
There are a number of common mistakes we make when it comes to our partnerships. From failing to communicate to losing sight of our own personal identities — if we want our relationships to last, we have to allow ourselves to rebuild. Stop running from the truth and embrace where you and your partner are at. Only when you come together to find solutions that work can you get back on track and back to the happiness you both deserve.
Love is rarely a straight path.
Although many of us were raised to believe in love and relationships as a relatively straight path, nothing could be further from the truth. Building a life with another person is a complex process, and one which forces both parties to really consider who they are and what we want. We have to work together toward a focused goal, but it’s easy for that focus to get thrown off by the stress and pressures of everyday life.
Have you and your partner started struggling to communicate? Does it feel like you want different things or like you’re floating in different directions? These are all mistakes we make when we get distracted and forget to go out of the way for one another. We change as people within our relationships, and the things we want changes too.
Rather than floundering on the rocks of avoidance, the two of you have to start showing up for your relationships and yourself. Admit where you’re at and take mindful action in order to get yourselves back on the same page. Sit down, communicate, and figure out where things have gone wrong so that you can put them right. Rather than battling over blame, or allowing yourselves to stay stuck in a rut — get honest about what needs to be fixed and committed to confronting it.
The most common relationship mistakes we make.
Because there is no rulebook for love, it’s easy to get led astray or find ourselves off track. No one ever gets it all right when it comes to life or love. Are you and your partner stuck in a rut or struggling? You might be making some of these common relationship mistakes.
Slipping boundaries
When you really love someone you can develop a compulsive craving for their love and validation. This is a dangerous place to be and often leads to a slipping of our boundaries that pushes us away from our own wellbeing. Boundaries are important for both partners to maintain, and they’re especially important in communicating expectations and what behaviors and beliefs are and aren’t workable within that partnership.
Failing communication
Communication is a crucial component of every romantic relationship. What is your communication with your partner like? Do you talk to one another regularly? Do you find it easy to open up when you’re struggling or having issues with one another? Failing communication is a classic mistake or trap that many of us fall into, but it can be one of the trickiest to dig our way out of.
Passive-aggressive behavior
When you don’t feel comfortable opening up to your partner or expressing yourself, you can find that you engage (consciously or subconsciously) in passive aggressive behavior. Meant to express your displeasure without taking any responsibility for your own emotions, this type of behavior often takes the form of silent treatments, snide remarks, or going out of the way to hurt the feelings of the other person indirectly.
Inability to be supportive
Is your partner supportive? Do they show up when you really need help? Do they regularly offer you a shoulder to cry on? Over time, we can drift from our partners or become so comfortable with them that we lose that supportive line of sight. We stop putting ourselves out there (or noticing when things go wrong) because we become so used to the patterns and complacent within them. Supporting our partners is a requirement. Anything else is a mistake.
Taking advantage
Does your partner take advantage of you, or take more than they offer up? Solid relationships have a balance, and that balance involves both partners putting in just as much as they receive from the relationship. When we drift, we can find that this balance shifts and throws our partnership off center. One partner might assume more control or power, while the other is relegated to the outskirts of the relationship like an observer.
Losing sight of growth
Though our relationships require us to build lives together, they also require us to maintain rich individual lives as well. Your partner fell for who you are as a person, not just who you are when you’re with them. When you lose this person, it can drive your partner away or feel as though their expectations are disappointed. We must continue to explore who we are and grow as individuals. Losing ourselves guarantees we will lose sight of what we want in our partnerships.
Emotional manipulation
Not all relationships benefit from steady communication or even partners who know what that means. When we fail to learn how to express ourselves maturely and with respect, we can resort to emotional manipulation to strike some sort of balance in our intimate relationships. Engaging in emotional manipulation is always a mistake, though. The more you do this, the more you erode trust in one another and the intentions you hold for your futures.
Controlling change
Do you or your partner seek to control, dominate, or change one another? The only person we are capable of changing is ourselves. The only life we have the right to manipulate is our own. There is never a good reason to “control” your partner, and there is never a good reason to change them. While you can encourage them to live their lives differently, ultimately the action and the choice are up to them. You should never want to control or change your partner. Rather, you should connect with someone who already has what you need.
How to put our partnerships back on the right track.
Mistakes don’t have to spell the end of your relationship. If you and your partner still want the same things from your futures, then you can get your love re-focused and back on track. You both just have to get some clarity on your needs, put in a bit more effort, and invest in growing together through thick-and-thin.
1. Gain clarity on your needs
Have you and your partner been swimming against the current lately? Does it feel like you’re stuck, stagnant, and getting nowhere in life or with one another? This often comes from a failure to identify and meet our own needs. We get caught up with our responsibilities and caught up in our relationships. Before you know it we lose sight of our own needs or the things we need to feel happy and fulfilled within our partnership.
Stop relying on your partner to make you happy and stop waiting for them to give you the spark you’ve been looking for. You need to gain some clarity on what you need in life, and then you need to figure out how you’re going to meet those needs. After all, we alone are responsible for our own journey to joy.
Spend some time re-thinking where you’re at and what you want. What do you need your relationship to look like in order to be happy? What do you need from your career? Your friend groups? Your family? Do you need alone time? Do you need more time with your partner? All of these things come together to form little parts of who we are within our partnerships. Get some clarity on your needs, so you can better see where the shortcomings are in your relationship.
2. Make an effort to connect
When communication or commitment starts lacking in a relationship, it’s important that we make an effort to reconnect with one another. It’s natural to drift when you’re both caught up in the chaos of everyday life. We keep these drifts to a minimum by consciously reaching out toward one another, though. While we’re always individuals within our partnerships, we should still seek to grow toward one another in love and learning.
Don’t allow the turbulence of life to rule your hearts and mind. Reach out to one another and do so on a regular basis. Make a point to sit down and talk. Share what’s going on in your life, and what’s going on in your heart. Show one another affection and make it clear you’re still attracted and affectionate — no matter what life throws your way.
These little reminders of love go a long way in allowing us to work together through life’s adversity. They keep our motivation high and our compassion strong. Build time in your schedules for one another. Don’t just come together when life allows it. Prioritize your relationship and make it a point to prioritize your partner too. The more you both make an effort to connect, the easier it will be to navigate the challenge rapids that everyday life has become.
3. Master the art of communication
Communication must be a foundation stone of every relationship we build. There is no facet of our partnerships that is not shaped by talking with one another and sharing things like perspective, emotion, and belief. If you truly want to get your relationship back on track, you have to sit down with your loved one and commit to mastering the art of intimate communication. Without it, there is little hope of bringing it all back together.
Sit down with your partner and begin having a series of talks about where’re you’re at and where you want to be. Start small. Find a comfortable time and place in which you can really be candid with one another. Ease into a talk about where you’re at right now and where you both want to be.
Avoid using blame language or shifting the responsibility on to one partner or the other. Instead, keep yourselves focused on solutions for the future and changes you want to make with one another and the life you’re building. Don’t rush the process or the conversations. As humans, we’re always growing, learning and changing. It’s going to take more than one face-to-face for you both to figure out what page you’re on.
4. Invest in growing as individuals
You can’t grow together as partners if you don’t allow yourselves to grow as individuals first. Relationships take up a lot of space in our lives, and that’s okay — they’re meant to. When you combine them with all the other things that take up real estate in our lives, however, we can find ourselves giving away more than we take in. We lose sight of who we are when this happens and losing that our partnership begins to drift off course too.
Ensure that you’re still investing in yourself as an individual. If you’re spacing out in your partnership or feeling “hollow” or unfulfilled, then you need to get some personal space and some perspective on your own life.
We shouldn’t disappear within our relationships. Rather, we should build relationships that complement the lives we’ve built for ourselves. Think of your partnership a bit like a beautiful country garden. A garden is a beautiful addition to a home, but it is not the place where we live all the time. Build for yourself a rich internal and external personal space. Branch out and explore who you are so that you can grow earnest with the person you love.
5. Commit to fixing problems up-front
Avoidance is one of the most toxic traps that many couples fall into. It’s understandable. When we make a mistake, or things go wrong, it’s hard to take responsibility and it can feel awkward to work things out. Failing to address our issues with one another, though, creates even greater discomfort and heartache in the future. Want to get your relationship back on track and put the mistakes in the past? Commit to fixing your problems up front.
Never again wait until conflict has hit a crisis point to address the things that don’t feel right. If you have a problem, speak up. If you feel like something isn’t right — express this feeling to your partner or your spouse. Grow up and understand that problems need to be dealt with in the first instance.
You will never get over hurts by ignoring them. You will never get back on the same page by waiting six months for your anxiety to pass. Deal with your issues in the here and the now. Feel as though you can’t open up to your partner? Then there might be bigger questions you need to be asking yourself. Either way, adult action has to be taken if you want an adult relationship that you can be proud of. Deal with issues when they hit and stop avoiding the inevitable.
Putting it all together…
Love is rarely a straight road and our relationships are filled with mistakes and missteps. It’s only human to make miscalculations. The true judgment is in how we choose to handle those mistakes. Have you and your partner fallen into the same common traps as most other couples? You have to take definitive action to get your love back on the same page.
Gain some clarity on what you need as an individual and what you need within your relationship. Be honest. What needs to change in your relationship to make you feel fulfilled within it? Make a conscious effort to connect with your partner and do it on a regular basis. Then, you can get more comfortable mastering the art of communication and investing in growing together as a couple. Beyond that, take action when issues arise and stop beating around the bush until conflict and heartbreak escalate. Commit to fixing problems when they happen and the two of you will be able to overcome the mistakes and get your relationship back on track.
