If you want your relationship to last and to give you all the delicious feelings of closeness, feeling cherished, getting weak in the knees because you feel so in love with your partner, feeling so turned-on by each other, and knowing the two of you can weather anything… Take a close look at the 10 patterns that most often undermine relationships - even good ones - and pick one to obliterate right now.
1. Dishonesty
Even if you succeed in deceiving yourself about your spending, your drinking or drug use, your eating or your relationships with other people, the evidence will mount, your partner WILL find out, and the relationship will end, or worse, limp along burdened by the lies between you.
2. Shame
As Freddie Mercury’s partner said to him in the movie “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Call me when you learn to like yourself.” Your low self-esteem or feeling of worthlessness is a hole in the bucket of your relationship. If it doesn’t run your partner off, it might be because (a) they’re as self-negating as you are or (b) they like having someone they can dump on and blame, and you’ve got a “kick me” sign tattooed on your back.
3. Grandiosity
Ironically, though it looks like the opposite, this is the other side of the coin of shame. Low self-worth can sometimes appear as if someone is stuck up instead of beaten down. Grandiosity is sometimes called narcissism. It’s the pattern of treating your partner like you’re superior to them, your needs are more important, or you know more than they do about how to have a relationship. Drop down to meet them eye-to-eye, equals with different strengths, and ask for what you desire without entitlement.
4. Harsh Startup
Every relationship has conflicts and you’ll need to hash things out. But if you can’t learn to initiate those essential conversations with gentleness and kindness, the relationship can’t thrive. John Gottman’s “Love Lab” research found that the outcome of a conversation could be predicted 96% of the time based on just the first three minutes of the interaction. Walk softly.
5. Criticism
We can ask for behavior changes or complain that we didn’t like the way something went, but when we extrapolate a stray sock into a character assassination like “you are such a heedless slob” we are being critical. Research has found that criticism, or personalizing our complaints, paves the way for other destructive relationship patterns. Instead, learn to share your feelings about this one specific situation and make a concrete request.
6. Contempt
Often, people will claim, “That’s just how I talk” or “I was kidding,” but there’s a caustic pattern of communicating that, like battery acid, will burn through the love a relationship might have at the beginning. It’s an indirect way of expressing an anger that might, in itself, be well-founded. However, when a person who's been wronged expresses their anger through contempt, they become the aggressor. Examples of a pattern of contempt include sarcasm, cynicism, name-calling, eye-rolling, mockery, and hostile humor. Try turning up the vulnerability: say “I feel sad when you _____; please _____ instead.”
7. Defensiveness
It’s hard not to be defensive when we feel criticism or contempt coming at us, but the defensiveness we’re talking about here is a broader pattern. Even if our partner is communicating their feelings, needs, or desires clearly and with care, we might get our hackles up, take things very personally, and counter-attack, even though the siege we perceived wasn’t actually an attack. That is defensiveness. Instead of justifying ourselves, turning the tables, or dragging other situations (where, perhaps, we feel our partner was in the wrong) into the conversation, we need to grant what we can about what our partner is saying, and help them feel heard. “I hear that you feel _____ when I ___. That makes sense.”
Strong, lasting relationships thrive on a healthy closeness. The two following patterns describe the extremes of not having that healthy sense of me, you, and us: walling off and merging.
8. Walling Off
This is the pattern where there’s me… and over there, I guess.. There’s you. Some people wall off when things are difficult for them, personally. Others shut their partners out when they’re doing well, only coming close again when they “need” them. Other forms of walling off include telling other friends or family members about our world, but not filling our partner in, or keeping secrets about our past or our present, for fear they won't approve or understand. Regardless, we have to allow our partner in if we want the relationship to last.
9. Merging
In contrast to walling off, and to healthy intimacy, merging means there’s no boundary, or too thin a boundary, between us and the other person. Merging might manifest as wanting to align on every preference and perspective, or expecting our partner to give up friendships and outside interests to spend every possible moment with us. It might look like extreme sensitivity to their actions, words, and feelings, as if we feel everything they feel. Initially, merging can feel like soul-mate love, an intoxicating, passionate union. But over time, the pressures that merging put on a partner are unsustainable. They will leave or stay and feel resentful of the choking vines wrapping around their every move.
10. Unbridled Self-Expression
When we say whatever comes to mind or heart, in whatever intense or sharp words and tones come to us, or when we act out our feelings in dramatic, concrete ways, without regard for the impact of our communication or our behavior, we’re caught up in unbridled self-expression. It’s self-indulgent, and if a partner puts up with it, that in itself creates unhealthy dynamics. Long, loud fights, crying, screaming, throwing things, refusing to stop when your partner asks for a pause in the conversation, getting drunk because you’re upset with your partner, leaving without saying where you’re going… All are examples of unbridled self-expression. Learning to settle yourself down is a key to happily settling down together and building a relationship that can last.
Almost everyone I’ve ever worked with or known has had at least some of these unhealthy relationship dynamics reveal themselves somewhere in the relationship. They’re human patterns, after all! But as a conscious couple working toward a Legacy Love that blesses everyone around you from the overflow of joy, pleasure, and passion between you, these are great patterns to look out for and learn to release. May this list help your relationship thrive.