7 Biggest Relationships Mistakes

Are these biggest relationship mistakes ruining the fabric of your relationship?

We offer both insight and answers to the mistakes that might be on your list:

1. Believing if you ignore problems they will go away

Because you are ‘in the safety of a relationship’. They won’t. Real problems take attention and time to resolve and won’t magically disappear if you pretend they’re not there. It is amazing how many of us choose to live in our comfort zones and ignore the fact that our relationship is a living thing and like nature, if it’s not growing it’s dying, the sooner you address your challenges the quicker things change and the easier it is, for the more entrenched the behaviours become the harder they are to turn around- like navigating your Uncles’ fishing dinghy vs the Titanic!

2. Shit happens, there’s no getting away from it.

Deadlines loom, bank balances shrink, children wake several times a night, illness occurs and arguments get out of control. It is important to recognize this and if you want your relationship to have meaning, longevity and fulfilment make it a habit to make your relationship your No.1 priority. This means putting aside the time to connect with each other outside of everything else, where there is no conversation about problems, kids or work. Learn the skills to feel comfortable in this intimacy, whether it’s for a moment or an hour or two. Your relationship, rather than being the bit you fit in at the end becomes a place of unlimited energy that sustains you through all the rest.

3. Assuming your partner is a mind reader.

Never, ever believe that your loved one automatically knows what is happening for you at an emotional level, it’s hard enough to know what’s on each others schedule! We are incredibly complex creatures and to assume that another intimately knows our reality without us sharing it with them is ridiculous. Our Ego likes to think that if we are important enough to them they will automatically know where we are at but this is a reflection of our child-parent relationship where (hopefully) our parents were able to meet our needs with minimum input from us and as an adult it is a pathway to heartbreak. As adults if we want to be seen we need to show up.

4. Pushing your underlying agenda.

This is communicating or asking a question where you already have an expectation of the result and an attachment to getting something. This unconsciously drives you to slant your words into a bad sales pitch leaving your partner feeling manipulated and resistant and you frustrated and angry. We do this when we’re feeling needy or powerless inside, no matter how confident we’re appearing on the surface. The way out of this predicament is to make yourself ok, take a few breaths, connect with yourself by feeling your body and your heart. Keep your attention on your body and communicate with the desire to just hear yourself, without any expectations on or attachments to anything outside of you. This approach will get you much better results as it leaves a creative space for new outcomes.

5. Thinking your partner doesn’t love you anymore when it isn’t true.

When we’re in challenging times it is easy to fall into this trap. Because intimate relationship reaches deep inside of us to the core of our self beliefs reaching the one that we are somehow flawed or not good enough. This belief in our wrongness is the most difficult for us to face and focussing on all of our partner’s mistakes allows us to avoid it. So in between complaining about them we resort to this position of feeling unloved as it keeps us firmly out of our unloveableness. The problem with is system is that it makes it much harder for us to be open to them, which impacts their ability to open to us (as they struggle with their own wrongness) becoming a vicious cycle. In the vast majority of cases if you look deep enough under their shell of protection, hurt and self righteousness their love for you IS still there, as is yours for them, that’s what makes the struggle so painful. Believing in your love for each other makes an enormous difference as it gives you a safe place to step into intimacy from.

6. Don’t tolerate a poor sex life- it’s a mistake!

Sex is the one thing in your life you share exclusively with the person you are in intimate relationship with. Don’t let it deteriorate into a last thing at night performance with one person trying to have sex like a porn star and the other hoping to act out their favourite romantic fantasy with neither being satisfied. Don’t let your social conditioning split your psyche between sex and love. This split means that we only bring half of ourselves into the bedroom, one or the other, resulting in less than magical sex. Learn how to reunite love and sex even better than they were in the early days of your relationship. A simple way to begin this is to breathe more deeply and consciously into your heart during the sex you’re having now, as breath is the gateway between the two.

7. Not believing in yourself enough to be authentic

Putting a mask over your real self in order to get love, approval or your needs met. You also do it to avoid uncomfortable feelings like fear, pain and shame. Of course we all do this in life, but relationship by its very nature invites a deeper level of intimacy and so our fears and needs are much greater. Ironically it is this mask that keeps you separate and stops you from being truly loved. The greatest gift of relationship is this opportunity to show up authentically, to be genuinely who you are, not a copy. So instead of seeing relationship as a way to get love see it instead as a place where you learn to be and love yourself. Emotional intelligence skills are the best tools for becoming comfortable in authentic intimacy, so get some into your kit.

Don’t let these biggest relationships mistakes determine the quality of your connection or miss out on fulfilling its potential, make some changes today and ask for help where you need it.