People enter into partnerships with optimism and goodwill. Partnerships often turn sour because ineffective patterns of relating become habitual and lead to a gradual withdrawal of esteem and caring for each other.
1. Avoid conflict. Avoided conflict requires repression of anger, which leads to depression of feelings. A genuinely passionate partnership requires conflict, not terminal niceness or withdrawal.
2. Avoid each other. Occasional withdrawal is healthy. Habitual withdrawal (stonewalling) is death to partnership.
3. Escalate. Conflict, skillfully handled, is one of the keys to a great relationship. Conflict out of control is an excuse for physical, verbal, or psychological abuse. If both partners are angry, then take time out.
4. Criticize. Habitually speaking (or thinking) criticism is hard on a relationship. Criticism is usually a sign of that the criticizing partner has some personal development work to do. It is OK to complain, but not OK to criticize.
5. Show contempt. Contempt is criticism escalated to outright mental abuse.
6. React defensively. Fear is natural. Defensiveness naturally accompanies fear. Skillful partnering requires practicing techniques that allow me to drop the defensiveness despite my fear.
7. Deny responsibility. When we deny our responsibilty for our part of the issue, we wind up blaming our partner and trying to change him or her.
8. Rewrite history. Remembering mainly the negative experiences in a partnership is a predictor for future breakdown. All partnerships have their difficult spots. Partners that stay together are proud of their ability to weather the stormy seas and are warmed by their memories of the happy times spent on tropical beaches.
9. Refuse to get help. Partnership coaching and willingness works!
10. Believe that changing partners is the solution. People may go through several partners while repeatedly avoiding the same basic issues. We naturally choose partners that push our buttons for our personal development. Refusing to learn the requisite lesson requires another repetition.
It takes a lot of time and effort to build a relationship but just a jiffy to destroy it...an unkind word, a thoughtless act, words not said, acts not done...may we give our most to our partners that we may live a life of loving and living in harmony.
3 comments to THE TOP TEN MISTAKES THAT COUPLES OFTEN MAKE
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Unknown Dear Joseph,
Thank you for your frankness. I really appreciate it..We all make mistakes and it is the recognition, admission and remedial steps taken that make those mistakes stepping stones to growth...
Take care and thanks for visiting and taking the trouble to comment.
My apologies for the late publication of the comments - I was cooking lunch :-)
Have a nice day!
cheers
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DrKaren I really like this post - I think it offers some very salient points.
As a relationship expert (www.ChoiceRelationships.com), I would just like to take it on a slightly different track. I think it's important for couples to know that conflicts are bound to happen. But here's the good news: there are skills they can learn so that they can handle them better. When they do, their partnerships fare much better. I offer a free teleseminar, "The 7 Tools to Manage Conflict Communication in Your Relationship." To hear it, go to: http://choicerelationships.com/teleseminar_resources.
Joseph M. Fasciana Well I can say for sure that I never committed #7 I was definitely responsible for the breakup of my marriage. #1,#2,#6,and #9 pretty much sums it up for me.