6 Ways to Ruin Your Relationship
Couples indulge (consciously or unconsciously) in various acts that gradually reduce the fun and ‘in love’ feeling that they felt at the start of their relationship, making them think they are not loved by their partners which eventually leads to total ruin of their relationship.
It is only rational to say that the joy or ill-being of any relationship is determined by both partners; at the same time not everyone is ready or willing to take responsibility for their actions when things go wrong, rather they say things like ‘she started it first, ‘if you had followed what I said, it wouldn’t have ended this way’… forgetting that in relationships, ‘‘it takes two to tango’’, and the fall of one is the fall the other.
In this article, I will be working you through 6 acts that kill relationships and their effects on relationships.
1. Jealousy
Jealousy, according to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is ‘an unhappy or angry feeling caused by the belief that someone you love (such as your husband or wife) likes or is liked by someone else’. Jealousy can give a positive result when engaged in rightly, but most often than not, the result is always negative. Jealousy births the following negatives:
• Lack of trust
• Insecurity (A strong feeling or need to know the whereabouts of one’s partner, what they are doing, and who they are with.)
• Feeling of reject
• A strong feeling of resent
2. Cheating
As much as jealousy can breed resentment between couples in a relationship, cheating can do worse. Breaking the promise made to your partner by sharing the love and attention meant for them with someone else thereby making your relationship a love triangle can hurt more than a bee sting; leaving your partner with a great hurt on the inside-creating room for lack of trust, hatred, sadness, a feeling of regret and anger.
3. Argument: In any relationship, arguments are inevitable because we all have our differences and are entitled to our opinions. In light of this, when couples argue, it should be constructive rather than destructive to help them understand each other better. But when couples turn their arguments into a war field where words are their preferred weapons, the foundation of the beginning of an end to their ‘once cherished relationship’ may be laid.
4. No Sex: (For Married Couples Only) Before saying a thing about this, I must say that you have to know your partner before anything because there is no one-size-fits-all decision about this. To some, sex does not matter so much; For some reasons, some are abstaining from it, it’s an occasional thing for some, while on the other hand, it’s daily bread for some. If you happen to have a partner who loves to have sex, you will be causing a lot of havoc by not giving in to sex, you will also make your partner;
• Have low self-esteem
• Feel rejected
• Feel insecure
• Become angry
• Unable to bond with you
5. Ineffective Communication
No relationship can thrive or make it without communication, I mean very effective communication. You cannot know a person just by looking at the person and smiling at the person, you have to talk to the person and if you have decided to take things to another level with someone, that means you need to know more about the person. When couples don’t speak their minds, their problems grow gradually and compound till they cannot take it anymore and by that time everything is bad; some couples, instead of talking things out, will worsen their problem by keeping calm and not talking about it. Communication on its own is powerful enough to cause everything we have discussed above, lack of communication is the root of relationship failure – ‘’a problem shared is a problem half-solved’’.
6. Poverty
Developing a positive relationship with your partner, children, and even your family, in general, can be a handful and a challenge when you are of low socioeconomic status. Being in a relationship requires a lot of commitments (financial inclusive) which will make your partner happy and feel loved especially if your partner loves to receive gifts (Receiving Gifts being one of the Five Love Languages)- Most of the time, this responsibility falls more on the male gender. Not all couples can thrive in a relationship where they cannot afford to eat good meals together, go on romantic dates once in a while and take time to go on vacations to places they love; thus, inability to financially provide for each other due to financial constraints might give way to a feeling of contempt and fear, anger, sadness, and dislike. It can cause partners to cheat and do things that will hurt each other.
All 6 acts discussed above have their effects on relationships. But to avoid dealing with problems caused by any of these acts, couples should master the art of communication- they should talk about the tiniest things, learn new things about each other daily, and try as much as possible to see things from each other’s point of view. Remember ‘’it takes two to tango’’.
