Making mistakes in relationships is inevitable as we will always tend to try our hands-on things to find out which best suits our relationships. Relationship coach Robyn Hatcher pointed out that the national length of marriage in the United States is 8.2 years.
Cases of divorces keep rising exponentially in every other part of the world. Many have come to accept their relationships as mistakes and total disaster, thus seeking to opt-out. If some of the divorcees can be convinced that their marriages were not mistakes, they will fight to make them work, rather than just walking out of it.
It is inevitable to live without making mistakes in relationships. Mistakes have been known to be building blocks for future successes. In the same vein, they have also been known to be the self-destructive element that has ruined very promising relationships.
We will keep making mistakes in relationships because we fail to understand the essence and essentials of relationships. It could be unintentionally making an error in the way you think it’s best to build the relationship. Your motive may be genuine and justifiable but the means you employed could have been disastrous.
Starting a relationship can be compared to launching a rocket into outer space. It takes years and years of meticulous study and preparation, to enable sustenance and longevity. This is not to say you should spend all your time and life preparing just to enter into a relationship with your partner. It does, however, mean you have to dedicate some time to at least understand what you are going into before launching out your rocket to being with your partner.
It is very unpredictable what you hope to expect. Even the very experts can not be totally accurate as to what you should expect in any relationship. The best schooling you can get about the relationship isn’t studying from the outside but learning from it as your relationship grows. This, however, is also only productive when you must have understood the basics before going into it.
When in a relationship, you may be consumed with so many activities that you barely have time to seek improvement specially when you two are consumed with schedules of life. It could be you are blown away by the new discovery about your attachment to your partner that you tend to forget why you are in the relationship in the first place and how to go along the path.
It is thus advisable to learn a thing or two before venturing into any relationship. It makes learning during the relationship easier. We will explore some early relationship mistakes in today’s post.
Early Relationship Mistakes
It’s actually okay to make mistakes when starting experts will reiterate. In fact, mistakes make room for you to understand yourself better and communicate effectively. They also help in identifying boundaries for building mutual respect.
It’s fair to say mistakes are products of having little understanding of your partner’s boundaries or how they will react. Mistakes only become an issue when they are not acknowledged for correction but rather allowed to become recurring. They leave you both frustrated and misunderstood when they become habitual.
Such mistakes which are necessary for the learning process of partners are still called mistakes because if partners are enlightened about the dangers, they would rather avoid them. Here are a few of such mistakes in relationships made especially in the beginning.
1. Acting And Feeling Jealous
Jealousy tends to be most in the early days of the relationship when you both are not quite sure about the status of the relationship.
Jealousy can be dangerous because the focus is always on the possibility of someone else being part of your partnership. Eventually, you both have to move from this into a more stable relationship but it’s an avenue to learn about yourselves. You’ll now know your tolerance level when a third party is involved.
2. Refusing To Pay Attention To Each Other
It’s unavoidable in the genesis of every relationship that you tend to talk about yourself, family, friends, colleagues, habits, etc. This enables your partner to get to know you better. When this becomes a habit, it could make your partner disinterested. It’s good to know when to turn the table to focus on your partner as well.
3. Avoiding Conflict
In an attempt to get the honeymoon phase of the relationship going, there’s always this tendency to brush things under the carpet when they arise. If this continues for a long period, it could get to the stage where you experience a heated argument that could result in a breakup.
While you want to continue enjoying your new-found love, you should also make the habit of asking some uncomfortable questions.
More early relationship mistakes include:
- Keeping poor communication lines
- Being passively aggressive and vengeful
- Triggering each other
- Selfishness, etc.
Partners going into a relationship for the first time in their lives will most certainly make some of these mistakes. This is mainly because they’ve not known what to expect from their partners neither do they have an understanding of their boundaries. If you realize you are making some of these mistakes over and over again, all it takes is a conversation and seeking out ways to act in a healthier way.
This brings us to the first fatal error in most relationships which is, going too fast. Yes, going too fast.
When your relationship is going too fast, you may not notice some things you encounter as mistakes or even when you do, you may not have enough time to learn from them. You end up overlooking many mistakes and accepting them as normal when they are not. This wouldn’t be good for the long term health of the relationship.
Worst Relationship Mistakes
There are some red flags to watch out for which will require you to make a decision, either to end it abruptly or to give it another go after having an honest conversation. Cluelessness or just having a weak moment can cause such mistakes but when they become recurring, it could mean you are in a toxic relationship and may need a breakup.
If however you love your partner so much and want to fight for the future of the union, then it’s okay. The red flags in particular which indicate for you to end it, are up to you to decide.
However if such signs or mistakes are not dealt with extensively or relationship ended, they could have a huge impact in the future of the union and it could be in a devastating manner. Here are some of such mistakes in relationships:
1. Not Acknowledging Your Relationship In Public After Commitment
In the early part of your relationship, it’s easy to keep things cool and introduce yourselves as friends to people who may ask about you guys.
As the relationship grows and directions defined, if your partner still seems to find it difficult acknowledging your relationship, it could be a sign your partner isn’t really made upon you. You shouldn’t continue to go on like it’s all fine after this situation keeps recurring over and over again. You have to ask questions, get answers and take decisions.
2. Emotional Support From An Ex Instead Of You
Your partner should be able to rely on you to meet their emotional needs. A situation whereby they turn to their former partner in such situations is a sign such partner didn’t really hang up on their former partner. You have to go into an honest conversation with your partner on this and clearly define your boundaries.
If you want to be friends with your partner’s former partners, that’s okay. You could invite them over and go out with them all together. What you shouldn’t allow is the emotional attachment.
3. Crossing Your Boundaries Habitually
In the early stages of a relationship, partners tend to habitually tread on each other’s toes. It’s most times a conscious effort to see how they will react. When it gets to this scenario, you have to make yourself clear repeatedly that you are not comfortable with it. If despite that they keep pulling your nerves, it could be a sign of bigger troubles ahead.
You have to make a big decision at this point to prevent a future disaster. Your partner has to respect you and habitual crossing of your boundaries is a sign of lack of respect.
More unacceptable mistakes in relationships include:
- Keeping a big secret more than once
- Needing to take a break too often
- Unhealthy teasing
- Regularly forgetting big dates
- Taking your partner for granted
- Complaining about your partner to everyone except your partner
- Giving up on your partner
- Feeling hopeless
- Regularly threatening breakup
Mistakes Women Do That Can Threaten Their Marriage
Healthy relationships can be achieved with practice, perseverance and patience even when results say otherwise. Ladies are known to be expressive most times in a relationship compared to their conservative male counterparts. These traits in themselves can pose a huge threat to the relationship.
Most of the time, the expressive nature of the ladies can get to one extreme such that it brings about disrespect and nagging.
Also, the conservative nature of the men could lead to another extreme of stonewalling towards their partner and shutting them out. These could lead to another chain of events that would threaten the stability of the relationship.
In marriage, most of the time, the men fail to realize what’s going on early enough. The ladies have been known to be very sensitive to little changes such that they are most certainly aware of mistakes in the union before their partners. When they notice these mistakes, how they react to them matters.
An honest conversation is always going to be helpful. As a married lady, some of these mistakes you should avoid includes:
1. Expecting A Perfect Relationship
There’s no such thing as a perfect relationship. It’s only in oblivion. You make your own perfect relationship. Some ladies wonder why they can’t manage a relationship for even a year whereas people can be married forever and everything seems okay.
They go into marriage expecting everything will be perfect as they celebrate their yearly marriage anniversaries. These alone can threaten your peace in marriage as you will begin to have unrealistic expectations. True, you expect him to be prince charming, loving, say yes to all your demands, faithful to you, etc.
However, also remember he has emotions and operates by emotions. If they aren’t fed in the right direction, they may end up making him a mess. You build your perfect marriage patiently and with perseverance.
2. No Respect To His Judgments
The man is the head of the family and respecting his judgments is key to having a healthy marriage. He may not get it right all the time but complaining about his judgment won’t make him have a better judgment next time.
His judgment may not go down well with you. All you need to do is to be suggestive and not go aggressive or retaliatory because your suggestions or ideas were not taken.
3. Stonewalling
Your partner could have offended you in a way you are short of ideas on how to relay it. The next thing you start giving the attitude of stonewalling where you just give short responses to answers. He may not notice on time or he may notice it.
Ladies tend to always give that cold attitude. It could work the first few times but over time your man will get wearied with it and may play along with your scripts. The result is that two familiar strangers will be living under the same roof and possibly on one mattress. When issues arise, it’s best to talk politely about them rather than giving an attitude to pass a message.
More mistakes in relationships that women make that threaten their marriages include:
- Being Defensive
- Criticism
- Misreading of men’s emotions
- Making too many assumptions
- They compare and despair
- Flipping out if he looks or talks to another woman
- Not wanting your man physically
Permit me to add also that there are mistakes that push men away from their women. Let’s take a look at some of them below:
A guy could love a lady and really want things to work out and yet he could still find himself drawing back. This may not be unconnected with recent discoveries on his woman. Such discoveries could have good intentions but have always been found to act as an offensive odour towards the guy. These mistakes which put off some men include:
1. Feeling Insecure Because Of Your Looks
From research, it was discovered that about 97 percent (%) of women show unhappiness towards their body at least once a day. This could lead to constant questions like if your blouse is good enough, or your shoes match your look, etc.
Anytime a good looking lady passes you guys, the insecurity comes in and you start acting it out. This could be self-destructive. Always appreciate yourself the way you are even though you seek improvements. You have to be aware that your man saw you the way you were before he opted for you in the first place.
2. Being Too Needy Or Clingy
If a man senses that you are demanding more than he can give to the relationship, it’s obviously going to put him off. It’s natural to want to make your guy happy by being affectionate and showing care but this can quickly translate into being too needy and desperate.
Being always available and trying excessively hard to have all his attention could make you look desperate and insecure. Your man starts feeling smothered and would look for a way to get his freedom back.
3. He Notices You Are His Sole source Of Happiness
The real issue here is that he feels pressured to keep you content and that’s a whole lot of responsibility of anyone. You have to have a life you are living that will make you happy without him. Do the things that make you happy which won’t just stop at changing your mood but also improve the quality of your relationship.
Other mistakes ladies do that put their men off include:
- Chasing after him
- Having a sense of entitlement that your man is supposed to things
- Stressing over the relationship to make it work
- Committing too soon
- Always being negative despite his efforts to make you happy
- Always focusing on yourself.
- Not respecting his personal space
- Nagging
- Trying to change him
- Going too fast
Quite a long list you may say. but to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Regrets tomorrow can be averted when mistakes in relationships are well managed.
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