Bad Relationship Habits

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Note the title of this article.

It’s not “Bad Habits in Relationships.”

It’s “Bad Relationship Habits.”

Those aren’t quite the same.

When you have a bad habit in a relationship, you may do something that interferes with loving easily and expanding happiness. But that habit is not necessarily about the relationship.

For example, if I have a bad habit of leaving dirty dishes in the sink when I could just as easily put them in the dishwasher, that might irritate my mate. Especially if I have done that many times after promising to change my behavior. It’s an irritant to my mate, and therefore a hindrance to the relationship being easy and happy.

But it’s not a bad relationship habit.

It’s not a habit about the relationship. It’s a habit about housekeeping, or hygiene, or neatness. But it’s not directed at the relationship.

Leaving dirty clothes on the floor, not hanging up a wet towel, parking too far over in the garage, forgetting to pick up the dry cleaning – these are all bad habits inside relationships. They make loving you difficult and expanding happiness less likely.

But bad relationship habits are worse.

If you don’t talk to your mate about your feelings, of all kinds, especially when you are feeling them rather than days or weeks later, that’s a bad relationship habit.

If you blame your mate for more than their share of the condition of a relationship, that’s a bad relationship habit.

If you don’t allow your mate’s wishes to have any effect on your plans, if you nag or carp or criticize to change your mate, or if you allow jealousy to contaminate when your mate is trustworthy, then you have bad relationship habits that are toxic.

Here’s an inventory worth taking, when you’re in an honest, self-evaluating mood:

1. Ask your mate to have a sit-down, calm conversation.

2. Inform him/her that you are serious about listening to what you hear, since you genuinely want to improve the quality of your relationship.

3. Ask: “Which of the things I do that bug you are irritants and hindrances to making living with me easy, but not really bad for the relationship between us?”

4. Make a list of what your mate says, since changing these habits will help.

5. Then say, “And which of the things that I do feel to you like they are toxic to the relationship – that make it hard to want to love me?”

6. Listen carefully, without defending yourself, writing down each one and asking for explanation when you don’t understand.

7. Say, “I’m going to take a week to think about what you’ve told me, and then I’ll come back to you with a commitment to change at least one of these behaviors. I’m doing this because I don’t want to poison our love for each other. Instead, I want to make it easy for you to love me, not just easy for you to live with me.”

8. Follow through on your promise.

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