Discussing really important decisions / making these decisions via text messages.
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Updated 1 year ago,January 16, 2024
These marriage counselors fromAsk Redditcould keep your relationship.
1.Unspoken family rules that you bring into relationship are HUGE.
Eliza Szablinska
2.Discussing really important decisions / making these decisions via text messages.
That is called emotional babysitting, and it cascades into a host of problems and unnecessary hurt.
5.Not expressing gratitude towards your partner on a regular basis.
A credit score can cost thousands and take Y E A R S to rebuild.
Know if they have any tax liens or liability.
Are they paying child support and do they have any kind of garnishment?
Who is going to be responsible for managing the finances?
How many credit cards does the other person have and what are their balances?
Ive seen money kill a lot of marriages.
Another one a lot of people dont think of is actually talking about sex, not just having it.
Do you enjoy the sex you have?
Would you like to have more of it?
Would you like to se it change?
Do you or the other person have any weird kinks?
Just have the talk.
Different sexual wavelengths can be difficult to reconcile.
A partnership is a team, not a competition.
8.Expecting one person to be everything for them.
You need friends, coworkers, a support system, and hobbies.
9.Never lash the other with past misbehaviors when trying to resolve a current issue.
Then bring up Y if you still need to.
11.Not giving intimacy in their relationship enough attention.
This includes but is not limited to sex.
Many relationships start with the hot and heavy phase where intimacy can come naturally.
12.People dont learn to fight.
You have to fight fair in a relationship.
This puts the person receiving the comment into a defensive mode and they stop listening and get defensive.
Thus, communication breaks down.
14.Holding onto resentment and then unleashing it at inappropriate times.
etc….
15.Always be polite and appreciative.
check that you thank your spouse if they buy dinner, even if you share an account.
Say kindly and thank you as you would to a friend or stranger.
Its the little things that matter.
Always always have more positives than negatives.
People nowadays simply do not know how to actively listen to one another.
Social media and a false sense of hyperconnectivity make this issue much much worse.
Relationships succeed or fail on this simple premise.
Be still, and listen to your partner.
Getting loud or defensive Why didnt you bring this up sooner!
will make them shy away from bringing things up again due to negative reinforcement/backlash.
This is especially true if theyve been victims of any kind of abusive relationships.
18.Number one problem I see is overactive threat response creating anger and rigidity.
Surrender to not having control, accept whats in front of you, and cultivate compassion.
19.Blaming their partner for all issues in the relationship and not taking ownership of their own role in dysfunction/issues.
20.Not listening, most people listen to respond and dont listen to hear.
This is what I spend the most time teaching couples how to do!
Get on the same team.
Get behind each others goals.
22.When youre hurt, say so, and stop trying to hurt back.
23.70% of fights are recurring (and usually very fixable and small).
Learn to communicate instead of fighting out those fights make them mature conversations.
Dont assume anything that another human being is thinking!
If you get flooded leave the room and remind everyone involved in an argument to speak gently.
IMO thats a waste of a life and a relationship.
26.The number one reason why relationships dont succeed is that partners set unrealistic expectations for each other.
In other words, look inward.
27.Dont bring your frustrations from work home with you.
28.Always validate feelings over experience.
Even if it does not make sense to you.
The key is to use 3 becauses to validate your loved one.
Chances are that they dont want the problem fixed, they want to be heard.
29.Not talking about/considering long term goals.
30.They stop being nice to each other.
It sounds simple, but people generally want to be around individuals who are nice.
Explore the wrongs you may have done that lead to this dysfunctionality too.
33.So many people refuse to go to bed during a fight.
Its a huge mistake.
Its supposed to be some romantic ideal.
You always communicate better after sleeping properly.
34.Not letting the other person walk away in a fight.
Many fear abandonment and then either pursue or block a door.
Preventing the escape wont make anything better and increases the risk of domestic violence.
Instead let them take a break and when they return ask if they are ok.
If so, ask if they want to continue the discussion now or set a date for later.
We all develop intellectually and emotionally as the years go by.
If they do not grow together they will grow apart.
Talk to AND with each other.
Some say They arent the person I married anymore NO SHIT.
Thats a good thing.
Who wants to live with the intellectually maturity of a 20 or 30 year old their entire life.
Its normal we change.
37.Equating differences in communication as being wrong or not caring.
38.Having a child thinking it would save their marriage.
39.Not necessarily a mistake but a sign of relationship death and something to keep in mind.
John Gottman predicts 90% of divorces by identifying contempt.
(Bit of an oversimplification.)
Its not you vs them, its the both of you against the issue.
The latter has significantly more experience and training to help couples.
A marriage counselor has very limited training, and can very easily do more harm than good.
41.They confuse love with the chemical high you get early in are relationship.
That cannot last, for reasons built into our biology.
A successful relationship is to built on that feeling.
Its built on mutual respect and a mutual decision to make it work each day.
42.Assuming you know exactly what your partner wants at any given point in time.
44.Treating their pets better than their partners.
45.Biggest mistake is waiting too long to get help.
Repeat issues coming up again and again will not resolve themselves.
Get help before its helpless.
Misunderstanding sex as a bonding activity.
(Not that Im advocating enmeshment.)
Thats not really marriage.
Thats having a roommate, or perhaps less than that even.
Marriage is a union of two people.
Thats what the unity candle and sand and knots are all about.
There is a bringing together of two lives that is inseparable.
They go bad because it results in a person caring more for themselves than their spouse.
When couples keep secrets from each other, which inevitably results in pain.
The remedy to this is behaving as a unit in small ways and in large.
If youre getting something from the fridge, see if your spouse wants something.
50.Getting married because they wanted a wedding, not because they wanted to be married.
