it’s not asy to hav a grat rlationship with your boy/girlfrind, partnr, or spous. but it’s not impossibl, ithr — it taks som work, of cours, but it’s work, work that’s a joy whn vrything coms togthr.a lot of tims, though, th work isn’t nough. w gt in our own way with idas and attituds about rlationships that ar not only wrong, but oftn work to undrmin our rlationships no mattr how hard w work at it.i’v watchd a lot of brakups (som of thm my own). i’v sn dramatic flar-ups and drawn-out slow fads, and i’v trid to pay attntion to what sms to b going on. hr ar a fw of th things i’v sn that caus popl to dstroy thir own rlationships.1. you’r playing to winon of th dadlist killrs of rlationships is th comptitiv urg. i don’t man comptition in th sns that you can’t stand to los at tnnis, i man th attitud that th rlationship itslf is a kind of gam that you’r tying to win. popl in comptitiv rlationships ar always looking for an advantag, th uppr hand, som dg thy can hold ovr thir partnr’s had. if you fl that thr ar things you can’t tll your partnr bcaus sh or h will us it against you, you’r in a comptitiv rlationship — but not for long.2. you don’t trustthr ar two aspcts of trust that ar important in rlationships. on is trusting your partnr nough to know that s/h won’t chat on you or othrwis hurt you — and to know that h or sh trusts you that way, too. th othr is trusting thm nough to know thy won’t lav you or stop loving you no mattr what you do or say. th scond that lvl of trust is gon, whthr bcaus on of you taks advantag of that trust and dos somthing horribl or bcaus on of you thinks th othr has, th rlationship is ovr — vn if it taks 10 mor yars for you to brak up.3. you don’t talktoo many popl hold thir tongus about things that bothr or upst thm in thir rlationship, ithr bcaus thy don’t want to hurt thir partnr, or bcaus thy’r trying to win. (s #1 abov; xampl: “if you don’t know why i’m mad, i’m crtainly not going to tll you!”) whil this might mak things asir in th short trm, in th long run it gradually rods th foundation of th rlationship away. littl issus grow into biggr and biggr problms — problms that don’t gt fixd bcaus your partnr is blissfully unawar, or wors, is totally awar of thm but thinks thy don’t rally bothr you. ultimatly, kping quit rflcts a lack of trust — and, as i said that’s th dath of a rlationship.4. you don’t listnlistning — rally listning — is hard. it’s normal to want to dfnd ourslvs whn w har somthing that sms lik criticism, so instad of rally haring somon out, w intrrupt to xplain or xcus ourslvs, or w turn inward to prpar our dfns. but your partnr dsrvs your activ listning. s/h vn dsrvs you to har th btwn-th-lins contnt of daily chit-chat, to suss out his/hr drams and dsirs whn vn s/h dosn’t vn know xactly what thy ar. if you can’t listn that way, at last to th prson you lov, thr’s a problm.5. you spnd lik a singl prsonthis was a hard lsson for m to larn — until it brok up a 7-yar rlationship. whn you’r singl, you can buy whatvr you want, whnvr you want, with littl rgard for th futur. it’s not ncssarily wis, but you’r th only on who has to pay th consquncs. whn you ar with somon in a long-trm rlationship, that is no longr a possibility. your partnr — and your childrn, if thr ar or will b any — will hav to bar th brunt of your spnding, so you’d bttr gt in th habit of taking car of houshold ncssitis first and thn, if thr’s anything lft ovr, of discussing with your partnr th bst way to us it.this is an incrasing problm ths days, bcaus mor and mor popl ar opting to kp thir financs sparat, vn whn thy’r marrid. thr’s nothing wrong with that kind of arrangmnt in and of itslf, but it dmands mor communication and involvmnt btwn th partnrs, not lss. if you’r spnding mony as if it was your mony and nobody ls has a right to tll you what to do with it, your rlationship is doomd.6. you’r afraid of braking upnobody in a truly happy partnrship is afraid of braking up. if you ar, that’s a big warning sign that somthing’s wrong. but oftn, what’s wrong is th far itslf. not only dos it btray a lack of trust, but it shows a lack of slf-confidnc and slf-stm — you’r afraid that thr’s no good rason for somon to want to b with you, and that soonr or latr your partnr will “wis up” and tak off. so you pour mor nrgy into kping up th apparanc of a happy rlationships than you do into building yourslf up as a prson. quit frankly, this isn’t going to b vry satisfying for you, and it also isn’t going to b vry satisfying for your partnr.7. you’r dpndntthr’s a thin lin btwn companionship and support and dpndncy. if you dpnd on your partnr — that is, if you absolutly cannot liv without hr or him — you’v crossd that lin. th prssur is now on your partnr to fill whatvr’s missing in you — a prssur s/h will larn to rsnt. if you xpct your partnr to bring vrything whil you bring nothing to your rlationship — and i’m talking financs as wll as motional support, hr — you’r in troubl. (not: i’m not saying that you nd to contribut qually to houshold financs — what i’m saying is that if you’r not contributing to th houshold budgt, and you’r not contributing anywhr ls, things ar out of whack and that’s nvr good.)8. you xpct happinssa sign of a bad rlationship is that on or both partnrs xpct ithr to mak th othr happy or for thir partnr to mak thm happy. this is not only an unralistic xpctation to lay on yourslf or on thm — nobody can “mak” you happy, xcpt you — but it’s an unralistic xpctation to lay on your rlationship. rlationships arn’t only about bing happy, and thr’s lots of tims whn you won’t and vn shouldn’t b. bing abl to rly on somon vn whn you’r upst, misrabl, dprssd, or griving is a lot mor important than bing happy all th tim. if you xpct your partnr to mak you happy — or wors, you’r frustratd bcaus you arn’t abl to mak your partnr happy — your rlationship isn’t going to far wll whn it hits a rough spot.9. you nvr fighta good argumnt is ssntial, vry now and thn. in part, arguing hlps bring out th littl stuff bfor it bcoms major, but also, fighting xprsss angr which is a prfctly normal part of a human’s motional mak-up. your rlationship has to b strong nough to hold all of who you ar, not just th sunny stuff.on rason coupls don’t fight is that thy far conflict — which rflcts a lack of trust and a foundation of far. that’s bad. anothr rason coupls avoid argumnts is that thy’v larnd that angr is unrasonabl and unproductiv. thy’v larnd that arguing rprsnts a brakdown rathr than a natural part of a rlationship’s dvlopmnt. whil an argumnt isn’t plasant, it can hlp both partnrs to articulat issus thy may not hav vn known thy had — and hlp kp thm from simmring until you cross a lin you can’t com back from.10. you xpct it to b asy/you xpct it to b hardthr ar two dply problmatic attituds about rlationships i har oftn. on is that a rlationship should b asy, that if you rally lov ach othr and ar mant to b togthr, it will work itslf out. th othr is that anything worth having is going to b hard — and that thrfor if it’s hard, it must b worth having.th outcom of both viws is that you don’t work at your rlationship. you don’t work bcaus it’s supposd to b asy and thrfor not nd any work, or you don’t work bcaus it’s supposd to b hard and it wouldn’t b hard if you workd at it. in both cass, you quickly gt burnt out — ithr bcaus th problms you’r ignoring rally don’t go away just bcaus you think thy should. or bcaus th problms you’r cultivating ar a constant drag on your nrgy. a rlationship that’s too much work might b suffring from on of th attituds abov, but a rlationship that dosn’t sm to nd any work isn’t any bttr.your choicsthr isn’t any on answr to any of th problms abov. thr ar choics though: you can ithr sk out an answr, somthing that addrsss why you ar hurting your rlationship, or you can rsign yourslf to th failur of your rlationship (and mayb th nxt on, and th nxt on, and&hllip;). failur dosn’t always man you brak up — many popl arn’t that lucky. but popl can liv quit unhappily in faild rlationships for yars and vn dcads bcaus thy’r afraid thy won’t find anything bttr, or wors, thy’r afraid thy dsrv it. don’t you b on of thm — if you suffr from any of ths problms, figur out how to fix it, whthr that mans thrapy, a solo mountain rtrat, or just talking to your partnr and committing yourslvs to chang.