Relationships require that participants be willing to invest their resources in an unknown entity. When they are new and optimistic, the risk/benefit ratio seems worth it. But if the rewards stop outpacing the profits over time, the once-promising transaction may no longer be worth the cost.
This is often why couples seek therapy. Sadly, by then, they have typically experienced years of more cost than gain, more pain than achievement, and more disappointment than hope.
Yet they are willing to give it one last chance. Do they still have enough energy, motivation, commitment, and hope to be able to reinvest?
Many variables go into this decision, but one is the most important: What is the current ratio of negative to positive experiences within the relationship’s interactions?
Some negative or difficult differences are to be expected in every relationship, and most couples learn to either repair them or live with them. But some are so destructive that they destroy any hope of reconciliation.
Many “things can ruin a relationship” that I could use as examples, but the ten I’m going to describe easily fill Pandora’s box of relationship demons. The more of these things that permeate a relationship, the less hope there is for rebirth.
Note: I’ve left out physical or emotional abuse because the damage it does to a relationship is obvious and, in most cases, irreparable.
- “Public exposure.” No matter what’s going on in a relationship, it’s never okay for either partner to publicly bully the other. Whether it’s pointing out flaws, revealing secrets, attacking current behavior, or trying to get someone else to pitch in to help with emotional skin, it never bodes well.
People often do this because they either want to embarrass their partner in the hopes that it will increase the pressure on them to change unwanted behaviors, or because they feel safer doing so in front of others and are willing to suffer the consequences later.
- Emotional blackmail. Intimate partners share their history, especially in the early moments of contact. Secrets from the past, traumas, childhood pain, relationship losses. The new lovers are like symbolic parents to each other, eager and willing to be the ones to heal all these wounds.
Unfortunately, as relationships mature, these once-sacred “shares” can be used as emotional ammunition, mined by one partner to make the other feel guilty, shamed, manipulated, or afraid of being exposed if they don’t comply.
Strategic withholding, ignoring, nagging, martyrdom, and threatening to abandon or deny are all behaviors used for emotional blackmail.
- Passive/aggressive behavior. It becomes increasingly difficult to trust someone who has seriously agreed to do something and never seems to do it.
When promises are continually broken, for whatever reason, they eventually turn into lies.
Most passive/aggressive people intend to keep their promises when they make them and feel guilty when they are disappointed. Yet they continue in the same pattern. Eventually, their partners stop expecting them to be kept.
It’s easy to recognize passive/aggressive partners: they’ve become unbalanced people who question whether reality exists.
- Scoring. Love that grows over time is generous. It thrives because both partners balance giving and taking care of themselves. They’re more interested in figuring out how to make things better than who did wrong and why.
Scoring has only one purpose; to make sure the other partner is held accountable for certain behaviors because they “took more than they deserved,” and now they have to pay for that sin.
The most common behavior in these relationships is to rehash previous arguments. When the conflict is over and a winner is named or both partners back away from irresolvable issues, they’re sure to come back later and rehash the entire argument all over again, armed with new energy and a desire to change the previous outcome. They repeat their positions over and over again and don’t listen as deeply as they did the first time.
- Intentional meanness. All couples fight, and sometimes they say things that hurt the other person deeply. But when things calm down, they are quick to ask for forgiveness and ease the pain they caused.
Intentional abuse is a completely different type of behavior. The goal of this situation and the actions that accompany it are said and done with the stated purpose of destroying the other party.
These behaviors are easy to spot and are completely unacceptable. If they are not stopped, few relationships will survive. Examples of intentional meanness include hitting below the belt, turning the discussion around to put the other partner on the defensive, going to the end of the line, contempt, stonewalling, emotionally beating, exploiting weaknesses to undermine, ridiculing, invalidating, or using others’ opinions to advance the discussion.
- Relationship Triangles of Addictive Behaviors. Having worked with addictive behaviors for many years, I have come to realize how damaging the triangles that always exist when the addicted devil becomes the third member of the triad are. Anyone who has lived with an addict knows that they will always compete with a stronger, more seductive lover who can take the other partner away at any moment.
Addicted people can be lured into escape behaviors that deny the other partner any power to hold them accountable in the relationship.
Think of Pinocchio. Tell the cat and the fox, “Come with me and you won’t have to deal with your disappointments, your loneliness, your failures, your fears, or your missed opportunities. You can do whatever you want without any responsibilities.” Of course, you will eventually become a slave, and you won’t be able to function in the real world. But that’s written in very small print.
Addiction creates narcissistic behavior because no one can be more important than the pursuit, satisfaction, and ultimately hunger to use again. Partners can gain priority temporarily, but it won’t last.
I have never seen a healthy relationship where one or both partners are addicted.
- Infidelity. Infidelity can exist across a wide range of behaviors. But at its core, it’s a conscious choice by one partner to put their priorities ahead of the sanctity of the relationship.
Trust is the belief that a person will do what they agree to do and will not do anything that might hurt the other partner. It is based on honest and authentic agreements about what behaviors are acceptable to both parties and what would break the relationship if the other partner knew about them.
Betrayal, cover-ups, and justifying actions by blaming circumstances or the other partner leave permanent scars at the core of the relationship and are often irreparable.
- Destroying sacred icons. Every human being holds sacred beliefs, attitudes, attachments, and relationships. The images and ideas that are part of those physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual connections represent those icons and are, by extension, equally vulnerable.
These sacred icons may simply be meaningful memories from the past, religious teachings, treasures, relationships, material possessions, or transitional objects that represent a lost person or thing. They are not necessarily rational and do not lend themselves to challenge.
Partners in a relationship never have the right to invalidate, ridicule, or destroy the sacred connections they have with each other. They can question when, how, and why it matters and why it is such a big part of a person’s emotional landscape, but its importance is never underestimated.
- Erasing. Memories create the foundation that allows a relationship to grow beyond its boundaries and resolve its difficulties. If either partner in a relationship wants to erase past behavior because they don’t want to own it or deal with it, the other will never be able to resolve the issue. These partners are unwilling to accept responsibility for who they were and what they did in the past and are essentially asking their partners to pretend their ordeal never happened.
“I never told you that. Why are you rewriting history? Just to make me feel bad? Where’s your forgiveness?”
“Hey, come on in. I was having a bad day. Just let it go and be a good sport.”
“Can’t you just let it go? You’re living in the past.”
A partner who is constantly told that the past doesn’t matter can’t hope to change the future.
- Hypocrisy. Pretending. Lying. Manipulating. Deceiving. Fraud. Saying or doing whatever one needs to do to keep what one wants at the expense of the other. Talking badly behind someone’s back. Withholding important information from the other partner to keep them ignorant, or hiding that knowledge to get away with it. Hypocrisy in all its forms speaks for itself.
