Toxic troubles: Some common behaviours could be poisoning your relationship

Toxic — no that isn’t just a Britney Spears song from her glory days now past. Instead, it’s that relationship habit you have that you believe is entirely normal, but is actually killing all the romance between you and your partner. The popular lifestyle author recently put together a list of toxic habits that sound the slow and steady death knell of any relationship — and which most people aren’t even conscious of engaging in. We’re breaking his list down for you, our readers. Read on to find out if you engage in any of these — and how you can stop.

Holding him/her responsible for what you’re feeling
Manson says one mistake many of us make, is when we’re having a bad day, and we transfer those feelings onto our partner. Again, it’s entirely human to do so. But do this consistently, and you run the risk of ruining a perfectly good relationship. Understand that your feelings are your own, and your emotional state is ultimately, only your responsibility. Manson says when we expect our significant other to “make things better” what we develop, is a co-dependency. And the expectation that your partner’s life should revolve around your well-being is not the hallmark of a healthy relationship.

Aggressive, who me?
You may think that just because you never triggered a confrontation or yelled at your partner or threw a dish when you were frustrated, that you’ve never been the aggressor in the relationship. Well, think again. Passive aggressiveness — sulking, acting cold or indifferent, shutting our partner out, giving in with bad grace, being sarcastic or dropping hints about what he/she would do if they really loved you — is probably worse than having an outright confrontation. Your passive aggressiveness undermines your relationship with your partner. More than that, it makes you lesser than the person you are and could be. Drop the behaviour. Focus on communicating openly and directly instead. Expecting your partner to be a mind reader will only leave you frustrated.

Keeping score
Manson says this is probably among the most damaging practices to have in a relationship. What does keeping score mean? Well, if you have maintained a mental checklist of every little mistake he/she ever did — and never fail to bring it up when you’re arguing, even if the said infringement happened a year or two or five ago — well, then you’re pretty much poisoning your relationship. Yes, it’s only human to hold on to anger and bitterness when you feel you were let down by your partner in the past, but for the sake of your future, you need to work on it and let it go. Keeping score works in another way as well — when you make a mistake, you automatically square it off in your mind by saying, “Well, he/she was sending those flirty messages to XYZ. Why shouldn’t I go out with ABC this once?” Deal with issues when they crop up — not years later when your resentment has built up to fever pitch.

Holding the relationship hostage
Do you have a tendency to pick on one flaw/quality of your partner and then issue ultimatums like: “I can’t have a relationship with someone who is so emotionally distant all the time”? Manson says this is an indication that you are holding your relationship hostage. He advises phrasing your statement like, “it’s difficult for me that you are so emotionally distant”. That way, you’re leaving the door open for your partner to work on being more emotionally available, rather than sending out the statement that you’d rather not be with him/her because of some trait. You can’t make your commitment to your partner conditional, that ploy reeks of emotional blackmail.

Taking the easy way out
Very often, when you’re going through a bad patch in a relationship, there is a tendency to focus on the superficials — instead of working on any deep, meaningful, long-term change. So when your partner expresses that you consistently place him below work in your priorities, you shower him with gifts to prove otherwise. Or you’ve just had an argument about how possessive she can be, so you end up in bed and have sex instead of tackling her insecurities and how it affects you, head on. Taking a touristy holiday together when you can’t find a solution to a niggling worry about your future together. These are just band-aids that won’t do anything beyond surface healing. Deal with the problem — don’t try to cover it up. Or all you’ll be left with is a festering wound that seems to have scabbed over on the surface.