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(#5) They Try To Be Right In Every Situation
From Redditor /u/WhyAreYouUpsideDown:
[The] No. 1 problem I see is overactive threat response creating anger and rigidity. People don’t stop to turn down their defense mode, and lose sight of love because all their energy is going toward being right or controlling the outcome. Of course that control comes from a place of fear, but fear and vulnerability feel too dangerous, so it typically gets expressed as anger, frustration, or rigidity.
Surrender to not having control, accept what’s in front of you, and cultivate compassion. Please. Because y’all rigid couples who just can’t prioritize empathizing with each other over your fear response are driving me nuts!
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(#13) They Don't Discuss Unspoken Rules
From Redditor /u/Stellaheystella:
Current marriage, couple, and family master’s counseling student here. Unspoken family rules that you bring into relationship are huge.
Obviously you didn’t grow up together, and... you may have had completely different family of origin experiences. It can be as simple as your family separated out laundry by color, and your significan other's just threw everything in together, so you have different family rules regarding laundry. Or you had the rule of “family problems stay in the family,” and your significant other talked to people outside the family about all the problems freely.
Everybody has these rules. Talking about and uncovering them (without judgment) will go a very long way toward maintaining and deepening connection. If you don’t talk about them, it is easy to get into negative interactional patterns that are just rehearsals of how your family did things, [insead of creating] healthy, mutually safe patterns.
Also, I recommend everyone in a relationship take an attachment style quiz and compare their attachment style (secure, anxious, or avoidant), because that reveals a lot of unspoken rules as well.
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(#6) They Don't Talk About Money
From Redditor /u/WholeMilkStandard:
If you're marrying someone with a sh*tty credit score, you should know how and why they ended up with it, lest you find yourself in their shoes very quickly. A credit score can cost thousands and take years 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? I've seen money kill a lot of marriages.
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(#7) They Don't Discuss Intimacy
From Redditor /u/WholeMilkStandard:
Another one a lot of people don't think of is actually talking about [intimacy], not just having [intimate relations]. Do you enjoy the [intimacy] you have? Would you like to have more of it? Less? Would you like to see it change?
Do you or the other person have any weird [preferences]? Just have the talk. Different... wavelengths can be difficult to reconcile.
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(#14) They Don't Build On The Initial Giddy Feelings
From Redditor /u/ericdavis1240214:
They confuse love with the chemical high you get early in a relationship. That cannot last, for reasons built into our biology.
A successful relationship is built on that feeling. It’s built on mutual respect and a mutual decision to make it work each day.
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(#10) They Don't See Themselves As Individuals Who Are Together
From Redditor /u/Negromancers:
One of the most toxic things I have found in doing marriage counseling is when couples think of themselves as individuals who happen to be together and not as a couple. (Not that I’m advocating enmeshment.) That’s not really marriage. That’s having a roommate, or perhaps less than that even.
Marriage is a union of two people. That’s what the unity candle and sand and knots are all about. There is a bringing together of two lives that is inseparable. If [they] conceptualizes themselves as solely autonomous individuals whose actions and dispositions impact only themselves, things will go bad eventually.
They go bad because it results in people caring more for themselves than their spouses. This [happens] when couples spend money behind each other’s backs because “it’s my money; why does it matter?” Or when couples keep secrets from each other, which inevitably results in pain. Or when they don’t stop to consider their spouse’s thoughts, feelings, desires, dreams, abilities, and strengths alongside their weaknesses.
The remedy is behaving as a unit in small and large ways. If you’re getting something from the fridge, see if your spouse wants something. It even helps in arguments: no longer is it spouse against spouse, but it’s the married couple against the issue causing stress to the unit.
When one person considers a course of action, their thoughts ought to be about how it impacts the unit.
TL;DR: “and the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two but one.”
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About This Tool
It's no secret that lasting and stable relationships take effort. There is not a formal that describes the skills, strategies, and ingredients necessary for a successful relationship. Everyone has different ways of communicating and getting along in different relationships. In the search for a healthy relationship, many couples try to avoid the same mistakes their parents made. These efforts may be helpful, but they may not prevent the couple from making mistakes.
Some marriage counselors and therapists have seen many couples make the same relationship mistakes. You could find 16 of the biggest mistakes couples make in this random tool.
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