Signs of a Bad Relationship

You’re searching all over the internet to find out signs of a bad relationship. So that means you have the question and somewhere inside you the knowledge that your relationship sucks. Otherwise, why would you be searching. I mean we all know what a bad relationship can look like:

• You don’t agree on much.
• You each blame each other for lots of things
• You argue or you shut down. And he does the same.
• Your eye is wandering to other relationships and you are seeing theirs as way better – or at least it looks better than yours.
• You feel pretty badly about yourself.
• You’ve started to believe that NO relationship works.
• You feel abused.
• You are abused.
• You feel sad, angry - just plain unhappy.
• You want to leave.
• You’re afraid to leave.
• You think maybe you haven’t tried hard enough.
• You think maybe you’re totally codependent and can’t live on your own.
• You don’t really trust your partner anymore.
• You don’t really trust yourself anymore.
• Your friends say you should leave.
• You friends say you should stay.

These and many others are signs of a bad relationship. When a relationship is good, you feel happy, fulfilled, excited, absorbed, loved, connected. You are happy to see each other. You can’t wait. You think mostly loving and good thoughts about your partner. You feel good about yourself.

It’s not signs of a bad relationship you need to know about. It’s:

• “How can I notice the signs more quickly?”
• “How can I feel good enough about myself to brave leaving if necessary?”
• “How can I feel good enough about myself to open my mouth and say what isn’t working for me?”
• “How can I say what I feel and not get into an argument about it?”
• “How can I be heard?”
• “How can I be brave enough to know I can make it on my own, if necessary?”
• “How can I accept the inevitabilities of life without a not-working relationship as a crutch?

I can answer these questions for you by telling you some things.

• Everyone on the planet has a past.
• Everyone on the planet has parents.
• No parents, no people are perfect.
• And in our imperfection, we affect each other.

Most of us growing up somehow lost touch with the idea that we are OK, that we are deserving of happiness.  I personally believe that we come to planet earth expressly for that purpose – to learn how to love ourselves so that the inner promptings we all have – the actual biological chemistry that humans have that allow/make us feel our feelings is a kind of internal guidance system. That’s why you are reading this article. That’s why you searched on the internet for “signs of a bad relationship”. You feel lousy and you are not happy.

That’s because bad relationships feel bad. So the answer to how you can notice the signs early, have enough self-esteem to say how you feel and have a good strong bottom line of expected behavior is to heal your emotional past so that it is no longer in charge of your choice of partners and learn how to appropriately communicate with your partner – current or future – in a way that allows you to feel heard and feel good and grows the relationship rather then tearing it down.

I learned how to do just that. It took work but, boy, have the rewards been fabulous. After two failed marriages, I have been very happily remarried for 27 years – my third marriage. We communicate. It’s not always easy but no feelings are under our rug waiting to explode. Our past is largely where it should be – in the past – not in charge of our lives and our relationship. I wish “10 Tricks to a Happy Relationship” worked but I’ve never found it to be true for anybody.

Now that you're done, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

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