Signs of a Failing Relationship

Have you ever experienced feeling so tired of a relationship? Like not wanting to go home early or being bored to go to work? Or even feeling like a deadbeat every time you talk to your partner, boss, friend, or a co-worker. Wherein you want to avoid seeing or talking to them and eventually you find yourself making so much excuses. Perhaps, you need to check out if you or your partner has these signs that your relationship is coming to a failure. It all boils down to one word H-A-T-E . . .

Having a Communication Withdrawal

- This is the first sign of a failing relationship. You no longer want to talk or listen to your partner or the other person to avoid dealing with conflict. You have that feeling that it would still be useless if you try to explain your side of the story. You possibly do things on your own and you begin to hide some information to avoid any discussion. You tend to hide your feelings whenever you feel hurt, lonely or problematic over some matters. You tend to withdraw from places, areas, topics or jobs that may eventually lead to a conversation with that person. For instance, couples who pretend that they felt tired every time they go home from work or an employee who sends e-mail questions to his boss instead of asking it personally may have this H-sign in their relationship. Other significant indications may include “making excuses to go out, having a frowning or a sad face, easily gets bored, or starting to look for others company.” You no longer have that feeling of enjoyment when you talk or work together. You are no longer interested to know about the things that are happening to your partner’s life. You now start to lose connection with each other.

Act of Defensiveness

- This is the second sign of a failing relationship. You now have the tendency to get easily irritated. You start to develop that feeling of being put down and ignored by your partner or boss. For instance, if the husband was retrenched from his work and his wife will tell him to look for a job, he may possibly interpret it as being labeled as a bum. On the other hand, if the husband forgot her birthday, she may perceive it as being neglected. Other situations may differ in the office such as if you have a highly qualified staff who is always being recognized by the Management, you, as his supervisor, tends to disregard his work in fear that he may replace you. In contrast, if your staff feels disregarded by you then he may tend to become suspicious and cynical every time you correct his work. You tend to stand up for what you think is right without hearing the other person’s side. You tend to lose your ability to listen because you feel that you are being criticized every time your partner says something to you. You see yourself as a person being neglected in spite of all your efforts to contribute at home or at work. You now tend to defend yourself from possible insults and conflicts that may come into your relationship. You now feel that you are a victim and tend to protect your “ego”.

Total Decreased of Performance

- Let’s try to compare a relationship communication to a profit and loss in a business. If the performance of a company decreased then there is a big possibility that employees’ benefits may also decreased. If an employee lost his interest at work then his output may lessen too. In the same way that if we lost our interest to communicate in our relationship then there may also be a lost of support to each other. Our relationship may now start to dwindle and then eventually end up as a failure. For instance, if you notice that your best staff starts to go to work late and takes a longer lunch break then this is already a hint that there is a problem. Furthermore, if your husband starts to go home late or will always say that they have a meeting in the office then this might be the right time to evaluate your relationship. If your wife stops preparing good dishes for you or stops caring for your personal needs then this might be a warning sign that you might want to pay attention. We tend to stop the things that we normally do for our partner, boss or friends when we start to withdraw and act defensively. Our attention level tends to diminish and we now show lack of concern to each other.

Expecting Too Much

- When we argue too much in our relationship, we tend to set a higher goal to our partner whether intentionally or unintentionally wanting to see the other person fail. This is a connection between acting defensively to protect our ego and expecting too much to satisfy us. We tend to develop that feeling of deception in our relationship. However, there are instances when we set an extreme expectation from our partner or children that is obviously too hard to attain. This may now result to a feeling of failure that eventually leads to a family communication problem. In this same way that if we try to be somebody just to be loved then we might end up in the world of depression. Whichever way it is, we become frustrated if we expect too much from our partner that definitely affects our relationship. It is very hard for anybody to become the person that we are not.

When you start to feel that you hate your partner then it’s time that you both evaluate your relationship before it ends up too late. These are signs that you may feel in your relationship that is, H-A-T-E. When you no longer feel that fire of love, then what follows next is hate.

Lastly, I want share to with you a line from the book Living, Loving & Learning written by one of my favorite author Leo Buscaglia, Ph.D, which says “You, if you are a loving person, will rule words and not allow words to rule you.”