With some reflection on a current or past relationship, you might be able to guess a few of the worst things to say or do to a partner—like name-call or criticize them in an argument, or offer up an ultimatum. But many of the bad habits that can break down a relationship over time are far less obvious or intentional in action.
According to couples therapist Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT, co-founder of relationship counseling platform Ours, some of these under-the-radar habits can actually spring from good intentions, which is all the more reason why they can be so tough to identify in the moment. So, if you suspect you’re doing all the right relationship things but still feel a baseline level of tension bubbling up between you and a partner, one of these bad relationship habits may be to blame. Read on for the most common ones that Earnshaw sees in her practice.
4 relationship bad habits that a couples therapist says you should stop doing
1. You take on the majority of your shared responsibilities
A highly uneven division of the tasks that you and a partner share—be they household chores, taking care of a kid, planning a trip, or even small things like responding to mutual invites—is sure to degrade the quality of your partnership over time.
“What I often see happen is, at the beginning of a relationship or after two people move in together, one person will over-function, so they’re the one always changing the toilet paper, putting the dishes away, picking up the socks, and it’s no big deal because they love their partner and these are easy things to do,” says Earnshaw. “But then life starts to compound, and you have to deal with your growing careers, or you have kids, or you move into a bigger space, and then, being the one who continues to take care of everything begins to breed resentment.”
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The tricky thing is achieving a (roughly) balanced division of those tasks before you reach that point. While you may want to do things for your partner—and that’s certainly not a bad thing—when it becomes a pattern or even an implicit contract of the relationship that you’re going to take care of most or all of the shared tasks, it’s bound to become exhausting and unsustainable with time, says Earnshaw. And eventually, you start …….
