How to Get Rid of Bad Habits in a Relationship

Bad habits often breed toxicity and that’s not what you want in a long term relationship.

While it’s true that there is no perfect relationship, it doesn’t mean you have to be complacent. Most couples don’t try to improve the relationship just because they’ve passed the courting threshold. Then again, that really messes with things in the long run.

Toxicity doesn’t happen right away. Some couples don’t even realize the relationship has gone from bad to worse. In most cases, they don’t know that it’s gotten borderline cancerous, until a few years down the line or until someone points it out to them.

Toxic relationships happen because of a lot of factors, but they start with bad habits. You need to spot these bad habits for what they are and fix them right away.

Here are some extremely bad habits in soon-to-be toxic relationships:

1. Passive-Aggressive Tendencies

Do you have a habit of nudging your partner in the right direction instead of outright telling them you are upset about something? Do you find ways to anger them too and do it in subtle ways rather than just talking to them about what’s been upsetting you?

If all you’ve done is drop hints here and there about being angry, then stop.

This is an extremely toxic and unhealthy behavior. All this is doing is making things worse. This is being immature about the situation instead of dealing with it like proper adults. If you do act childish in hopes of achieving something, congrats. You are also enabling your partner’s childishness.

They will retaliate in the same manner. Or worse, they will ignore it and then nothing will be resolved. It will get even harder to bring it up again and it’s going to fester in the background, waiting to burst while you two pretend as if everything is okay.

Don’t do that.

What you should do instead: Be honest. Tell them that you don’t necessarily want them to be responsible for what you’re feeling, but that it would be nice to have their support. They will understand and will support you if they truly love you.

2. The Blame Game

When you don’t actively take responsibility for your own feelings and just blame whatever it is you’re feeling on your partner, that’s when you know that it’s severely toxic.

There are also those who can’t find any fault in themselves. Everything that has ever gone wrong in the relationship, they blame it on their partner. Most of them aren’t even aware that they’re the problem. They just think they can’t do anything wrong and then blame what’s been happening on the closest person.

Gaslighting is a specific type of manipulation and it is commonly happening in not just couples but families as well. It’s when you manipulate someone into questioning their reality and memory. Like saying “I didn’t say that” or “You’re being too sensitive, stop making a big deal out of this.”

What you should do instead: Put yourself in their shoes. How would you feel if you were told the things you’ve been saying to them? Instead of placing blame on them, think first. Is it really their fault you’re feeling like this? You need to realize that they aren’t obligated to take your abuse. Shape up and take responsibility. You’re both adults.

3. Dismissing Arguments

The only thing this will do is make things worse. Dismissing the fight means you’re also dismissing your partner’s emotions. Walking away from it may cease the fight quickly, but it doesn’t solve anything. All you’re doing is saving the argument for later. And by then, the fight will either have died from your partner or festered to unmanageable levels.

Both scenarios are bad. If your partner refuses to talk about the argument later, then they won’t talk about it ever again. You two can pretend as if everything is fine, but the bitterness will stay.

What you should do instead: Talk. If it hasn’t been said enough, remind yourself that communication is important in relationships. This includes talking about the fight, talking about why it happened, and talking about how to resolve it.

Don’t try to talk over each other, either. Don’t try to force your partner into agreeing with you because you two have your own opinions and feelings.

Instead, agree to disagree. Understand their perspective because they will try to understand you as well. You two aren’t a couple because you’re similar in every aspect. You two are together because your differences complement each other and because you two fell in love despite those differences.

4. Throwing Money at Your Problems

This is what rich parents do when they mess up. Instead of talking to their kids, they try to say sorry without actually saying it.

Maybe in some cases that will work, but the majority of the time, it won’t.

We’ve seen how that messes up a child’s perception of things and how they react to arguments, mistakes, and apologies. If this doesn’t work on children, you can bet that it will not work well with romantic relationships.

As ironic as it sounds, using money to say sorry is the cheapest way of apologizing. When you try to give your partner an expensive gift after an argument, it’s like you’re saying they can be easily bought with money. Like you can keep dragging them back into your arms if you wave your wallet around.

A lot of people will not take kindly to that. Real relationships rely on actual emotions, not how fat your bank account is.

What you should do instead: Actually say sorry. And mean it. Talk things through. Admit that you were in the wrong and promise to be better. Every argument is different and there will be a need for context to some things, but no matter what happened that caused the fight, throwing money at the problem will not solve it. Unless the fight was a financial issue, that is.

Change the Bad Habits to Good Habits

Changing the way you think and act is easier said than done. Still, it’s manageable. No one ever said that relationships were easy. Those that lasted long and are still going strong got there because of hard work from both sides.

Work better on forgiving and showing affection. And remember that loving someone else is nearly impossible if you aren’t loving yourself. Try not to be codependent either, because you two are separate individuals. Take care of yourself just as much as you take care of each other.