Psychologist Anna Iotko talks about toxic relationships and the most common female mistakes that can destroy even the most promising couples.
In the first part of this article, I told you about four female behavior patterns in a couple that lead to the slag of relationships . Now I want to draw your attention to one important aspect of our life – self-development. It occurs on four levels, known to all:
- bodily (when we take care of our health and beauty)
- emotional (when we are in harmony with ourselves and are responsible for our lives)
- intellectual (we know what we want – we must at least once a week sit down and think about what we want, what we lack, what we need to change, what we need to learn, etc.)
- social (this is the part of our life where our friends, interests, and work belong)
Only when we develop simultaneously in all these directions can we feel truly happy and share this state with our partner. Otherwise, we begin to pollute the relationship with our own hands. How – this is discussed below.
Habit: Control freak
What is it: Another extreme in relationships is when a woman takes the relationship completely under her wing and begins to play the role of a mother. This also includes all sorts of reproaches and moralizing, when a woman tries to convey to a man that he does not correspond to her ideas, constantly repeating such statements as “I knew it”, “How much more can you do?”, “When will you make a decision?” etc.
Why is it bad? What is happiness? Imagine you have a match. A man brings you sulfur, and you light your happiness. Both separately are also happiness, but when they are together, it is even better. There are two extremes: the first is when a woman gives a match to a man and says: “Now you dance, and I will watch”, the second is “Give it to me, I will do everything myself”, and takes the position of a strict leader or mother in the family, and then sexual attraction to her disappears. Because in a man’s head, mother and sex are two different things. Mother is for love, and sex, you need to look for another woman. So, when we start playing this role, and constantly lecturing and educating, such relationships very quickly reach a dead end. The man either starts cheating or leaves the relationship.
How to do it: It only seems to us that we can control everything. And in fact, it is the same mistake when a woman does not allow a man to bear responsibility for his actions. You need to stop being a control freak and look for a way out of this state through pleasure. It does not matter in what area – whether you will dance, enjoy the process of embroidery, or work. It is important to find somewhere your thrill, which you get from controlling the relationship.
Habit: Manipulating the Past
What it is : This is a state when we hold a stone behind our back and, at every opportunity, remind our partner of our resentment for their past actions towards us. From the series: “I remember how two years ago you flirted with Lenka’s friend, so I am against you going to a party alone.”
Why it’s bad: Such manipulations are truly a killer for relationships, which demotivates any improvement. A clear attitude is formed in the man’s head: “It doesn’t matter what I do; she still remembers this screw-up; accordingly, it devalues any of my actions.” Again, there are two possible scenarios: either the partner will start looking for some other interest and feel like a person there, or they will simply leave. Mentioning the past is like throwing a concrete slab into a lake every time. You have a small pond, a beautiful one, goldfish swim in it, water lilies grow, and children run around this pond… And one – a slab falls! Then – two! Five! By the sixth time, it will be very difficult to restore the pond. It is easier to dig a new one.
How to do it: If returning to the situation is aimed at making you “suffer” too, it is toxic and does not give anything. It is worth returning when you want to close the issue once and for all. But first of all, you need to ask yourself: why do I want to remind him of the past so much, what does it give me? Satisfaction that I am such a heroine and endure all this, or do I want him to dance to my tune? Or maybe I should find a healthier way to convey to him what is bothering me? It is not easy, but try to find something else that can give you this feeling of self-confidence, and stop being afraid of losing this relationship. And, of course, it is important to include your partner in this situation. If he respects your mistrust and feelings at the moment and is ready to help you somehow cope with it, then such a couple has a better chance of starting everything “from scratch”.
Habit: Jealousy and provocation of jealousy
What it is: Women have developed intuition just like men do polygamy. And, as we said, if the big picture is important to them, then for us, the details – he moved his hand the wrong way for the first time in 15 years – we already understand: something is wrong. Probably, there is no woman, regardless of status and age, who, in the most dangerous moments for herself, would not get into her phone or email and check whether her suspicions are true. But it is much worse that we are afraid to openly express our feelings – and, possibly, lose this relationship, and instead we begin to prove our value to our partner and that other men may be interested in us too.
Why it is bad: On the one hand, jealousy is the most painful condition, in which both women and men can often behave inappropriately, and in certain cases it can reach obsession, and here the consequences can be the most unpleasant. On the other hand, provoking jealous situations, even if you have no one and you bought yourself flowers or new Cartier earrings, is always fraught. This way, you poison your relationship and move away from each other even more. Indeed, there is a category of men who are very good at showing themselves in a competitive spirit, but it is always disadvantageous to specifically point out the existence of an existing or non-existent rival, because the man will take advantage of this at some point.
How to do it: If a man gave a reason: paid attention to another woman at a party, complimented her, then you need to be jealous in the moment. Say that you don’t like it when he looks at other women, and please don’t admire other women in your presence. The mistake of most is that they remember it the next morning or a week later – “but you then …”. A man will always say that it was not like that at all, and you made it all up yourself. Then you need to say: “I feel that you are interested in another woman, I can’t get these thoughts out of my head. If you convince me otherwise, I will be glad; if not, you refuse this, but I will feel it, and then we will have difficulties. I cannot allow such feelings in our lives, so please think about how important this is to you. ” If your partner does not react, then you need to break the usual picture – give distance, do not be so accessible and incredibly good, so that he wants to be a male with another woman.
Perhaps your problem is simply that you have stopped watching your weight or haven’t changed your hairstyle for five years. A woman should never give up her attractiveness, even at 70, and I insist on this. Here we are not talking about provocation, but about the fact that you should not turn off female attractiveness for other men. Demonstratively discussing Petya, your neighbor, or Vasya from work with your partner, with whom you just had coffee at lunch, is fundamentally wrong, and it always looks artificial. But if you do not give up seeing men in your field of vision, then this feeling of yours, when others are really interested in you, which, of course, adds self-confidence, will affect your man instantly.