[Must Read] 5 Signs Your Relationship Is In Trouble

By Rahman Olayinka  Lifestyle, Love And Sex

You made it through Valentine’s Day.
Maybe it was a tender, heartfelt celebration of your
union with candy hearts, flowers and singing birds.
Or maybe the über-romantic holiday left you feeling
unsettled, insincere, worried. Now that Cupid’s wings
are out of your eyes, it could be time to reassess your
relationship for any of these five warning signs that
your love may be on the wane.
1. You’re always arguing.
This one seems self-evident, but so often, it’s not. I
have a friend who frequently calls me to vent about her
boyfriend’s latest infraction: He lied, he no-showed a
date, he didn’t come check on her when she was sick.
They fight — loud, screaming things that are alarming
to hear — and then everything is aces. When she and I
talk about their volatile dynamic in the lucid times, my
friend agrees that his behavior makes her angry, that
she doesn’t feel cherished and that she’s exhausted
from fighting. Yet they stay together.
“Why?” I ask.
“I love him.”
The lowest lows often accompany the loftiest highs,
and when things are good it may be hard to let go of
someone with whom you share great passion and, yes,
love. But despite what the Roman poet Virgil and
Hallmark may want you to believe, love does not
conquer all. You can love someone and still be better
off without them — and when your relationship becomes
filled with friction and dissatisfaction and resentment
more often than the course of true love runs smooth,
you’re sacrificing your peace of mind (and heart) to an
unhealthy, destructive dynamic.
2. You never argue.
Conversely, too much accord might be a signal of
trouble — namely that one partner (or both) is
suppressing her real feelings, or subsuming himself in
his partner, or has mentally “checked out” of the
relationship. No two people with unique backgrounds,
mind sets, ideology, etc., can live in perfect accord at
all times — sometimes I can even have lively
arguments with myself.
That doesn’t mean that screaming fights should be part
of your couple repertoire. Everyone argues differently;
the key is to respect your partner’s differing point of
view, as well as their means of expressing it — but also
to take into account how they are most comfortable
handling disagreements. I have an atavistic, knee-jerk
fear of shouting; raised voices utterly unnerve me,
leaving me too freaked out to engage as a rational
adult. My husband knows that about me, and is careful
not to yell, even amid a heated discussion.
In a healthy relationship, two people feel comfortable
expressing their thoughts, concerns and emotions —
even the difficult ones — but can still stay cognizant of
each other’s feelings.
3. You’re always mad.
Remember when you first started dating your boyfriend,
and his habit of taking his pants off as soon as he
walked in his front door and lounging around in his
boxer briefs seemed like a charming quirk? If those
same foibles you once found endearing now make you
want to scoop out his eyeballs with a grapefruit spoon,
you might have one foot out the door.
Sometimes before we’re ready to admit that our
feelings have changed or our relationship is no longer
working, our raw nerves are trying to tell us the truth.
Are you often irritated by your partner? Do you find
you’re quick to take offense to things he says and
does? Does your temper flare up faster and easier than
usual? Pay attention to those signs. It might be your
primal emotions reacting to the truth of your situation
before your mind is ready to accept it.
5. You’re happy. Really. You are.
This is the most insidious and easy-to-miss indication
that your relationship may be on shaky ground. Many
relationships, especially long-term ones, can settle into
a complacent comfort zone as two people grow ever
more familiar.
But familiarity is not intimacy. In fact, sometimes it
engenders the opposite — when we become convinced
we know everything there is to know about our partner,
we can go on autopilot and stop paying attention.
Intimacy is being open — not just willing to show your
own vulnerabilities, but open to the unique, separate,
always changing individual your partner is. Once we
think we know everything there is to know about
someone, we keep them slotted into that safe,
comfortable category — and we stop growing as a
couple.
If things are perfectly fine between you — pleasant,
polite, comfortable — but something is missing, take
stock. This doesn’t have to be a signal that things are
over — sometimes it’s a much-needed wake-up call
for a couple to remember to see the other person as
another person- – not just a familiar appendage taken
for granted.
But whether you decide to work on things or end them,
don’t put it off. There are only 361 days left till next
Valentine’s Day.
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