How to Avoid the Worst Relationship Mistakes
Avoid hurting your mate -- or yourself -- by considering the ways relationships can falter.
Up next in Dating Survival Guide (90 videos)
Improve your love life with the dating tips in these videos.
You Will Need
- Stability
- Communication
- Personal space
- Restraint
Steps
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Step 1
Seek stability
Surround yourself with good, stable friends. Keeping up and socializing with old buddies can help you maintain the critical connection to good advice and needed perspectives.
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Before starting a new relationship, make sure you are over your previous one.
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Step 2
Discuss sexual problems
Discuss and work on sexual problems rather than ignoring the destruction that can result. Seek to experiment and challenge discomforts rather than let things worsen.
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Step 3
Pull back
Pull back and recharge periodically, and don't be afraid to say no when life is getting confusing or too busy. Have some fun once in a while and turn off the brain.
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Step 4
Stop yourself
Stop yourself from rejecting the other person before -- as you might fear -- they reject you. Learn to accept yourself or your self-doubt and confusion may sink the relationship.
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Forgive rather than nurture injured feelings. Sometimes we have to let cherished illusions go.
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Step 5
Confront jealousy
Confront jealousy before trust and intimacy are destroyed.
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Everyone needs a degree of privacy, including the desire not to share past lives and relationships.
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Step 6
Require trust first
Earn trust and require the other to earn theirs before sharing your secrets and declaring feelings of love. Respect yourself and take time to know someone.
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Step 7
Model healthy relationships
Model a good, healthy relationship for the children. Keep children away from negative situations, such as a partner if you're planning on ending the relationship -- it will only make matters worse in the end.
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In 2008, there were more than 27,000 marriage and family therapists in America.
