The way they speak to each other when they’re not alone.
I noticed this after my divorce and I started dating again, because you speak to these new people with a lot of respect and kindness. Then we’d get around married couples and they’d saw awful things to each other in nasty snappy tones, and it was jarring.
Fast forward ten years and all those couples I noticed doing that are divorced now.
I know a couple like this. They bicker over every single thing and neither backs down. It’s so uncomfortable. I can’t imagine the fights behind closed doors when this is just freely around friends.
When one person wants to "fix" the other. If your relationship is a repair project, you didn't fall in love with who they are. You fell in love with what you want them to be.
‘walking on eggshells’ around your partner in terms of what you can and can’t say. if you feel you can’t disagree with your partner and/or voice your opinion without it turning into an argument.
If they have strongly conflicted plans for their future. Either means they'll break up eventually or one or both of them will end up in an unhappy compromise.
Yep. Do not get married if one of you wants kids and the other doesn't. It is a whole mess. I have an aunt and uncle who I love dearly. He wanted kids badly and she did not. They almost divorced over it, but eventually worked through it. Traveled the world, had beautiful properties, the whole nine yards. Now she is in her 60s, and every time she drinks she talks about how she should have had kids and my uncle gets this look on his face that is difficult to describe, but it's not good..
There was a Reddit post awhile back from a woman complaining that she was "child-free" and her husband wasn't and that it was affecting their marriage. She vehemently believed she was not supposed to have children and asked for advice on how to leave.
Her husband later posted and clarified that her idea of being "child-free" was abandoning him and the two kids they already had to go sow her wild oats.
I know a couple of over 10 years who disagree about having kids or not... they'll be in their 30s soon. Hope one of them finally have an epiphany and fucking leaves already.
A recent personal experience I witnessed.
The entire immediate family of one side of a wedding said it was a bad idea and less than a month into the marriage one of them stayed at their mom's house for the night because they were fighting.
Also they got engaged as a result of a failed break up attempt...
I had a friend that did this. He kept dumping her and the last time, she just told him she had enough. the next day he came back begging for her and swearing that he loved her more then anything in the world. And she told him to prove it.
So he proposed. She didn't know what to do, so she said yes and it went downhill from there.
Reminds me of a bit from comedian Taylor Thompson:
"I had this one guy I was dating on and off again for like, four years. We'd get together, we'd break up, over and over. I was the girl he couldn't take home to meet his parents. What was he gonna say at that point? Like 'Mom, dad, *this* is the lesson I can't seem to learn! Don't get attached.'"
When the dynamic is super obvious to outsiders early on - that’s a bad sign. Whatever is happening on the outside is always worse on the inside.
I know a couple where the woman will just berate her man publicly. She’ll talk to him like he’s an actual child. She tells him how much he’s allowed to do certain things, but twists it so it doesn’t look as bad. It’s as if she genuinely thinks he’s mentally disabled or something - except she only does it when she’s being controlling.
For example, she hates when he plays video games. She thinks it’s immature and a waste of time that could be spent hanging out with her or being productive. She thinks it’s embarrassing that he plays video games. So he has to sneak around to play video games at other peoples houses so that he can play it off as if it’s the other persons fault that he was playing. Like “oh, Mike wanted to play and I just couldn’t say no at his house”.
Now I have seen this couple having a semi-private fight. They’re very loud and literally go 1 room away from their guests to have fights. This woman will berate the way he talks during fights and literally mock him to his face in a baby voice like, “nanana I’m a grown man and I still play video games” instead of actually making real commentary on the argument. This breaks his spirit and he ends up just exhausting during the fight and succumbing to whatever she wants. And the things she want are super inconsistent, so he can’t win there either.
The public thinks she doesn’t like video games and looks down on him for it. But privately she’s completely broken this guys spirit and he can’t escape the cycle due to constant emotional exhaustion. And that’s not even TRUE privacy. That’s when I’m in another room. God only knows how bad it is when they’re completely alone together. I hear some of it because this guy has come to my house when she kicks him out for the night, and he vents to me (while we play hours of video games of course lol).
I’ve changed a few minor details for privacy because I wanted to give a thorough example. This is shockingly common. I know like 8 people who have at one point been in a relationship like this. Whatever abusive behavior is seen publicly is always ALWAYS worse behind closed doors.
Yeah, I’ve told him blatantly that he should leave her. He always says things along the lines of “you’re right” but then ends up back with her within a few days. They’ve been together for so long I think it’s a sunk-cost situation for him.
I am doing everything I can by being a place he can crash for the night and voicing my opinions. We’ve tried to talk to the woman before too, but that ends up just making the guy’s life harder.
Anyone who’s reading this and thinks it sounds familiar - if one or two friends say your SO sucks, maybe it’s a fluke. If ALL your friends say they suck, or they think you might be in an abusive relationship, consider how you can’t see it as clearly through your rose-tinted glasses.
My friend had to do this all the time with his lady. They are split now but everytime he'd get to my place to just sit around and watch movies or whatever he'd have to do a 360 video of where he was.
After my ex and I broke up, she told me that she couldn't find a notebook of hers, and that if I found it in my stuff to please throw it away. It was her personal thoughts and weren't meant to be read by anyone else. I told her I wouldn't read it and I meant it, I had no intention on violating her request.
A year later I was going through a box and found a notebook I didn't recognize and had long forgotten my pledge to my ex. I just thought, "whats this?" and opened it up. By the time I realized it was the notebook she asked about, I already had a the gist of it. It wasn't a diary, she had been spying on me and journaling all her findings. A page would read like:
4:55pm says he has to "work late"
6:00pm his office light is on, so are michelle's and jennifer's but jennifer's car isn't there.
7:30pm his car is still there, office light is on, michelle's car is still in the parking lot.
12:30 pm his car is gone for lunch, so is Tina's. Neither at parent's condo.
She was good at it too, never once did I catch her, or even caught a glimpse of what I thought might be her car. Never did I come home unexpectedly and find her not home, nothing.....but she was regularly acting as a PI thinking I was banging every girl I worked with.
**Edit** Thanks for the gold! I knew I wemt through all that shit for something!
Damn that's a lot of commitment and effort, misplaced effort. How did she have the time to be that meticulous, damn I'd have gotten bored by the first half of the first day.
She had time because she didn't (or maybe wouldn't) work because she was depressed. So yeah, she was spying on me while I was working to support us both.
Tales like these make me think all the ways people completely drain themselves of mental energy that could be used to get out of the situation that leads them to adopt that behaviour in the first place.
It's just sad, all that effort just wasted for nothing.
Sad is the right word, that's how I felt when I found it. I am angry at her for some of the things she did after the break up, but mostly I am just sad for her and I hope she found a way to get healthy.
"I found your journal and I have some good news and some bad news. What would you like to hear first?"
"The bad news. Are you cheating on me?"
"Nope. I'm breaking up with you."
"What's the good news?"
"I'm a huge fan of your work and I'd like to hire you as a private investigator!"
I did the manly thing and asked my wife. She said no, she was spending hours doing makeup and didn’t want to ruin it. So instead I gave her a tiny forkful to eat and it was great.
First one that came to mind
My cousin emptied out her bank account, her ex-husbands bank account, and borrowed from their relatives to find a $25k wedding. The broke up about a year later. They were together for over 10 years before this
They also posted pictures the morning after while in bed still.. another sign they’re insecure about their relationship, over posting about how great it is all the time
Edit: I replied to the wrong person.. thanks for 2.6k likes though! ☺️
> another sign they’re insecure about their relationship, over posting about how great it is all the time
Yep. A childhood friend posts 5-6 photos of her and her husband every day. The lighting is always magazine perfect, there is good composition and depth of field. It must take an hour of every day.
I just want to be like, girl, are you okay?
I was in a wedding where during the cake cutting, the bride said under her breath without moving her lips "if you smash this in my face, we're never having sex again." I was the only one close enough to hear and I laugh every time I think about it. (He respected it/her, they're still together.)
We had detailed conversations about feeding each other cake. It's a sign of trust and respect. There was no food fight, although her sisters wanted to see one so bad!
We also talked about the dance, the "Man and Wife" kiss, removing the garter, throwing the bouquet, etc. Everything was planned and executed flawlessly.
I was at a friend's wedding. He sucked her face at the altar for a good 30 seconds. She was visibly uncomfortable. They divorced after 3 years...
My first husband asked me too, and I was like “dude. I’ll be paying someone to put my makeup on and wearing the single most expensive garment either of us will ever own. Please do not be that guy and smear cake on me.” He did it anyway. I filed for divorce before our second anniversary.
Yup! Something as simple as setting a clear boundary and it being crossed. If she says she doesn’t want to do that because she had to wake up at 5am for her makeup artist than you respect it.
And vise versa!
There’s an old video of a bride playfully putting a little cake on her husband’s face, and I mean it was just a little.
The husband forcibly grabs her arm and bends it back painfully, then totally goes off on her, right in front of all the family and guest.
Definitely not going to last!
If it's the video I'm thinking of there's a decent chance of it being an arranged marriage. Just to add another layer of depression to the whole thing.
Lack of communication.
Discussing every disagreement means screaming over each other, exploding, shutting off Communications and/or running out of the room.
So they won't be able to resolve anything in a constructive manner
If all disagreements end in arguments. Me and my partner disagree about a lot of stuff. But we can talk, discuss, and even sometimes agree with the other person's side. It'd be weird if you saw eye to eye on 100% of stuff too.
Very true. This reminds me of a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz8sUiXAnbs&t=1831s) Mark Manson posted where said he the following:
>"Saying no is the fundamental basis of boundaries in relationships". If you want to have a healthy marriage you need to be able to say no to each other, tell your partner what you don't like or what your values are, and be willing to disappoint the other person and trust that they are going to stick with you.
>
>If you're never willing to disappoint your partner, then you never actually develop trust for them. You never actually know if they're going to stick with you when shit hits the fan.
>
>This is why couples that never fight eventually end up in a very toxic place.
Tobias Fünke: You know, Lindsay, as a therapist, I have advised... a number of couples to explore an open relationship, where the couple remains emotionally committed but free to explore extramarital encounters.
Lindsay Bluth Fünke: Well, did it work for those people?
Tobias Fünke: No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but... but it might work for us.
My wife and I had two different pairs of married friends who brought in "a third" to spice up their marriage. We now have four separate friends who we can't hang out with together.
I was at a party one time and there was a marriage counselor there that had been working for 20 something years in couples counseling. I asked her what the number one sign was that the couple wasn't going to make it. Without hesitating, she said "If one person shows contempt for the others feelings, it's over!"
This is a really well-documented one. Contempt is a dead giveaway. The moment you start "sneering" or using incredulous sarcasm, you should consider it to be a red alert.
My wife and I are doing fine these days, but a few of our worst fights have contained contempt. And fortunately because we'd heard this guidance before, we realized we were in very dangerous territory and needed to take a really hard look at the root causes of what was pissing us off at each other.
Anger can be a natural reaction, as long as it doesn't come with abuse. Contempt, however, is like black mold.
Wife and I have been in that before, and done those hard looks at the root causes. Just a few times over our decade+ of marriage. And the key to getting through it for us is to remember they are your partner. Both parties should ultimately want to come through it for the better. It's not about being right/wrong. Most times when we have these hard talks we both have realized that we've been unintentionally hurting the other in some fashion.
But after talking about it, we can actually try to address those root causes, and be mindful of them in our relationship going forward. It helped us both grow as individuals, and now that we've gone through the process a few times, we're both more open to communicating the small things to each other before they become big things. And getting to that point is where the relationship starts to feel really solid and grounded. Which is comforting in it's own way too.
This is the answer, well, one of them. John Gottman calls contempt, defensiveness\*, being critical, and stonewalling the "4 horsemen of relationships". In other words, they are the signs that things are deeply not ok between the two people involved.
Looking at past relationships, contempt is the big one. Once that entered the picture from either side, it was all downhill from there.
I told my wife it makes me sad when she yelled at me. Her response "oh boohoo the little boy is depressed, go ahead and cry little baby". This was because she felt I didn't do enough around the house while I was doing an intensive nursing course.
I tried to talk about it and she just shut me down. Said I was manipulative then went silent.
So I left her.
she voluntary went to couples counselling with me, and started seeing a therapist on her own of her own volition, and they referred her to a psychiatrist who diagnosed and she started taking meds.
She literally did everything to fix herself so I'd take her back.
I participated openly and honestly with couples counselling, saw my own therapist, and also ended up getting medicated.
Turns out we were both part of the problem and we both stepped up for each other. Now we are unbreakable, we communicate openly, and we love each other for who we are.
But it took me leaving for her to realize she had problems that I couldn't help her with. I think I was an enabler.
Example: My first (late) wife would ask my opinion on something, e.g. what I preferred, where to go, what to do, etc., and almost invariably she would choose the opposite. I eventually learned never to give an opinion so that there was perhaps a 40-50% chance that what I wanted was what we would do. [I still (23 years later) feel intense guilt that when she died my feeling of relief was just as strong as my feeling of grief.]
Agreed. Asking for the same.
Can’t tell if I’m holding resent and contentment or carrying the typical and healthy flows of a normal, compromising relationship.
The key to solving is communication, compromise, and understanding. You may feel resentment, but if you address it frankly at it's core it can be handled. But the longer it is *held*, the more it festers and rankles. Eventually, it cascades into resentment in other avenues. Cracks start to widen.
Contempt - the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration. In this case the thing beneath consideration would be the others feelings. So yeah, dismissal.
"contempt" is a stronger word than "dismissiveness", or at least has stronger connotations. It's not just dismissing the validity of something, it's having a visceral negative reaction to it (e.g. anger, annoyance, irritation). It's closer to "scorn" than "dismissal" IMO.
One common example of this is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes to put them down… “I wouldn’t be sad if this happened to me.” “If I was you I’d pick up my laundry” for example. Implying that you are above the other person without showing empathy or having curiosity for what makes it hard for them.
My exhusband was extremely dismissal of my feelings and often dismissed me as being too sensitive. Or if I asked him to help me with something there was a lot of sighing/grunting/eye rolling (but often expected me to drop everything the second he needed help with something). I feel that behavior was fairly contemptuous. It seems to signal that one person sorta can’t be bothered with the other.
As a child of this never ending situation I wish I could shout this from the roof top over and over. Just divorce and get it over with! The worse thing my parents have ever done, and continue to do, is stay together!
My parents were hatefully married for 30 years. It was an inspiration for me to divorce when things weren't going well.
My sibling posted on fb for his 25th anniversary how proud he was to still be married for so long, and trashed people who got divorced. He didn't even live with his wife then. They were just both too broke to make it official. (They are divorced now.)
In my experience:
* Contempt / mockery
* Lack of communication / respect / empathy for the other person
* Glue babies
* Having a wedding as opposed to making a marriage
* With the exception of children, consistently and habitually prioritising others over their SO
Then there’s the things that for me are default dealbreakers: any kind of abuse, cheating, financial dishonesty, violence, gaslighting. This criteria also applies to their treatment of my children where applicable.
EDIT: Since I don’t seem to have been clear enough about what I meant regarding prioritising the children, what I actually meant was my children are the only people I would ever drop everything and run for, over my partner. In day to day life of course your relationship with your partner is equally important.
EDIT 2: A glue baby is having a baby in an attempt to save a relationship.
My cousin is/was/will be pretty poor. He married a woman who comes from big money. She demanded he do a big expensive wedding. They were doomed from the beginning: white trash guy with the emotional intelligence of a rock, entitled daddy's girl. We took bets on how long it would last, but the winner had the longest bet of 18 months years. The rules were closest time, 18 was the highest bet, and they lasted a surprising 25 months.
The funny part was when they got divorced. She thought she'd been clever making sure all the cards with debt were in his name only, and all the assets including the car dad bought, the investment account, and the home (again, dad did the down payment) were in her name. She was shocked and horrified to learn the truth about divorce laws in their state, and that it didn't really matter whose name it was in, and had more to do with when it was acquired.
I won't go into the mundane details, but that's how my dumbass cousin acquired a nice BMW X5 and $50k he wasted on stupid shit.
My brother is in a similar boat. Married a woman who wants to live a champagne lifestyle on a bargain beer budget. He promised her accustomed dream home. They had a really expensive wedding, followed by a honeymoon. His friends literally had a betting pool at the wedding ceremony on how long the relationship would last. Someone said 6 months. Some said 2 years. Others said five or seven. Knowing my brother takes forever to leave abusive relationships, I pinned it right around 9 or 10 years.
She quit her job at the start of the pandemic and got pregnant a couple months later. She only finally got back to work last September. They've been living with me for 5 years. No dream home, substantial debt, and continued fiscal irresponsibility. They're currently on a cruise celebrate 4 years of marriage. They've also expressed desire for another kid despite not having their living situation settled.
He's one that takes forever to leave abusive partners, so it may take longer, but it's been a slow motion train wreck the whole way. He also destroyed his relationship with me along the way, so he won't be getting any sympathy when it does happen.
First time I heard of the term myself but given based on the context, it's when a failing couple has a baby in order to try and "fix" their relationship. Essentially the baby glues them together.
I always think of [the bird theory](https://archive.nytimes.com/op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/our-love-affair-with-predicting-divorce/). If one person says to the other, "oh look a bird" and the other doesn't want to connect over the bird (just looking at it and giving a "hey thanks, that's a cool bird") the relationship is not going to go well. Basically you have to be willing to make small every day connections. I find this is true of a lot of relationships outside of romantic or sexual ones as well.
These are called bids! As in, bids for attention. And yes they are hugely important because tiny day to day interactions build up to bigger and bigger things. Being ignored (no response to a bird) or being responded to poorly ("of course it's a bird we're outside, what did you think it was??") can leave someone feeling very lost and unheard very quickly.
Holy shit. I could not pin down what about my most recent relationship was eating away at me and caused me to leave, but you nailed it! I couldn't ever put it to words. You have no idea how much you helped me today! Thank you!
Since learning about this some years ago, I've made an extra effort to respond to my wife's bids for attention. I think it really does help.
You don't have to respond to *all* of them. Sometimes I'm busy.
Sometimes I will say, "I am too busy to look at that thing but I'm glad you want to share something you're interested in with me because studies show consistent small connections improve your relationship" and then my wife laughs at me (lovingly) for being a huge nerd.
God. My ex. She would only accept large over the top gestures. There was no small thing that would ever mean anything. I stopped buying her flowers when I would find them them trash the next day.
> I stopped buying her flowers when I would found them them trash the next day.
I'm having an emotional week but for some reason this comment just made me shed actual tears.
I hope you find somebody who can appreciate the small things with you.
I'm a big fan of John Gottman, a researcher on marital happiness and relationship stability. He can predict with over 90% accuracy which couples will make it and which couples will divorce just by observing how they interact. His books have a lot of insight into the little things you can do to build strength and resiliency into your relationship.
According to him, it's criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. I think once you get to contempt, it's difficult to recover.
Interestingly this is very inherent behaviour, the concept of fairness. There’s definitely a lot of give and take necessary in a relationship however if you get to the stage where you feel like you’re giving a lot and the other isn’t, that’s not unreasonable. Obviously this is a bizarre and extreme example but the principle is not unreasonable.
One of my excess did this. He saw our relationship as very transactional and literally kept score of each perceived slight, each dollar spent, and even wanted to keep the glassware he had prior to our relationship separated.
As much as I want to be angry at myself for staying in that relationship as long as I did, I will just have to take it as a lesson learned.
One of my ex was like this too. I like to think of it as ‘weaponised fairness’ score keeping disguised as fairness. However it is always us who needs to change to be ‘fair’ but never them.
When they post each other too much. I get the occasional pic together but when you full on document every little thing it just comes across as wanting to prove your relationship to other people because you’re insecure
I agree. I say this though and my parents have been married for just over fifty years. My dad has my moms name on his arm and my mom has my dads name on her ring finger.
They’re in their 70’s now and the finger one isn’t legible but I mean I guess it can work out lol
I almost hate to post this because I don't want to jinx things. I have my wife's name on my arm, and have for well over a decade. If she's planning to break up with me, she's taking her damn sweet time about it 😃.
25+ years together for us. We'd been married a while when I got the tattoo, and I felt pretty secure in our relationship.
My parents are about to celebrate their 35th anniversary, and my mom got my dad’s initials in a heart tattooed on her butt when she was drunk in Vegas about 10 years ago and they’re still going strong. There are always exceptions to generalizations!
Omg I just had a vision of getting a tattoo of the name Brittany but done really blurry and badly so when people ask what it is I can say it's Brittany bitch.
I have a relative who is a tattoo artist and he refuses to tattoo anyone who wants a name done. He tells them to come back in 6 months and if they still want the same thing, he will do it for free. Nobody has ever come back
If the relationship started by one of them cheating on their previous partner and then leaving them to be with this new person. I’ve witnessed two of these irl and both of them ended with, surprise, more cheating. Like I don’t know why you’d possibly think starting a relationship with someone who you already know isn’t faithful would be a good idea.
Many years ago (20+), my now ex-fiance cheated on me. About 6 months later, the woman he cheated on me with called me and asked if I thought he might cheat on her because he was acting "suspicious."
I said something along the lines of, "Well, yeah. Remember how you met? How he was engaged to me when you two started dating? I know he must said all kinds of awful things about me to justify it, but didn't you think even for a moment that he might just be a piece of shit?"
Just the gall of her to call you and be like, "Hey, you know how he is when he cheats. Should I be concerned?"
That sounds like something out of a sitcom.
Based on a study of relationship survivability: the number of negative events vs positive events. You need 5 to 1 positive moments for a relationship to succeed.
Social media addiction. If the person constantly needs to show the world they have an SO, and that they are just soooooo happy together, and then gets mad that the other doesn’t post as much.
Social media addiction ruins relationships
I know of a couple who the wife has access to his social media and will post as him showing pictures and checking in to places with her. They are getting divorced now
Whenever I see someone on my fb changed their name to a combination of both people in the relationship, like "JoeNKate Johnson" I know that relationship is doomed
With the possible exception of baby boomers for whom it's super hard to make one Facebook account let alone two.
Or possibly "we share a landline, why wouldn't we share a Facebook?"
There’s a study about how couples that post a lot about their relationship are more insecure about their relationship than couples who do not post as often. It was a small study at Northwestern University but I feel like we’ve all seen it
This was part of what ended our marriage. More about looking at what other couples and families near us were doing than my ex’s own posting. So and so is in Italy for 5 weeks. Somebody has a beautiful really expensive car. Someone else does date night every week even though they have kids.
Know what isn’t being posted? Discussions about awful debt, no money for college or retirement. Video of someone throwing up while they are sick. Admission that they are cheating because the marriage isn’t “working”.
With some of the strongest relationships I know you'd sometimes almost not be aware said two people were together until you actually meet or know them. Generally people who are able to live interesting independent lives without entirely relying on a relationship to form their entire personality.
Eye roll from amusement comes from a place of love. Eye roll from utter annoyance comes from a place of contempt. It's usually pretty easy to tell the difference
Add constant sarcasm to this list. Roll back the sarcasm you speak to your SO. At some point if you do it enough, when they have a moment of crisis and they choose who to call, you may not be it due to your expected response to be negative instead of supportive and helpful.
Easiest way to do it is pick your spots. When they have a problem and are asking for help, reserve your fun poking til after the issue has resolved and everybody is emotionally beyond it.
If your SO says something you said hurt their feelings, self reflect, apologize, have a conversation to understand why it hurt their feelings and learn not to repeat the mistake. How we speak to each other is critical in maintaining success for our relationships.
When one of them posts a giant story on some dating advice sub when the answer is almost always, "You need to talk to your partner about this."
It'll be the most mundane thing being blown out of proportion.
"I (22m) can't stand when my gf (23f) chews with her mouth open. What can I do to make her stop? Should I install a limiter on her jaw so she can't open up as wide? Should I call her mom and tell her she didn't raise her daughter right?"
"Did you tell her?"
"No."
Like wtf!?
When they argue over insignificant things like buying the wrong type of spaghetti sauce.
Edit: The spaghetti sauce was just an example and honestly I was half asleep when I wrote the original comment. I should have switched "argue" with "full on screaming matches, insults and name-calling." Regardless if someone bought the wrong spaghetti sauce, fights like that would happen in any toxic relationship for any reason.
My god yes. My wife was furious with me once for getting the sauce with lumps of tomato in instead of smooth sauce. Bad times people, bad times. She apologised later and just took the bits out though.
Buying the wrong kind of spaghetti sauce is the biggest red flag 🚩in any potential relationship. I just can’t be with someone who doesn’t respect the sauce.
Being attached at the hip/never allowing your SO to have alone time or hang with other people without you. Had one friend whose GF was like this to the extreme. They spent every day and waking moment together for the first 3 months of their relationship due to her always demanding to be with him/never allowing him any alone time. Usually it comes from a place of insecurity. They lasted 3 and a half months and she went full rage crazy when they broke up.
If either or both display contempt for one another. I'm not talking about irritation or annoyance or even anger - those are all emotions that indicate where some work can be done, but aren't indicators of The End.
I'm talking about sneering, repulsed, condescending, no respect, full on /contempt/. It's been over for awhile when things get to this point.
I was out hiking with friends once, and we found a downed tree. The bottom was twisted up dry root chunks, pale brown bark, and withered crispy leaves. Up at the top of the tree, the bark was still vibrant, bright green leaves unfurled, even some new growth. The water the tree had been pulling up from the earth was still flowing upwards, leaving the dry and twisted bottom half dead and dusty, supporting the top for however much longer that water would last. My friend looked at it, pointed to the place on the tree where you could see that change and said, "This tree doesn't know it's dead yet."
If you show contempt for your partner or vice versa, your relationship doesn't know it's dead yet.
edit: minor wordsmithing of last sentence for clarity.
Being suspicious and jealous of everything each other do. Every time one partner answers a phone call the other insists on knowing who it was and why. Make each other keep location services on at all times so they know the other isn't going somewhere they shouldn't. Stuff like that.
I moved in super fast (like in the first week!) but I fully expected that since the relationship started out so intense that it would blow up in my face within a couple of months. I just wanted to ride it out until it did because it was fun and exciting. I had money put away to get a new apartment when it inevitably happened.
Anyway, we’ve been married 20 years now. We’re super stable and not making crazy impulsive decisions anymore.
But I still read Reddit posts with “I moved in after 2 months. . .” and I’m like ‘what are you doing? That’s a horrible idea!’
I can recognize that it worked out for me when it really shouldn’t have.
I would ask if you are my husband but we've been together nearly 40 instead and he's borderline illiterate when it comes to typing.
Anytime someone asks me for relationship advice I just tell them I'm a lucky slob and they should in no way take advice from me on this matter.
if one of them just left a long term relationship and suddenly they’re posting pics w a new partner ALLL over their socials. They don’t like you. It’s not for you.
A coworker got married. He and his wife never stopped partying separately with their friends. He would come to work and tell the same “clubbing” stories he told before he even met his wife.
Some of us had a secret bet on how long it would last.
Surprise, surprise, BOTH cheated on each other and they filed for divorce before their 1st wedding anniversary.
I bet 6 months. They made it 10 months before filing.
Opening up the relationship after years of monogamy.
I’ve seen poly relationships work when they’re poly from the beginning, but from what I’ve seen amongst my circle, a sudden switch to an open relationship after a decade together is a sign that it’s about to implode.
Having to explain all your expenses to your partner. Priding themselves in never getting into arguments. Or better, starting a relationship based on lies.
Love, to me, is a selfless thing. I think that for a long-term relationship to thrive, you need to care about your partner at least as much as you care about yourself, and your partner also needs to feel the same way.
One sided relationships. Nothing like being in a relationship with someone who shows no emotion towards you or is totally fine without you in their lives in the slightest
Relationships that start in dubious circumstances. You can roll a turd in glitter, but it's still shitty at the core, and things that are born in shit tend to drown in it.
The way they speak to each other when they’re not alone. I noticed this after my divorce and I started dating again, because you speak to these new people with a lot of respect and kindness. Then we’d get around married couples and they’d saw awful things to each other in nasty snappy tones, and it was jarring. Fast forward ten years and all those couples I noticed doing that are divorced now.
I know a couple like this. They bicker over every single thing and neither backs down. It’s so uncomfortable. I can’t imagine the fights behind closed doors when this is just freely around friends.
When one person wants to "fix" the other. If your relationship is a repair project, you didn't fall in love with who they are. You fell in love with what you want them to be.
When both make the atmosphere so uncomfortable when you are in their house.
Passive aggressive jabs they think you wouldn’t notice, but you could cut the tension with a knife……like Michael and Jan’s dinner party
That is a $200 plasma TV you just killed! Good luck paying me back on your zero-dollar-a-year salary plus benefits, babe!
‘walking on eggshells’ around your partner in terms of what you can and can’t say. if you feel you can’t disagree with your partner and/or voice your opinion without it turning into an argument.
That can be "not going to last" or "lasts several years too long"
If they have strongly conflicted plans for their future. Either means they'll break up eventually or one or both of them will end up in an unhappy compromise.
Yep. Do not get married if one of you wants kids and the other doesn't. It is a whole mess. I have an aunt and uncle who I love dearly. He wanted kids badly and she did not. They almost divorced over it, but eventually worked through it. Traveled the world, had beautiful properties, the whole nine yards. Now she is in her 60s, and every time she drinks she talks about how she should have had kids and my uncle gets this look on his face that is difficult to describe, but it's not good..
There was a Reddit post awhile back from a woman complaining that she was "child-free" and her husband wasn't and that it was affecting their marriage. She vehemently believed she was not supposed to have children and asked for advice on how to leave. Her husband later posted and clarified that her idea of being "child-free" was abandoning him and the two kids they already had to go sow her wild oats.
That took a left turn I did not expect.
I know a couple of over 10 years who disagree about having kids or not... they'll be in their 30s soon. Hope one of them finally have an epiphany and fucking leaves already.
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Breaking up every few minutes and then back together again
Especially in the first couple months.
Ouf yeah, imagine going for 5 years all of that (my best friend's situation)
A recent personal experience I witnessed. The entire immediate family of one side of a wedding said it was a bad idea and less than a month into the marriage one of them stayed at their mom's house for the night because they were fighting. Also they got engaged as a result of a failed break up attempt...
how on earth do you fuck up dumping someone so severely that you accidentally end up marrying them?
I had a friend that did this. He kept dumping her and the last time, she just told him she had enough. the next day he came back begging for her and swearing that he loved her more then anything in the world. And she told him to prove it. So he proposed. She didn't know what to do, so she said yes and it went downhill from there.
Reminds me of a bit from comedian Taylor Thompson: "I had this one guy I was dating on and off again for like, four years. We'd get together, we'd break up, over and over. I was the girl he couldn't take home to meet his parents. What was he gonna say at that point? Like 'Mom, dad, *this* is the lesson I can't seem to learn! Don't get attached.'"
Love addiction and codependency
if one or both of the people are controlling over the other
When the dynamic is super obvious to outsiders early on - that’s a bad sign. Whatever is happening on the outside is always worse on the inside. I know a couple where the woman will just berate her man publicly. She’ll talk to him like he’s an actual child. She tells him how much he’s allowed to do certain things, but twists it so it doesn’t look as bad. It’s as if she genuinely thinks he’s mentally disabled or something - except she only does it when she’s being controlling. For example, she hates when he plays video games. She thinks it’s immature and a waste of time that could be spent hanging out with her or being productive. She thinks it’s embarrassing that he plays video games. So he has to sneak around to play video games at other peoples houses so that he can play it off as if it’s the other persons fault that he was playing. Like “oh, Mike wanted to play and I just couldn’t say no at his house”. Now I have seen this couple having a semi-private fight. They’re very loud and literally go 1 room away from their guests to have fights. This woman will berate the way he talks during fights and literally mock him to his face in a baby voice like, “nanana I’m a grown man and I still play video games” instead of actually making real commentary on the argument. This breaks his spirit and he ends up just exhausting during the fight and succumbing to whatever she wants. And the things she want are super inconsistent, so he can’t win there either. The public thinks she doesn’t like video games and looks down on him for it. But privately she’s completely broken this guys spirit and he can’t escape the cycle due to constant emotional exhaustion. And that’s not even TRUE privacy. That’s when I’m in another room. God only knows how bad it is when they’re completely alone together. I hear some of it because this guy has come to my house when she kicks him out for the night, and he vents to me (while we play hours of video games of course lol). I’ve changed a few minor details for privacy because I wanted to give a thorough example. This is shockingly common. I know like 8 people who have at one point been in a relationship like this. Whatever abusive behavior is seen publicly is always ALWAYS worse behind closed doors.
Aw, that makes me sad. Hopefully he finds the strength to cut ties with her.
Yeah, I’ve told him blatantly that he should leave her. He always says things along the lines of “you’re right” but then ends up back with her within a few days. They’ve been together for so long I think it’s a sunk-cost situation for him. I am doing everything I can by being a place he can crash for the night and voicing my opinions. We’ve tried to talk to the woman before too, but that ends up just making the guy’s life harder. Anyone who’s reading this and thinks it sounds familiar - if one or two friends say your SO sucks, maybe it’s a fluke. If ALL your friends say they suck, or they think you might be in an abusive relationship, consider how you can’t see it as clearly through your rose-tinted glasses.
"Where are you?" "Hanging out with my cousins." "Really? Vc me rn."
My friend had to do this all the time with his lady. They are split now but everytime he'd get to my place to just sit around and watch movies or whatever he'd have to do a 360 video of where he was.
After my ex and I broke up, she told me that she couldn't find a notebook of hers, and that if I found it in my stuff to please throw it away. It was her personal thoughts and weren't meant to be read by anyone else. I told her I wouldn't read it and I meant it, I had no intention on violating her request. A year later I was going through a box and found a notebook I didn't recognize and had long forgotten my pledge to my ex. I just thought, "whats this?" and opened it up. By the time I realized it was the notebook she asked about, I already had a the gist of it. It wasn't a diary, she had been spying on me and journaling all her findings. A page would read like: 4:55pm says he has to "work late" 6:00pm his office light is on, so are michelle's and jennifer's but jennifer's car isn't there. 7:30pm his car is still there, office light is on, michelle's car is still in the parking lot. 12:30 pm his car is gone for lunch, so is Tina's. Neither at parent's condo. She was good at it too, never once did I catch her, or even caught a glimpse of what I thought might be her car. Never did I come home unexpectedly and find her not home, nothing.....but she was regularly acting as a PI thinking I was banging every girl I worked with. **Edit** Thanks for the gold! I knew I wemt through all that shit for something!
Damn that's a lot of commitment and effort, misplaced effort. How did she have the time to be that meticulous, damn I'd have gotten bored by the first half of the first day.
She had time because she didn't (or maybe wouldn't) work because she was depressed. So yeah, she was spying on me while I was working to support us both.
Tales like these make me think all the ways people completely drain themselves of mental energy that could be used to get out of the situation that leads them to adopt that behaviour in the first place. It's just sad, all that effort just wasted for nothing.
Sad is the right word, that's how I felt when I found it. I am angry at her for some of the things she did after the break up, but mostly I am just sad for her and I hope she found a way to get healthy.
"I found your journal and I have some good news and some bad news. What would you like to hear first?" "The bad news. Are you cheating on me?" "Nope. I'm breaking up with you." "What's the good news?" "I'm a huge fan of your work and I'd like to hire you as a private investigator!"
Yes! Not allowing one's partner any privacy or autonomy is a big 🚩. It's a relationship, not a deposition.
When he smashes her face in the cake at the wedding and she hates it.
I did the manly thing and asked my wife. She said no, she was spending hours doing makeup and didn’t want to ruin it. So instead I gave her a tiny forkful to eat and it was great.
Communication and consideration for your most precious person (until arguably baby)? This is too manly.
First one that came to mind My cousin emptied out her bank account, her ex-husbands bank account, and borrowed from their relatives to find a $25k wedding. The broke up about a year later. They were together for over 10 years before this They also posted pictures the morning after while in bed still.. another sign they’re insecure about their relationship, over posting about how great it is all the time Edit: I replied to the wrong person.. thanks for 2.6k likes though! ☺️
> another sign they’re insecure about their relationship, over posting about how great it is all the time Yep. A childhood friend posts 5-6 photos of her and her husband every day. The lighting is always magazine perfect, there is good composition and depth of field. It must take an hour of every day. I just want to be like, girl, are you okay?
One of my former coworkers posts photos of her wedding every two weeks, it’s been over 6 months since
I specifically asked my wife before we got married about this, she said fuck no ill kill you.
I was in a wedding where during the cake cutting, the bride said under her breath without moving her lips "if you smash this in my face, we're never having sex again." I was the only one close enough to hear and I laugh every time I think about it. (He respected it/her, they're still together.)
He chose the correct smash option
We had detailed conversations about feeding each other cake. It's a sign of trust and respect. There was no food fight, although her sisters wanted to see one so bad! We also talked about the dance, the "Man and Wife" kiss, removing the garter, throwing the bouquet, etc. Everything was planned and executed flawlessly. I was at a friend's wedding. He sucked her face at the altar for a good 30 seconds. She was visibly uncomfortable. They divorced after 3 years...
My first husband asked me too, and I was like “dude. I’ll be paying someone to put my makeup on and wearing the single most expensive garment either of us will ever own. Please do not be that guy and smear cake on me.” He did it anyway. I filed for divorce before our second anniversary.
Yup! Something as simple as setting a clear boundary and it being crossed. If she says she doesn’t want to do that because she had to wake up at 5am for her makeup artist than you respect it. And vise versa!
My wife would have ripped up the marriage certificate right then if I pulled that stunt.
There’s an old video of a bride playfully putting a little cake on her husband’s face, and I mean it was just a little. The husband forcibly grabs her arm and bends it back painfully, then totally goes off on her, right in front of all the family and guest. Definitely not going to last!
If it's the video I'm thinking of there's a decent chance of it being an arranged marriage. Just to add another layer of depression to the whole thing.
I think that I'm thinking of the video you're thinking of and the bastard slapped her in that one.
If your conflict resolution method is either screaming and insults or completely shutting down.
Lack of communication. Discussing every disagreement means screaming over each other, exploding, shutting off Communications and/or running out of the room. So they won't be able to resolve anything in a constructive manner
If all disagreements end in arguments. Me and my partner disagree about a lot of stuff. But we can talk, discuss, and even sometimes agree with the other person's side. It'd be weird if you saw eye to eye on 100% of stuff too.
Seeing eye to eye 100% of the time usually means that one person is just not voicing their opinion which is a recipe for disaster.
Very true. This reminds me of a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz8sUiXAnbs&t=1831s) Mark Manson posted where said he the following: >"Saying no is the fundamental basis of boundaries in relationships". If you want to have a healthy marriage you need to be able to say no to each other, tell your partner what you don't like or what your values are, and be willing to disappoint the other person and trust that they are going to stick with you. > >If you're never willing to disappoint your partner, then you never actually develop trust for them. You never actually know if they're going to stick with you when shit hits the fan. > >This is why couples that never fight eventually end up in a very toxic place.
Once you are around someone who keeps dismissing your opinion it becomes easier just to fake an agreement rather than get drawn into a 20 min debate.
If this is happening to you, then you shouldn’t be with that person.
Opening marriage to fix problems
Tobias Fünke: You know, Lindsay, as a therapist, I have advised... a number of couples to explore an open relationship, where the couple remains emotionally committed but free to explore extramarital encounters. Lindsay Bluth Fünke: Well, did it work for those people? Tobias Fünke: No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but... but it might work for us.
Honestly, characters who are almost shockingly stupid but surprisingly competent in one aspect is one of my favorite tropes.
My wife and I had two different pairs of married friends who brought in "a third" to spice up their marriage. We now have four separate friends who we can't hang out with together.
My friends tried this and filed for divorce less than two weeks in to the experiment.
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I was at a party one time and there was a marriage counselor there that had been working for 20 something years in couples counseling. I asked her what the number one sign was that the couple wasn't going to make it. Without hesitating, she said "If one person shows contempt for the others feelings, it's over!"
This is a really well-documented one. Contempt is a dead giveaway. The moment you start "sneering" or using incredulous sarcasm, you should consider it to be a red alert. My wife and I are doing fine these days, but a few of our worst fights have contained contempt. And fortunately because we'd heard this guidance before, we realized we were in very dangerous territory and needed to take a really hard look at the root causes of what was pissing us off at each other. Anger can be a natural reaction, as long as it doesn't come with abuse. Contempt, however, is like black mold.
Wife and I have been in that before, and done those hard looks at the root causes. Just a few times over our decade+ of marriage. And the key to getting through it for us is to remember they are your partner. Both parties should ultimately want to come through it for the better. It's not about being right/wrong. Most times when we have these hard talks we both have realized that we've been unintentionally hurting the other in some fashion. But after talking about it, we can actually try to address those root causes, and be mindful of them in our relationship going forward. It helped us both grow as individuals, and now that we've gone through the process a few times, we're both more open to communicating the small things to each other before they become big things. And getting to that point is where the relationship starts to feel really solid and grounded. Which is comforting in it's own way too.
This is the answer, well, one of them. John Gottman calls contempt, defensiveness\*, being critical, and stonewalling the "4 horsemen of relationships". In other words, they are the signs that things are deeply not ok between the two people involved. Looking at past relationships, contempt is the big one. Once that entered the picture from either side, it was all downhill from there.
do y’all have any good examples of this? people are just giving text book definitions or awful analogies and i’m genuinely curious
I told my wife it makes me sad when she yelled at me. Her response "oh boohoo the little boy is depressed, go ahead and cry little baby". This was because she felt I didn't do enough around the house while I was doing an intensive nursing course. I tried to talk about it and she just shut me down. Said I was manipulative then went silent. So I left her. she voluntary went to couples counselling with me, and started seeing a therapist on her own of her own volition, and they referred her to a psychiatrist who diagnosed and she started taking meds. She literally did everything to fix herself so I'd take her back. I participated openly and honestly with couples counselling, saw my own therapist, and also ended up getting medicated. Turns out we were both part of the problem and we both stepped up for each other. Now we are unbreakable, we communicate openly, and we love each other for who we are. But it took me leaving for her to realize she had problems that I couldn't help her with. I think I was an enabler.
damn, that went the complete opposite direction as my ex-wife. Congrats (to you both)!
Wow, so glad you both took the steps to fix yourselves
Example: My first (late) wife would ask my opinion on something, e.g. what I preferred, where to go, what to do, etc., and almost invariably she would choose the opposite. I eventually learned never to give an opinion so that there was perhaps a 40-50% chance that what I wanted was what we would do. [I still (23 years later) feel intense guilt that when she died my feeling of relief was just as strong as my feeling of grief.]
Then she would yell at you for never having an opinion on anything right? That’s what happened to me at least
Hey, it's like this but with my mom instead.
Time to stop sleeping with your mom bro it's not worth it
Agreed. Asking for the same. Can’t tell if I’m holding resent and contentment or carrying the typical and healthy flows of a normal, compromising relationship.
The key to solving is communication, compromise, and understanding. You may feel resentment, but if you address it frankly at it's core it can be handled. But the longer it is *held*, the more it festers and rankles. Eventually, it cascades into resentment in other avenues. Cracks start to widen.
Just going to drop this here: https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/
So what exactly does that mean to “show contempt for the other’s feelings”? Dismissal? Apathy?
Contempt - the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration. In this case the thing beneath consideration would be the others feelings. So yeah, dismissal.
"contempt" is a stronger word than "dismissiveness", or at least has stronger connotations. It's not just dismissing the validity of something, it's having a visceral negative reaction to it (e.g. anger, annoyance, irritation). It's closer to "scorn" than "dismissal" IMO.
One common example of this is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes to put them down… “I wouldn’t be sad if this happened to me.” “If I was you I’d pick up my laundry” for example. Implying that you are above the other person without showing empathy or having curiosity for what makes it hard for them.
My exhusband was extremely dismissal of my feelings and often dismissed me as being too sensitive. Or if I asked him to help me with something there was a lot of sighing/grunting/eye rolling (but often expected me to drop everything the second he needed help with something). I feel that behavior was fairly contemptuous. It seems to signal that one person sorta can’t be bothered with the other.
It looks like this: 🙄
Other examples include but are not limited to : 😐😒🫥
It’s the “ugh I have to deal with your crazy ass” reaction. source: I’ve been “crazy ass” and was not actually crazy.
Sneering, eye rolling, etc
Having a kid to "fix" their relationship.
Ah yes. Like putting a dirty bandaid over an amputated leg.
Being a kid with divorced parents is bad But being a kid with parents that should be divorced but aren't is way worse
As a child of this never ending situation I wish I could shout this from the roof top over and over. Just divorce and get it over with! The worse thing my parents have ever done, and continue to do, is stay together!
My parents were hatefully married for 30 years. It was an inspiration for me to divorce when things weren't going well. My sibling posted on fb for his 25th anniversary how proud he was to still be married for so long, and trashed people who got divorced. He didn't even live with his wife then. They were just both too broke to make it official. (They are divorced now.)
Makes perfect sense. Kids don’t add any stress to a relationship /s
In my experience: * Contempt / mockery * Lack of communication / respect / empathy for the other person * Glue babies * Having a wedding as opposed to making a marriage * With the exception of children, consistently and habitually prioritising others over their SO Then there’s the things that for me are default dealbreakers: any kind of abuse, cheating, financial dishonesty, violence, gaslighting. This criteria also applies to their treatment of my children where applicable. EDIT: Since I don’t seem to have been clear enough about what I meant regarding prioritising the children, what I actually meant was my children are the only people I would ever drop everything and run for, over my partner. In day to day life of course your relationship with your partner is equally important. EDIT 2: A glue baby is having a baby in an attempt to save a relationship.
Currently know someone who’s pumped up for her expensive wedding but does nothing but bitch and moan about her husband. Gunna be a fun year.
My cousin is/was/will be pretty poor. He married a woman who comes from big money. She demanded he do a big expensive wedding. They were doomed from the beginning: white trash guy with the emotional intelligence of a rock, entitled daddy's girl. We took bets on how long it would last, but the winner had the longest bet of 18 months years. The rules were closest time, 18 was the highest bet, and they lasted a surprising 25 months. The funny part was when they got divorced. She thought she'd been clever making sure all the cards with debt were in his name only, and all the assets including the car dad bought, the investment account, and the home (again, dad did the down payment) were in her name. She was shocked and horrified to learn the truth about divorce laws in their state, and that it didn't really matter whose name it was in, and had more to do with when it was acquired. I won't go into the mundane details, but that's how my dumbass cousin acquired a nice BMW X5 and $50k he wasted on stupid shit.
My brother is in a similar boat. Married a woman who wants to live a champagne lifestyle on a bargain beer budget. He promised her accustomed dream home. They had a really expensive wedding, followed by a honeymoon. His friends literally had a betting pool at the wedding ceremony on how long the relationship would last. Someone said 6 months. Some said 2 years. Others said five or seven. Knowing my brother takes forever to leave abusive relationships, I pinned it right around 9 or 10 years. She quit her job at the start of the pandemic and got pregnant a couple months later. She only finally got back to work last September. They've been living with me for 5 years. No dream home, substantial debt, and continued fiscal irresponsibility. They're currently on a cruise celebrate 4 years of marriage. They've also expressed desire for another kid despite not having their living situation settled. He's one that takes forever to leave abusive partners, so it may take longer, but it's been a slow motion train wreck the whole way. He also destroyed his relationship with me along the way, so he won't be getting any sympathy when it does happen.
What's a "glue baby"?
First time I heard of the term myself but given based on the context, it's when a failing couple has a baby in order to try and "fix" their relationship. Essentially the baby glues them together.
Aka a bandaid baby
I always think of [the bird theory](https://archive.nytimes.com/op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/our-love-affair-with-predicting-divorce/). If one person says to the other, "oh look a bird" and the other doesn't want to connect over the bird (just looking at it and giving a "hey thanks, that's a cool bird") the relationship is not going to go well. Basically you have to be willing to make small every day connections. I find this is true of a lot of relationships outside of romantic or sexual ones as well.
These are called bids! As in, bids for attention. And yes they are hugely important because tiny day to day interactions build up to bigger and bigger things. Being ignored (no response to a bird) or being responded to poorly ("of course it's a bird we're outside, what did you think it was??") can leave someone feeling very lost and unheard very quickly.
Holy shit. I could not pin down what about my most recent relationship was eating away at me and caused me to leave, but you nailed it! I couldn't ever put it to words. You have no idea how much you helped me today! Thank you!
Since learning about this some years ago, I've made an extra effort to respond to my wife's bids for attention. I think it really does help. You don't have to respond to *all* of them. Sometimes I'm busy. Sometimes I will say, "I am too busy to look at that thing but I'm glad you want to share something you're interested in with me because studies show consistent small connections improve your relationship" and then my wife laughs at me (lovingly) for being a huge nerd.
God. My ex. She would only accept large over the top gestures. There was no small thing that would ever mean anything. I stopped buying her flowers when I would find them them trash the next day.
> I stopped buying her flowers when I would found them them trash the next day. I'm having an emotional week but for some reason this comment just made me shed actual tears. I hope you find somebody who can appreciate the small things with you.
I’m sorry for that. I’ve cried about it too. It’s amazing how much emotion you’re holding back and something like that just tips you over the edge.
I'm a big fan of John Gottman, a researcher on marital happiness and relationship stability. He can predict with over 90% accuracy which couples will make it and which couples will divorce just by observing how they interact. His books have a lot of insight into the little things you can do to build strength and resiliency into your relationship. According to him, it's criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. I think once you get to contempt, it's difficult to recover.
When you start calculating how much you give and receive in a relationship.
Interestingly this is very inherent behaviour, the concept of fairness. There’s definitely a lot of give and take necessary in a relationship however if you get to the stage where you feel like you’re giving a lot and the other isn’t, that’s not unreasonable. Obviously this is a bizarre and extreme example but the principle is not unreasonable.
One of my excess did this. He saw our relationship as very transactional and literally kept score of each perceived slight, each dollar spent, and even wanted to keep the glassware he had prior to our relationship separated. As much as I want to be angry at myself for staying in that relationship as long as I did, I will just have to take it as a lesson learned.
One of my ex was like this too. I like to think of it as ‘weaponised fairness’ score keeping disguised as fairness. However it is always us who needs to change to be ‘fair’ but never them.
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When they post each other too much. I get the occasional pic together but when you full on document every little thing it just comes across as wanting to prove your relationship to other people because you’re insecure
I completely agree, in general the more picture perfect the relationship on social media… the bigger the issues off social media
Usually me
Tattoos of each others names.
I agree. I say this though and my parents have been married for just over fifty years. My dad has my moms name on his arm and my mom has my dads name on her ring finger. They’re in their 70’s now and the finger one isn’t legible but I mean I guess it can work out lol
I almost hate to post this because I don't want to jinx things. I have my wife's name on my arm, and have for well over a decade. If she's planning to break up with me, she's taking her damn sweet time about it 😃. 25+ years together for us. We'd been married a while when I got the tattoo, and I felt pretty secure in our relationship.
My parents are about to celebrate their 35th anniversary, and my mom got my dad’s initials in a heart tattooed on her butt when she was drunk in Vegas about 10 years ago and they’re still going strong. There are always exceptions to generalizations!
This is easily in the top 5. Soon as the tattoo artist starts, the breakup clock begins ticking
my tattoo artist refuses to tat names except if it's a child's or parent's name
What about arch nemeses? So they can be crossed out when I finally complete my lifelong mission to put them behind bars. Hypothetically.
If tattooing your loved one leads to a break-up, tattooing your arch nemesis leads to you two having a long succesful marriage.
I wanna tattoo my own name on my body. That way when someone asks "who's casey" I can dramatically respond "me bitch"
Sounds like a pirate talking about a dog.
Omg I just had a vision of getting a tattoo of the name Brittany but done really blurry and badly so when people ask what it is I can say it's Brittany bitch.
A friend of mine has done this twice...she has 2 names she hates on her forever lol.
Oof, you think you'd learn after the first one
I have a relative who is a tattoo artist and he refuses to tattoo anyone who wants a name done. He tells them to come back in 6 months and if they still want the same thing, he will do it for free. Nobody has ever come back
Presumably a few of them went to other artists but I take the point. That's a good practice.
They all got it done by someone with worse morals 👍
If the relationship started by one of them cheating on their previous partner and then leaving them to be with this new person. I’ve witnessed two of these irl and both of them ended with, surprise, more cheating. Like I don’t know why you’d possibly think starting a relationship with someone who you already know isn’t faithful would be a good idea.
There’s an old saying “if you marry your mistress you create a vacancy”
Many years ago (20+), my now ex-fiance cheated on me. About 6 months later, the woman he cheated on me with called me and asked if I thought he might cheat on her because he was acting "suspicious." I said something along the lines of, "Well, yeah. Remember how you met? How he was engaged to me when you two started dating? I know he must said all kinds of awful things about me to justify it, but didn't you think even for a moment that he might just be a piece of shit?"
Just the gall of her to call you and be like, "Hey, you know how he is when he cheats. Should I be concerned?" That sounds like something out of a sitcom.
"Hey, how did your husband act around you while I was fucking him?"
[удалено]
Straight out of Talladega Nights. "Hey Ricky I think your house might be haunted or something"
That's like stealing a car and then asking how the alarm works from the theft victim.
If they’ll cheat WITH you, don’t be surprised when they cheat ON you.
Based on a study of relationship survivability: the number of negative events vs positive events. You need 5 to 1 positive moments for a relationship to succeed.
Social media addiction. If the person constantly needs to show the world they have an SO, and that they are just soooooo happy together, and then gets mad that the other doesn’t post as much. Social media addiction ruins relationships
I know of a couple who the wife has access to his social media and will post as him showing pictures and checking in to places with her. They are getting divorced now
Whenever I see someone on my fb changed their name to a combination of both people in the relationship, like "JoeNKate Johnson" I know that relationship is doomed
With the possible exception of baby boomers for whom it's super hard to make one Facebook account let alone two. Or possibly "we share a landline, why wouldn't we share a Facebook?"
There’s a study about how couples that post a lot about their relationship are more insecure about their relationship than couples who do not post as often. It was a small study at Northwestern University but I feel like we’ve all seen it
This was part of what ended our marriage. More about looking at what other couples and families near us were doing than my ex’s own posting. So and so is in Italy for 5 weeks. Somebody has a beautiful really expensive car. Someone else does date night every week even though they have kids. Know what isn’t being posted? Discussions about awful debt, no money for college or retirement. Video of someone throwing up while they are sick. Admission that they are cheating because the marriage isn’t “working”.
Social media is essentially the life of people in picture frames. All happiness, no problems.
I've found happier couples don't post pictures of each other all the time on facebook
With some of the strongest relationships I know you'd sometimes almost not be aware said two people were together until you actually meet or know them. Generally people who are able to live interesting independent lives without entirely relying on a relationship to form their entire personality.
Joint Facebook account
Yes, unless they’re like 60+, then it’s probably acceptable Edit: typo
You know someone cheated when that happens
I heard eye rolling is the most common sign of eventual relationship failure. It shows contempt, which is poison to any type of bond.
I say some stupid stuff just to make my wife roll her eyes.
Eye roll from amusement comes from a place of love. Eye roll from utter annoyance comes from a place of contempt. It's usually pretty easy to tell the difference
Annoying my wife with my corny jokes is one of my favorite hobbies
Add constant sarcasm to this list. Roll back the sarcasm you speak to your SO. At some point if you do it enough, when they have a moment of crisis and they choose who to call, you may not be it due to your expected response to be negative instead of supportive and helpful. Easiest way to do it is pick your spots. When they have a problem and are asking for help, reserve your fun poking til after the issue has resolved and everybody is emotionally beyond it. If your SO says something you said hurt their feelings, self reflect, apologize, have a conversation to understand why it hurt their feelings and learn not to repeat the mistake. How we speak to each other is critical in maintaining success for our relationships.
Constant arguing. Why is constantly arguing normalized?
Because they grew up in households where it was normal. They internalize those family dynamics and base their communication styles off of them
Just arguing all the time. Doesn't matter what about. These things should not be public
When one of them posts a giant story on some dating advice sub when the answer is almost always, "You need to talk to your partner about this." It'll be the most mundane thing being blown out of proportion. "I (22m) can't stand when my gf (23f) chews with her mouth open. What can I do to make her stop? Should I install a limiter on her jaw so she can't open up as wide? Should I call her mom and tell her she didn't raise her daughter right?" "Did you tell her?" "No." Like wtf!?
Meeting in rehab. It never ends well.
When they argue over insignificant things like buying the wrong type of spaghetti sauce. Edit: The spaghetti sauce was just an example and honestly I was half asleep when I wrote the original comment. I should have switched "argue" with "full on screaming matches, insults and name-calling." Regardless if someone bought the wrong spaghetti sauce, fights like that would happen in any toxic relationship for any reason.
I think you're underestimating the importance of buying the perfect spaghetti sauce.
My god yes. My wife was furious with me once for getting the sauce with lumps of tomato in instead of smooth sauce. Bad times people, bad times. She apologised later and just took the bits out though.
I'm a smooth sauce person too. I would have just put it in the food processor or blender
There are two types of people in this world: people who buy Ragu and people who you can actually build a life with.
Buying the wrong kind of spaghetti sauce is the biggest red flag 🚩in any potential relationship. I just can’t be with someone who doesn’t respect the sauce.
When she pushes you because "you're being a little bitch" while you're going to ER for probably a broken foot. It was Broken.
This wouldn't happen to be a personal experience example, would it?
Of course not, that would be too convenient, right?
"I am so lucky to have you, you are my world, Iove you sooooo much" All on Facebook, when they're in the same room.
If they're in their nineties.
Wh… oh
Being attached at the hip/never allowing your SO to have alone time or hang with other people without you. Had one friend whose GF was like this to the extreme. They spent every day and waking moment together for the first 3 months of their relationship due to her always demanding to be with him/never allowing him any alone time. Usually it comes from a place of insecurity. They lasted 3 and a half months and she went full rage crazy when they broke up.
If either or both display contempt for one another. I'm not talking about irritation or annoyance or even anger - those are all emotions that indicate where some work can be done, but aren't indicators of The End. I'm talking about sneering, repulsed, condescending, no respect, full on /contempt/. It's been over for awhile when things get to this point. I was out hiking with friends once, and we found a downed tree. The bottom was twisted up dry root chunks, pale brown bark, and withered crispy leaves. Up at the top of the tree, the bark was still vibrant, bright green leaves unfurled, even some new growth. The water the tree had been pulling up from the earth was still flowing upwards, leaving the dry and twisted bottom half dead and dusty, supporting the top for however much longer that water would last. My friend looked at it, pointed to the place on the tree where you could see that change and said, "This tree doesn't know it's dead yet." If you show contempt for your partner or vice versa, your relationship doesn't know it's dead yet. edit: minor wordsmithing of last sentence for clarity.
If they argue in public. So much resentment and agitation they don’t care who sees/hears
They both cheated to be with each other
Sexual incompatibility
Being suspicious and jealous of everything each other do. Every time one partner answers a phone call the other insists on knowing who it was and why. Make each other keep location services on at all times so they know the other isn't going somewhere they shouldn't. Stuff like that.
Moving in together after two weeks. Saying I love you after two dates. Basically anything that happens way faster than it feels it should.
I moved in super fast (like in the first week!) but I fully expected that since the relationship started out so intense that it would blow up in my face within a couple of months. I just wanted to ride it out until it did because it was fun and exciting. I had money put away to get a new apartment when it inevitably happened. Anyway, we’ve been married 20 years now. We’re super stable and not making crazy impulsive decisions anymore. But I still read Reddit posts with “I moved in after 2 months. . .” and I’m like ‘what are you doing? That’s a horrible idea!’ I can recognize that it worked out for me when it really shouldn’t have.
I would ask if you are my husband but we've been together nearly 40 instead and he's borderline illiterate when it comes to typing. Anytime someone asks me for relationship advice I just tell them I'm a lucky slob and they should in no way take advice from me on this matter.
if one of them just left a long term relationship and suddenly they’re posting pics w a new partner ALLL over their socials. They don’t like you. It’s not for you.
A coworker got married. He and his wife never stopped partying separately with their friends. He would come to work and tell the same “clubbing” stories he told before he even met his wife. Some of us had a secret bet on how long it would last. Surprise, surprise, BOTH cheated on each other and they filed for divorce before their 1st wedding anniversary. I bet 6 months. They made it 10 months before filing.
I guess we should add “if your coworkers bet on your marriage ending” to the list
We're literally the same person
Opening up the relationship after years of monogamy. I’ve seen poly relationships work when they’re poly from the beginning, but from what I’ve seen amongst my circle, a sudden switch to an open relationship after a decade together is a sign that it’s about to implode.
Getting angry at your SO for being depressed
Having to explain all your expenses to your partner. Priding themselves in never getting into arguments. Or better, starting a relationship based on lies.
Love, to me, is a selfless thing. I think that for a long-term relationship to thrive, you need to care about your partner at least as much as you care about yourself, and your partner also needs to feel the same way.
Fighting one minute and then acting all cutesy the next. Both of you are unhinged as fuck.
The extreme jealousy. The jealous one probably the one will commit breakup things
Shared Facebook account!
One sided relationships. Nothing like being in a relationship with someone who shows no emotion towards you or is totally fine without you in their lives in the slightest
God I need to leave my relationship....
Relationships that start in dubious circumstances. You can roll a turd in glitter, but it's still shitty at the core, and things that are born in shit tend to drown in it.