4 Ways You Are Killing Your Relationship Before It Even Starts

There are people out there who are infinitely in love with the idea of love that they become fearless when it comes to dating and relationships. Even after their hearts are broken, they are able to piece it back together, try again, and all of a sudden are in love with someone new; hearts in their eyes and butterflies fluttering in their stomach.
For the rest of us, getting into a relationship unfortunately doesn’t come as easily. Sure, it might be effortless to meet someone we’re interested in, which may smoothly transition into steady dating.

However, after a few weeks or maybe even months with this person, we start to think to ourselves, “This relationship should be moving forward” but for some reason it’s not. We become stuck in this “What the heck is going on?” phase.
For someone who has been in countless ‘almost serious relationships’, I have finally come to realization with why my relationships have ended before they had even started.

1. Having doubts whenever a person tells you how they feel.

When you have feelings for someone and those feelings are reciprocated, it can feel as if you’re on top of the world. The words they say become music to your ears, and the actions in which he or she express the way they feel about you, stamp your face with a grin that stretches from one ear to the other. Although as time passes, you feel as if the music softens in volume, that big grin of yours shrinks into a smile. Doubts of whether this person still has feelings for you frequently cross your mind.

For me this was a recurrent thought, even though the person I was dating at the time still had strong feelings for me I constantly questioned whether he was being genuine with his words and actions. Instead of enjoying his company and showing him the great qualities I have to offer, I became demanding. I felt the need to measure and test how he felt towards me. Rather than being my upbeat, positive, bubbly self that attracted this guy, I turned into a controlling, needy person. Which would send any emotionally stable guy running the other direction.

2. Convincing yourself you do not want a serious relationship.

Majority of us enter the dating world with a stubborn attitude of not wanting a serious relationship. We date to have fun, to kill time, and to avoid loneliness. But what happens when we actually meet someone we see a future with? We still stand by our decision of not committing to this person. It’s safe for me to say that I am guilty of carrying out this crime; I have dated someone who to me was faultless, close to perfect. Yet I continually told him I didn’t want a serious relationship. And you know what I learned?

In doing this, you are left with a heavy consequence.

It can be daunting to picture yourself knocking down your walls, opening up and becoming vulnerable to someone you hardly know. And it could be incredibly embarrassing to proclaim your love to someone, in return only hearing a “thanks but no thanks” response. No one ever wants to end up hurt.

Whether we have this mindset because we are afraid to commit to one person or just straight up terrified of being rejected, know this sort of thinking is a terrible way of entering the dating world. Decide whether a relationship is for you once you have had enough time to get to know a person.

3. Telling the whole world about your ‘relationship’.

If you’re like me- an open book and have no troubles sharing with everyone the nitty-gritty details of your thrilling life. Then let me tell you, when it comes to dating, it’s best to keep that pretty mouth of yours zipped tight. Yes, it is exciting to be with someone new, and it is extremely difficult to keep your mouth shut when all you want to do is talk about this person. However, there comes a line that should not be crossed. The more you disclose about your love life to your friends, colleagues, beauty therapist (the list goes on), you tend to receive unnecessary opinions that muddle up your mind and cloud your judgement. Instead of making a decision, you seek others for advice or approval in what step to take next, you start to lose confidence in your choices and actions.

Most importantly, you are disrespecting the person you’re dating. No one likes being talked about 24/7, whether if it is good or bad, the person you are dating should be the one you communicate with – not the rest of the world.

4. Assuming that you are already in a committed relationship without having ‘the talk’.

I once dated a guy who I saw so often that I practically lived at his house, we went on trips together, I accompanied him to special occasions, and he even introduced me to all his closest friends as well as his family. To me, his actions seemed as legitimate boyfriend behaviour. That’s what couples in relationships do right?
For some reason, I automatically jumped to the conclusion that we were exclusive. In reality, friends behave like this all the time.

A lot of people make this mistake of assuming they have entered a relationship, purely based on another’s actions. They invest a great amount of time and energy towards this person and expect him or her to do the same, only resulting to him or her becoming distant. The only way to avoid such disappointment is to stop skipping ahead, sit down and define the relationship before anyone gets hurt.

Many of us dive head first into the sea of dating. We swim aimlessly in search for our soul mate and are left disappointed with each encounter, confused as to what went wrong. If we just take a break from our continual search, step back and observe our actions, we are able to see clearly that maybe the reason isn’t incompatibility with that person, rather it’s how we take on dating that have the effect of cutting the relationship short.