Self-sabotage can be defined as actively or passively taking measures to prevent yourself from achieving specific goals. This behavior can affect nearly every aspect of life namely career goals like getting a promotion or personal goals such weight loss. This phenomenon can occur in relationships as well.
Why we self-sabotage?
We self-sabotage for different reasons namely fear or low self-esteem amongst others. Sometimes we may feel like we don’t deserve good things (low self-esteem) or we become accustomed to bad things happening so we try and “protect” ourselves by not connecting fully because we fear what will happen if we do connect deeply and things don’t work out.
What self-sabotage in a relationship can look like:
1. Not tackling negative emotions
Feeling negative emotions in any relationship is normal but not addressing those negative emotions can be problematic. Not wanting to address those negative emotions can indicate that you are not willing to fix them and/or work on them.
2. Intense paranoia
Suspecting your partner of cheating with no evidence to prove it may be a form of self-sabotage in a relationship. This is possibly a projection of your fears and anxieties about the relationship.
3. Criticism towards your partner
Constructive criticism in a relationship is a positive sign but criticizing your partner unnecessarily could be indicative of self-sabotage as you might be trying to drive a wedge between you and your partner.
4. Holding grudges
Holding grudges is never a good thing, regardless of the nature of your relationship but most of us are guilty of holding a grudge occasionally. In relationships, holding grudges may lead to resentment.
5. Focusing on your partner’s negative traits
I think we all have positive traits and not so positive traits and when starting a new relationship, we try and highlight the positive traits to make us seem more desirable. Usually only once the relationship is established, we reveal the 'not so' positive traits. Negative traits can be a turn off but if the positive outweighs the negatives, then we usually decide to focus on those. Highlighting your partners smaller negative traits can be indicative of self-sabotage.
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