So, what are some common mistakes that married couples are making that will ruin a relationship, that are easily avoidable? Hi, my name is Cody with Better Marriage, and today I want to share with you four common mistakes that married couples are making all the time that will absolutely destroy your marriage. And if it doesn’t destroy it, it will certainly diminish the quality of it.
Now, there was a study done at the University of Colorado some time ago that followed over a thousand couples over a very long period of time to see what the successful ones did, what the unsuccessful ones did, any patterns, any habits that were success habits and any habits that were patterns of failure.
And they came up with four habits, four patterns within a marriage that, if those patterns are present, the chances of divorce are considerably higher. And the great thing is, they’re really easy to avoid. So, I want to cover those four habits right now, so you don’t need to make those mistakes.
Now, the first habit, Toxic Habit 1, is escalation. It’s escalating situations, escalating fights, escalating situations biting at debate. Basically, if you escalate a situation, then obviously the situation is going to escalate.
And that is habit number one: avoid habits of escalation. Recognize when you are starting to get into a situation of fight and the situation is starting to escalate, and recognize that that habit of escalating that situation is absolutely toxic to your marriage. And that is toxic habit number one.
Now, toxic habit number two is invalidation. It’s invalidation; it’s invalidating your partner’s beliefs, invalidating their feelings, invalidating their right to have a say in the relationship. And this can be very, very subtle, especially if you’re a man, right? It’s very easy, uh, when a woman comes to us with a problem, she’s not actually coming to us for us to solve that problem.
She’s coming to us to talk about that problem, and a lot of times our solution is just to belittle the problem and just to say, “Hey, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it, forget about it.” And that’s invalidating that person’s belief.
They have a right to feel how they want to feel; they have a right to believe what they want to believe, and they can feel any way they want to. And a lot of times we invalidate those beliefs.
And when we do that on a consistent basis, that is also very, very toxic within a relationship. We want to be validating our partners; we want to be building them up and supporting their belief system, not invalidating them and their belief system. So, that is negative.
Toxic Habit 3: Habit number two is invalidation. Now, number three is withdrawal. Now, this can be physical withdrawal or it can be emotional withdrawal. Maybe you would draw yourself physically from the relationship, or maybe you withdraw yourself emotionally from a relationship as well. And if you refuse to get engaged, the end result is that there is separation between you and your partner, whether that be emotional separation or physical separation.
And when connection is most needed in times of crisis and conflicts, and you start to pull away when you withdraw, when that connection is most needed, that is a very toxic pattern within a relationship. So, toxic pattern, negative habit number three that will destroy a marriage, is withdrawal.
Now, the final habit, it’s probably one of the biggest ones. Really, this is one that I see the most, and it’s one of the easier ones to solve. And that is negative interpretation.
How are you seeing your partner? Is it in a negative way? How are we interpreting their motives? How are we interpreting what they do? Negative interpretation will cause a lot of fights, it will cause a lot of problems, it will cause a lot of stress and strain within the marriage.
If we look at our partner in a negative way, it’s going to cause us to behave in a negative way towards them. If we look at them in a positive way, then we are going to behave in a very positive way towards them.
So, the biggest one here to look at with negative interpretation is negatively interpreting their motivation for what they did. And he intentionally did this, or he intentionally did that, or she intentionally did this, she intentionally did that.
We simply don’t know what somebody’s motivation is, and even if we do, it’s very difficult, it’s very damaging to a relationship to interpret that motivation negatively, to give it a negative spin when we could just as equally give a positive spin.
If we think somebody did their best, say, and we look at what they did and say, “Hey, they tried really hard, it just didn’t work out really well,” or “I could see that they were doing their best here, and it just didn’t work out.”
It’s going to cause us to behave a certain way. How we interpret somebody’s behavior determines our actions towards that person, and our actions towards that person determines their response back to us, and their response back to us determines whether we fight or whether we have a harmonious relationship. So, habit number four that is absolutely destructive to a marriage is negative interpretation.
Now, what do you think? Leave in the comments which one of those four habits you think is the most destructive. Is it escalation, is it invalidation, withdrawal, or negative interpretation? Let me know in the comments which one you think is the most destructive.
And if you want some more free training on how you can help your marriage, there’s a link in the description where you can get some free bonus training, no charge at all.
So, that’s it from me. Bless you all, happy marriage, and we’ll talk to you very soon.
