{"id":13422,"date":"2020-10-27T16:40:02","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T20:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=13422"},"modified":"2020-10-27T16:40:02","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T20:40:02","slug":"7-ways-to-insure-you-will-not-be-a-good-partner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2020\/10\/7-ways-to-insure-you-will-not-be-a-good-partner.html","title":{"rendered":"7 Ways to Insure You Will NOT Be a Good Partner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2016\/08\/people-couple-fight.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9908 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2016\/08\/people-couple-fight-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a>As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I often talk about what it takes to build healthy relationships. But perhaps another question is, what does it take to derail a relationship? How do you push someone away? In other words, what contributes to becoming a bad partner? \u00a0Here are 10 points to consider. They are often the topic of complaints when a relationship is having trouble:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1) Pick a fight on a regular basis.<\/strong> Make everything a battle! Frankly, this is exhausting and causes a relationship to go negative. No one likes to be in constant conflict. It&#8217;s stressful. Stop the fights and arguments. Couples need moments of peace and unity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2) Be obsessed with your partner.<\/strong> In other words, don&#8217;t see other friends or even family. This is called smothering and it will smother your relationship. It&#8217;s healthy to have friends and spend time with them apart from your partner. It is also healthy to have some alone time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3) Be very self-centered.<\/strong> When it is all about you, resentment can build! After all, relationships are about meeting the needs of both people. Be less self-focus and become more other-focused. No one likes a relationship that has to constantly feed the ego of one person.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4) Be indecisive and don&#8217;t commit to much of anything<\/strong>. A wishy washy person is frustrating! Just make a decision and stick to it. More importantly, commitment is key to sustaining a relationship. Thus, a partner who can&#8217;t commit is a partner who won&#8217;t be there long term.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5) Don&#8217;t pull your weight.<\/strong> A passive approach to a relationship is another way to build resentment. The work of a relationship should be shared. While we should not keep score, an out of balance relationship can tip negative. When all the &#8220;doing&#8221; falls on one person, it&#8217;s a problem.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6) Refuse to get along with your partner&#8217;s family.<\/strong> Some families are challenging but it is up to you to find a way to make it work. Alienating a person&#8217;s family is never a good idea unless the family is very toxic. Instead, find ways to support your partner with their family. Do you best to get along and be nice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7) Talk nonstop about your problems.<\/strong> Again, exhausting! And maybe you need professional help. It&#8217;s draining to hear problems and negativity all the time. So think about your conversations and bring up good things more often than the bad things.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I often talk about what it takes to build healthy relationships. But perhaps another question is, what does it take to derail a relationship? How do you push someone away? In other words, what contributes to becoming a bad partner? \u00a0Here are 10 points to consider. They are&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[913],"tags":[5136,503,2025,5124,125,5130,5127],"class_list":["post-13422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-couple-relationships","tag-bad-partner","tag-conflict","tag-couples-relationships","tag-good-partner","tag-marriage","tag-problem-relationships","tag-unhealthy-relationship"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>7 Ways to Insure You Will NOT Be a Good Partner<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"7 Ways to Insure You Will NOT Be a Good Partner\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I often talk about what it takes to build healthy relationships. But perhaps another question is, what does it take to derail a relationship? How do you push someone away? In other words, what contributes to becoming a bad partner? \u00a0Here are 10 points to consider. They are&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2020\/10\/7-ways-to-insure-you-will-not-be-a-good-partner.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-10-27T20:40:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2016\/08\/people-couple-fight-300x225.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"7 Ways to Insure You Will NOT Be a Good Partner","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"7 Ways to Insure You Will NOT Be a Good Partner","og_description":"As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I often talk about what it takes to build healthy relationships. But perhaps another question is, what does it take to derail a relationship? How do you push someone away? In other words, what contributes to becoming a bad partner? \u00a0Here are 10 points to consider. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13422"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13569,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13422\/revisions\/13569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}