How to Stop Self-Sabotaging Relationships? – 8 Best Ways to Cope

Sometimes your behavior is interfering between you and your happy life relationships. Self-sabotaging relationships make you endure loneliness and create problems in attaining goals. Giving up and not understanding your partner leads to the emotional detachment that wrecks the relationship.

Are you sabotaging your relationship? Do you feel that you have issues with your partner’s romantic relationship? Have you ever noticed your behavior? You should focus on avoiding harmful behaviors and stop self-sabotaging your relationship.

What are self-sabotaging relationships?

Self-sabotaging is stopping yourself from thriving and getting successful. You have low self-esteem and inadequate courage to move ahead in your life. Negative self-talk demoralizes you, and you destroy opportunities by yourself. While talking about relationships, one can also sabotage their bonding and association with someone.

Self-sabotaging relationships mean that you are sabotaging a well-settled and healthy relationship without any reason.

Your fears, negative thoughts, and overthinking create problems in your relationship, and you ruin it or make it to an end. You do not contemplate yourself worthy of being loved and have intimacy issues with your partner.

According to Bill Crawford, a comedian, and radio personality, Nothing can sabotage our success and happiness more than the fear of not being good, worthy, and enough.

Self-sabotaging behaviors have drastic effects, and people can exhibit these toxic behaviors consciously or even subconsciously. Comprehend the following signs to identify if you are sabotaging your relationship.

What are the signs of self-sabotaging behaviors in relationships?

If you want to live a joyful and happy life and have inner peace, first know whether you are a self-saboteur or not? Are you sabotaging your relationship or not?

It is sometimes uncertain and confusing to spot whether you are sabotaging your relationship or not. But many indicators can specify that your behavior is causing difficulties and problems for your relationship. Some of these signs are the following.

• Not actively listening to your partner.
• Ignoring and neglecting their queries.
• Always getting jealous of their friends.
• Getting overly doubtful and having trust issues.
• Have no courage to commit.
• Avoiding plans for vacations and spending time together.
• Always criticizing your partner and being aggressive.
• Holding grudges and not addressing negative emotions.
• Low self-compassion and considering yourself worthless.

These are some self-sabotaging behaviors that can ruin a healthy relationship. You may not initially consider it vital to curb these behaviors, but eventually, you will understand why is it important to stop self-sabotaging relationships? Improving yourself, behaving maturely, and strengthening good relations, are crucial for a complacent and serene life.

What causes self-sabotaging relationships?

As every person is different, their sufferings and experiences are different, and their beliefs are different, so they also have several reasons for self-sabotaging relationships. Self-sabotage leads to low self-esteem that makes you feel like an unloved person.

A specific reason for self-sabotaging relationships can be past romantic relationships that were a failure. Due to that experience, you now have a fear of abandonment and rejection from your partner.

Emotional self-sabotage in relationships can also be due to any traumatic happening in your life that still affects your mind. Childhood memories can be a great factor in giving rise to self-sabotaging relationships.

Maybe you have faced emotional, physical, or psychological abuse from your caregivers. Therefore you still have intimacy issues and believe that you can get hurt by people who care for you.

A study shows that romantic self saboteurs are mostly those people who suffer attachment trauma in childhood.

Unrealistic and high expectations are also one of the biggest factors in sabotaging relationships. Some people also have a fear of relationships because of their low self-esteem. They don’t consider themselves perfectly suitable for their partner and fear that they will get rejected. They have trust issues and have a jealousy factor in their personalities.

These all are the causes of self-sabotaging relationships, and many times people do self-sabotage without even knowing about it.

Therefore, avoid self-sabotaging behaviors in relationships and learn ways how to stop self-sabotaging relationships.

How to deal with self-sabotaging relationships?

After thoroughly understanding what self-sabotaging relationships are and the signs of self-sabotage in relationships, don’t worry if you identify these signs in your life.

The good news is that you can stop self-sabotaging behavior in romantic relationships to make your partner feel good and lucky by being with you. Overcoming self-sabotaging in relationships will also help you and makes you feel good with your partner

1. Identify the roots of the problem

To stop self-sabotaging relationships, get to the roots of the problems. Find out why is this all happening? Why are you triggered by the situations and sabotaging yourself and your relationship?

Whenever things go wrong, everyone only sees what is being wrong with them, but they should also focus on what is wrong with their behavior.

Do not overreact and understand the situation to resolve the conflicts. Eliminate the cause of self-sabotage and think positively. Without knowing the basic cause and reasons for self-sabotage, you can never stop self-sabotaging behavior in relationships. Stop overthinking about your past and move on, taking yourself out of your comfort zone.

2. Enhance effective communication

If you do not communicate with your partner, how can you express what you feel? How can you tell your partner that you have any issue with something? In every aspect and part of life, communication is the key. Therefore, learn what are effective communication skills to strengthen your relations.

Never hold grudges and say what you want to say.

Do not always impose your partner’s decisions and let them speak. Be an active and attentive listener and sympathize with your partner in difficult situations. You should not pretend to be someone you are not and effectively communicate with your partner to stop assuming negative aspects and sabotaging your relationship.

3. Improve your self-esteem in relationships

If you cannot love yourself, you can never love someone else. Stop considering yourself worthless and accept proudly what you are. Improve self-esteem in relationships, believe in yourself, and take your responsibilities. If your partner asks you to be committed in a relationship for the future and talk about the future, do not step back and be courageous enough to commit.

If you keep running away from commitments and responsibilities because you do not consider yourself eligible to be a competent person, you are self-sabotaging your relationship.

Self-sabotaging relationships and low self-esteem are closely related to each other and intensely affect your life. Also, learn the signs of low self-esteem in a man and try to improve your self-esteem in relationships.

4. Have faith and trust in your partner

Trust is the glue of every successful relationship, and you should build trust in your relationship. Believe in yourself and your partner, and stay away from misconceptions.

A study confirmed that when couples start believing myths and misconceptions, these misconceptions then negatively impact their relationship.

It is a self-sabotaging behavior in which you do not trust your partner and get jealous if they talk to their friends and others. Stop being insecure about your relationship and keep faith in your partner to stop self-sabotaging relationships. If your past relationship is not good and your partner betrayed you, do not sabotage this relationship by thinking the same, and try to move on.

Also learn, How to fix a lack of trust in a relationship?

5. Choose the right person for you

It can be a reason for self-sabotaging relationships that you might feel somewhere that this is not the right person for you. Many people came into your life, but only one is the perfect fit for you. Take some time and analyze what you want in your partner? What type of person do you need to be with you in every step of your life? Then, choose the right one.

Look at your past experiences and learn from your mistakes because not everyone is the best suitable soulmate for you.

Relationships are difficult to handle, and therefore, do not be over judgmental regarding your partner that you will lose a sincere person. Think, observe, analyze, and choose the right one you want to be with.

6. Avoid blaming your partner

Learn to control your emotions and thoughts because you can never always be right. Accept the reality and confess if you have done something wrong. It is also a great factor in self-sabotaging relationships: you constantly blame your partner and outrage them. If you want to stop sabotaging your relationship, avoid your controlling nature and let them do things in their way.

A long-lasting criticism can detach others from you, therefore, make sure not to be over perfect and never try to change your partner.

In this way, you can eliminate emotional self-sabotage from your life and relationships.

7. Identify what you and your partner want

Needs, wants, and expectations are the basic elements of every relationship. The thing that becomes the cause of self-sabotaging relationships is high and unrealistic expectations from your partner.

A relationship can be successful if both the partners understand the need of each other and try their best to fulfill them.

Open up to your partner, share your feelings, likes, dislikes, and preferences, and ask them what they want from this relationship. Identifying your partner’s needs and understanding each other’s attachment styles would help you stop self-sabotaging your relationships.

8. Consult a specialist

Taking help from a therapist or a specialist is not bad. If, after all the efforts, you cannot control self-sabotaging behavior and your relationship is getting damaged, you can consult and talk to a specialist.

According to research on the effectiveness of couple counseling, it is conducted that 75% of couples who receive therapy are better than other couples who didn’t get therapy.

Therapists and special counselors can guide you on the right ways to change your behavior. They can help you decode the pattern of your emotions and make your relationship successful.

According to mind-body green, couple therapy and individual therapy provide a good way to discuss relationship fears in an empathetic, nonjudgmental, and supportive environment.

Therefore, seek a professional to help you develop and maintain good relationships and stop sabotaging yourself.

FAQs

Some frequently asked questions about self-sabotaging relationships are described below.

Q: How do I stop self-sabotaging my relationship?

Believe in your partner, share your feelings, and reduce intimacy issues to keep your relationship ongoing. Stop criticizing and attacking your partner; no one is perfect, and therefore don’t go for perfection in everything.

Explain and communicate about everything you feel, whether good or bad and also comprehend the expectations of your specific one to stop self-sabotaging relationships.

Q: What is self-sabotaging a symptom of?

Self-sabotaging can be a symptom of low self-esteem and inadequate coping skills that ravages the relationship. Due to bad past relationship history or childhood trauma, many people sabotage their relationship consciously or unconsciously. Avoid the self-sabotaging behaviors in relationships and fear of relationships to live a happy life.

Q: How do I stop self-sabotaging and overthinking?

Self-sabotage is a negative behavior, but you can control it by changing the way of your thinking. Be kind to yourself, stop negative self-talk, and take positive criticism constructively. Accept the reality and do not consider yourself unworthy.

Focus on your achievement in the past and know your worth to successfully move ahead in your life.

Q: What is a toxic relationship?

In a toxic relationship, you are not given any value or respect. Your partner always gives priority to themselves and never appreciates or considers your efforts. You are getting depressed day by day by consistent criticism and aggressive behaviors.

Your partner never accepts his mistakes and always blames you for everything. Such relationships are toxic, and you should try to change the toxic behavior of your partner.

Final words

Many people display harmful and self-sabotaging behavior in relationships and hurt their partners. If you successfully identify the self-sabotaging relationships, overcome and deal with your self-sabotaging behavior. Stop lying to your partner and improve open communication and compatibility in your relationship.

Hopefully, you will get help from the ways mentioned above and try to avoid self-sabotaging behaviors in relationships.