Relationships

Bad Habits That Can Wreak Havoc on Your Relationship

July 18, 2018 By Anne Davis Leave a Comment

Most relationships don’t come to an abrupt end over a one-time offense. When couples are really in love with one another and committed, relationships tend to die off due to a series of little problems that kept happening over a long period of time. Though you’d probably never do anything to intentionally hurt the one you love, it can be surprisingly easy to adopt bad habits that slowly start to drain the life out of them and your relationship.

Being aware of these habits and cutting them off before they get out of hand can be the difference between saving your partnership and losing out on one of the best things to ever happen to you. Below are some bad habits you may need to address if you want to maintain a happy and healthy relationship:

Always Being Plugged In

Smartphones are a modern convenience that everyone has. It is essentially a miniature computer with internet access. It enables you to do and explore everything in an instant. It can quickly become a distraction in your relationship. Checking your phone for emails, spending too much time on social media, and a host of other activities could keep you glued to your phone. Your partner can begin to feel neglected, ignored, and taken advantage of.

What to do: You can’t be glued to your phone all the time. It is best to use it in moderation. When you’re with your partner, make it a no phone moment so the two of you can reconnect. Even if the phone use is for work, turning it off for a few hours to give your partner your undivided attention can make all the difference.

Partying Too Much

You and your partner might love to go out and have a good time. Perhaps you even met in a bar or on a club scene. You enjoy going out with friends and indulging in the finest drinks. There’s certainly nothing wrong with having a good time, but if you party too much, it could ruin your relationship. Coming home all hours of the night, increasing your intake of drugs and alcohol, or engaging in dangerous behaviors are all factors that could cause a breakup.

What to do: Everyone enjoys a good time but if your partner has started to express their disdain for your partying ways, you need to scale back. If you’re struggling with substance dependency, the first thing you should be doing is finding a detox center to get clean. Then, reduce your partying to a few times a month. Set curfews, limit drug and alcohol intake, and communicate with your partner so they don’t become worried or stressed.

Snooping

Trust is hard to earn but easily taken away. You may have an inner urge to go snooping through your spouse’s things to make sure they’re not up to no good, but this is a bad habit to form. Checking cell phones, reading social media comments, rummaging through the laundry, and other methods of spying will all come back to bite you in the end. If your partner finds out, whether they’ve been loyal or not, they will no longer trust you.

What to do: As difficult as this advice may be, you need to learn to trust your spouse. If you’re struggling with insecurities or there has been infidelity in the relationship in the past then you should talk about it or seek therapy. If you truly can’t trust your partner, you may need to consider leaving the relationship behind.

No relationship worth having is easy or perfect, but if you want a fighting chance of keeping your love alive then you need to be honest. Identify what bad habits may be contributing to the negative changes in your relationship and then come up with a plan to fix them. Whether it’s going to an alcohol rehab for detox, seeking therapy, or unplugging the cell phone at the end of the night, it’s worth sacrificing for the one you love.

What to do when Ambition is Assaulting your Marriage

March 6, 2011 By Keagan Pearson 6 Comments

Culturally speaking, the American man is expected to be ambitious. Absent all other measures, ambition is the metric that often dictates our degree of success.

To support this theory (in case you needed some persuasion), do a quick Google search with the phrase “Marriage and Ambition.” You will find that the first three pages of your search results are focused heavily on the lack of male ambition.

Pretty definitive right? But, did you notice something else? A large proportion of the results deal with the apparent disgust that wives and girlfriends have for their unmotivated counterparts.

Just take a look at the number one search result. This MSNBC response column to a piece by Dr. Gail Saltz, listed response after response of women who are genuinely horrified at the lack of vocational drive in their men.

So, dads…how should we interpret this message?

If we are fighting for that next promotion or pursuing a more substantial education, then our priorities are in line and success in life should be ours…right?

Do you subscribe to this kind of methodology? Or…better yet, does your wife?

The Tightrope of Pursuit

In my marriage, there is a definite balance between ambition and contentment. In fact, I polled my wife and asked her to critique me on my level of ambition.

It was a simple question, “Do you find that I am overly ambitious, or not enough?”

Here response? Well…let’s just say that it was a mixed bag.

When it comes to my personal pursuits (writing, career trajectory, exercise) I am very ambitious. Maybe a little overly ambitious from her perspective. However, when it comes to things that I may not find stimulating or personally fulfilling (house cleaning, card games, certain family activities, etc.) then I have very little ambition.

Ultimately, her perspective is that I have a propensity to be “selfishly driven.”

It certainly isn’t the kind of thing a husband likes to hear, but I can honestly say that I didn’t expect her to answer much differently. Without me softening the blow with some self-censorship, these are my tendencies.

Ambition, it seems, can be volatile in the extremes of either direction.

When Ambitions are Challenged

Being that ambition is intrinsically an internal matter, what can you do when it becomes too much, or not enough?

If you are like me, your ambition (or absence of it) can be stifling to those around you.

When you find this being the case:

Be a student of your ambition. If you know what makes you tick, then you are much more likely to be able to enact, reduce, or redirect your ambition towards activities that strengthen your relationship.
Determine if your drive (or lack thereof) is stemming from selfishness. If you are being a selfish jerk…just call it like it is! You will be surprised at how easily you can change when you’re forced to identify yourself with something that’s less desirable.
Challenge your sense of what’s important. Often you will find that your pursuits pale in their importance when placed next to something that’s more substantial.
Look at the bigger picture. Let’s face it…that new promotion, or conversely, your lack of motivation to find work, does not take place of being an engaged husband or putting food on the table.
Be willing to hear and accept constructive criticism. You need to be man enough to listen to your bride when your pursuits are hurting them. It may be tough to take, but if you have been successful at point number one, then it shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

Marriage’s Reality

Guess what? Being married is a selfless partnership…and so it should be.

Although I am far from becoming the poster boy for a perfectly balanced husband, I am learning at every turn.

How about you? Is your ambition in check?

Can you share something that might be of use to other readers?

Whether you have failed miserably or seen great success, I encourage you to be part of the dialog.

There is certainly strength in our collective experiences!

How Alone are You?

August 1, 2010 By Keagan Pearson 2 Comments

Have you ever had that sneaking suspicion that you are the only person on the face of the planet dealing with a particular issue? You know, the kind of problem that has yet to plague any other human being….ever! What brings us to the point of actually being convinced of this? Now, I am not a psychiatrist so I won’t act as though I am. However, I would like to camp on the idea of relational living for a moment, so bear with me.

Wired For Relationships

As a dad, I am privy to the development of relationships in a very raw form. You get to see them bud, then wilt, then flourish again. I know they are often fickle, but the constant in these young relationships is that they yearn to have them. God wired us to be relational. So, why then when we struggle do we feel so alone? If you are like me and you have a family, you are well aware that there are very few moments of solitude (I will insert my wife’s “Amen” here). Suffice it to say that most people probably have friends or family that keeps them from living life in complete loneliness. That being said, maybe it isn’t the number of people we have around us but the depth of those relationships that are at fault.

Bring In The Jackhammer

A few months ago I wrote a post about the necessity for dads to have close relationships with other guys. While I still remain an advocate of this, I sometimes wonder if our family relationships are as deep as they need to be. In theory, our family should be the place where we feel the safest. Regardless of what we are struggling with, we should be able to rely on those closest to us to act as a support to prop us up. In fact, the readers review posts in this blog work towards developing a parenting structure that creates a place of safety and openness for our kids. Unfortunately, it takes ALLOT of work to build a place of non-judgment that fosters this kind of transparency. Imagine what this kind of family would look like. It would be a family where no topic would be taboo. As a parent, your kids would confide in you because you extend an abundance of grace along with holding them accountable for their actions. Your marriage could withstand the good, the bad, and the ugly, simply because your relationship with God would remind you of the forgiveness that you have received. What a foreign concept!

Living A Pipe Dream

How likely are we to live this way though? In pondering this myself I was reminded of the television show Lie To Me. The context of the show consists of a group of facial recognition experts that solve client cases because of their ability to decipher between truth and lie. Because of their profession, one of the characters decides to adopt a life of radical honesty, saying whatever comes to his mind. Now, let’s clarify that there are times when we should keep our mouths shut. Our words can be unbelievably destructive and malicious. However, the concept is kind of refreshing…and maybe a little bit frightening at the same time. Let’s face it, most of us would hesitate to live like this because of our fear of judgment by others. Who wants their dirty laundry out in the open where your family and friends can see it! On the other hand, would we still feel so alone in our struggles if our whole person was known by those we love? Inevitably we would be forced to confront our true selves and not just the persona we live when others are watching.

One Step At A Time

Now before you go frightening your family and friends with new “revelations,” remember that changes take time and little bit of strategy. For instance, begin the change in your family by preparing yourself to be a safe place for others to share. If you create that opportunity for others, then you can expect that others will reciprocate. And if they don’t…well at least you gave them a good scare!

Keep It Real Brother!

April 16, 2010 By Keagan Pearson 4 Comments

Last week, during a normal conversation with a friend of mine, the importance of friendship found its way to the center of our exchange.

While this seems like a pretty normal thing for friends to talk about, it wasn’t necessarily the norm for us. Being men of discerning tastes, our dialogue normally consisted of the finer things of life. Things like the new action flick getting ready to release or how “Droid Definitely Does.” Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing degrading about traditional “guy talk” but I can assure you that we are capable of more.

Anyway, as we conversed more about the topic, we came to a consensus that most men have very few “real friends.” This seems to be especially true for dads. While many of us have several acquaintances, most would be hard pressed to maintain the kind of transparency that would be present in a close friendship. Unfortunately, the demands of our lives often cause us to neglect forming bonds with those that share the same testosterone levels.

The real travesty here is that dads don’t often realize the necessity behind having such a friend. Now, at the expense of saving my marriage, I will admit that my wife will always be the person to which I am closest. But, my wife doesn’t get why I enjoy watching the UFC fights, or why I find it so difficult to scour my shower weekly. A buddy however, knows precisely my predicament and with a well-timed fist bump, encourages me onward!

With all the stereotypes put aside, let me persuade the dads out there to really give this some thought. I am not talking about friendships that exist only when chicken wings and explosions are present. I am talking about the kind of camaraderie that would lead us to levels of trust and understanding that are quite frankly, uncommon. Build friendships with guys that will not only tell you “you’re the man”, but that will also tell you when you’re being a colossal idiot.

With the work that goes in to building these kinds of relationships, it is no wonder why they are few and far between. Besides, I don’t think my man-brain could handle more than a couple!