Many people know what it takes to maintain balanced, happy relationships in life: love, trust, compassion, compromise, laughter, a deep connection, and respect, to name a few.
However, a lot of us don’t even recognize if we’re in love with the wrong person…
To cultivate supportive, healthy relationships in life, you have to find out what you don’t want, and sometimes that involves being in the wrong relationship.
Here’s how to tell:
5 Telling Signs You’re In Love with the Wrong Person
1. You aren’t comfortable spending time apart
At the beginning of a relationship, you naturally want to spend as much time with the person as you can since everything about it feels fresh and new, and you absolutely love the person you’re with.
Of course, you still feel the same about your guy or girl after a few months, but you might crave some time away from them occasionally to continue your own personal growth.
While your partner should be a huge part of your life, it’s important to make sure they’re not the only part of your life. Research shows that once a relationship becomes stagnant, people start to forget why they’re in the relationship to begin with, and look for a way out so they can feel that initial spark again with someone new.
To avoid having this happen, hanging out with friends or spending time alone is important in keeping the spark alive in the relationship and being able to grow evenly during time spent apart.
If this time apart doesn’t feel comfortable, there is an underlying trust issue, and since trust is a cornerstone of any relationship, you may want to reassess your relationship.
2. You don’t understand exactly how to make the other feel truly loved.
We all have different preferences when it comes to receiving love. In the wrong relationship, one or both of the partners fail to understand the others needs. If you want to care for them in the best way possible, but don’t know how, remember that something as small as a cup of coffee in the morning or a warm dinner at night can be just the right touch to fixing a wronged relationship.
This is effectively done through the right communication. You don’t expect the other to read your mind. You learn, get to know your partner and act in a way that makes them fall in love with you even more.
3. Living in the past.
Focusing on the wrongdoings and mistakes that people in your past made will only make you feel negative about your current relationship. Let go and leave those relationships where they belong – fixating on prior pain will only cause more to appear…what you resist persists.
4. Someone is withholding the truth.
When asked about the most important quality a person can possess, most people quickly say “trust.” If two people don’t have that, the foundation of the relationship will quickly crumble once the truth finally comes to the surface. Healthy love requires two people committed to sharing their darkest secrets and most authentic self no matter what.
5. You can’t handle problems effectively.
In both relationships and life, problems inevitably happen, and knowing how to deal with them and figure out solutions together can strengthen your relationship – and keep it running smoothly. If you or your partner are having a hard time tackling problems as a team and talking things through to solve the problem, it may mean that there’s a happier and longer-lasting relationship elsewhere.
A couple married for 75 years said that the key to how to make love work long-term is communication, even if that means arguing in order to solve a problem. Whatever your style of problem-solving may be, if you are your partner can resolve things quickly and easily without too much conflict, chances are you have the ability to make things work in the future.
According to Dr. Preston Ni, “Successful couples have the ability to solve problems and let [them] go.”
If both you and your partner have similar problem-solving strategies, you can get through the trials in life just as well as the triumphs. Don’t give up right away, but give it some time to see if you can learn to deal with problems as a team.
