Archives for March 2015

The best relationships are the best not because they have always been the happiest, but because they have stayed strong through the mightiest of storms.

Over the years, through our coaching practice and premium course, Marc and I have worked with thousands of individuals and couples looking to fix their failing relationships, and we’ve learned a lot about what it takes to make this happen.

Whether you’re working to fix your marriage, a dating relationship, or a friendship, there are lots of little things you can do to keep your relationship on track.  And since we’ve recently covered many of these healthy relationship strategies here and here, today I want to take a quick look at the flipside – the most common toxic behaviors that tear relationships apart.

To start, I can honestly say that Marc and I can listen to a couple talk for 30 minutes and determine, with close to 90% accuracy, whether they’re relationship will last in the long run (without major changes being made).  The reason we can do this is simple: Most failing/failed relationships suffer from the same four basic behavioral issues…

1. Condemnation of a person’s character – Complaints are fine.  Disagreements are fine too.  These are natural, focused reactions to a person’s decisions or behavior.  But when complaints and disagreements snowball into global attacks on the person, and not on their decisions or behavior, this spells trouble.  For example: “They didn’t call me when they said they would because they forgot, but because they’re a horrible, wretched human being.” [Read more…]