3 Signs Your Relationship Is Never Going to Work

I hate this aspect of my job. I hate thinking about it, talking about it, and in my own life I hate facing it myself because it's depressing. But my last article was on facing the reality of your relationships and to be clear, I feel obligated to share what criteria you should look for as signs that your relationship will never be perfect the way you want it to. My material comes from an article published in the Journal of Family Psychology back in 2012.


There are three things that are strongly correlated to divorce, separation, break up,  and as I like to call it, "relationship endings." Those three things are:

1. Poor Communication
2. Poor Emotional Management
3. And a lack of perceiving that your needs are being met

Poor Communication often comes down to conflict management. How do you resolve your conflicts? Do you insist that you are right and the other person is wrong and therefore the discussion is over? Do you avoid discussions with the other person because you don't want to upset them? Do you avoid conversations with them because you don't want them to hurt you? Do you cave every time they want something from you because you don't want to upset them? Do you get upset that they don't remember things? Do you get upset because they don't appear to value the same things as you?--All of these issues are a symptom of poor communication. --I'll write an article on this eventually, and have in fact devoted a significant portion of my book to this very topic, but if you know your relationship suffers from poor communication then expect it to fail sometime in the future. That is, if you don't commit now to improve your communication.

Poor Emotional Management is all about feelings. How do you feel in the relationship? If you were to take an hourly log of how you are feeling in a week, how many hours would you classify as you feeling "satisfied" or "happy" with your relationship? If you feel stressed, if you feel sad, if you feel angry, if you feel scared more than 50% of the time, expect your relationship to come to an end eventually. In fact, if you are in that situation, let me remind you that the only reason you still have a relationship of any kind with that person is because you are keeping it alive.

Lack of Needs Fulfillment I stated above that it was the perception of your needs being fulfilled. This is a tricky issue to attach to relationship endings. For starters, it is not your responsibility to fulfill other people's needs. Ever. However, we form relationships because it makes it easier to fulfill our needs and wants. If you aren't helping them meet some of their important needs, or you are blocking them from meeting those needs (or making their life more stressful), you might need to reconsider why you are in the relationship in the first place. And, if your needs aren't getting met, you shouldn't blame the other person for not fulfilling them, but you should consider developing other relationships that can help you fulfill those--if not fulfilling them on your own without complaining.

It's not unlikely that at some point in the life of your relationships you will experience each of these things. You might recognize that the communication in your relationship is terrible, or that you are projecting your emotions on the other person or feel that they have made you upset or angry. You may even think that you aren't getting any of your needs met by the other person. This is fine, so long as it is temporary--that is when you try to work on those things.
If your relationship doesn't communicate very well, work in it. If you keep feeling the same emotions, focus on resolving those emotions. If you aren't getting your needs me, you REALLY need to find ways to get those needs met. No, you don't need to put your relationship on hold, but you need to commit more to resolving these things. You can still maintain the same level of relationship with them and, on the side, be improving your personal ability to communicate, handle your emotions, and get your needs met.

With that in mind, if you try your damnedest, you're committing to the relationship and you're working on yourself, and you're still having these problems, then it's time to admit defeat. There is no shame in ending a relationship that isn't working out. If it doesn't get you closer to that dream relationship you're working towards, or if it keeps slipping back into those three negative areas, then set up some boundaries and move forward.

There is really only one sign that your relationship will never work, and that is that you or the other person no longer wants to improve your communication, no longer want to manage the emotions, or no longer wants to find a solution for helping the other person get their needs fulfilled. No matter what happens, no matter what mistakes are made, the hurtful things said, actions taken, or the decisions made, if you both want to keep working on these three things, then you will maintain a relationship and hopefully it won't be bogged down with so many boundaries that it can become a great relationship.

Dreams and Visions,Part 2- A Near Perfect Relationship is NOT a Perfect Relationship

I asked in the first part of this article, "what is holding you back from achieving success, reaching your dreams, and fulfilling your visions?" I think everyone's answer to this question falls into one of two categories: First, you don't believe in it enough, and because you don't believe in it enough you fear the possibility that you might actually get it.--I explored that aspect of this question in Part 1 if you missed it--Second, you might not be reaching your dreams and fulfilling your visions because you believe in them too much.

I don't mean that you really believe in your dream too much, what I mean--what language has a hard time explaining on its own--is that you believe so much in your dream and want it so bad that you start seeing it everywhere that it isn't.

Where the first part of this answer breaks down to Fear, this part of the answer breaks down to Laziness.

You most likely aren't lazy, you just don't realize that you're taking the lazy way out. When we set out to fulfill our goals, generally one of two things happens to us along the way: 1) it gets hard, and 2) we tell ourselves we have it when we're really only halfway there. In other words, when it gets tough--as it always does--we either acknowledge that it is tough and we feel like giving up because we think it is too hard, or we lie to ourselves and say that we already did all of the hard parts and now we're reaping the rewards or that somehow we are satisfied with less than what we originally wanted.

In answer to the question, "What is holding you back from achieving success, reaching your dreams and fulfilling your visions?" your honest answer might be: 1) I don't want to do the work, or 2) I don't want to face reality.

Success is never easy. Having the relationship of your dreams would be a major success in life and I'm here to tell you it is never easy. It is a grueling, rough, exhausting experience that you largely have to go through on your own. It starts by putting in the energy to find someone, anyone, who is capable of loving you and not abusing you. Then it requires taking all kinds of risks in order to be with that person and to include them in your life. Next you have to do the hard work of confronting your conflicts with each other, resolving them and spending countless hours thinking up a solution so those conflicts don't keep happening. Sometimes the hard parts aren't even that--they're putting up boundaries that protect you but still allow you to maintain a healthy relationship with that individual.

No one wants to face reality. Facing reality means we have to change. Facing reality is hard work because it requires us to rethink everything we previously thought about life. Sometimes we know that things aren't great for us, but we don't want to change because change is scary (Fear) and it is a lot of work (Laziness). Sometimes, the hard part of reaching your dream relationship isn't having a relationship at all, it's knowing when to let go of someone who can't be that dream relationship for you. Lastly, sometimes--even though it is depressing to think about--the real reason why you aren't already in that outstanding relationship, right now, is because you don't want it bad enough.

Let me repeat what I said in part 1 of this article; the second hardest part about dreaming is wanting it. A lot of people say that they want to have that perfect relationship. They want someone who is there for them when they are struggling, they want someone who is willing to admit they are wrong and apologize. They want someone who can give them hope for the future, listen to them, talk to them, and give them attention when they need it most. They want someone who will devote to them and commit to them, possibly start a family with them and most importantly love them and communicate that love.
But a lot of people only "kinda" want it.--anyone would want those things...at least, they think if they were presented those things for free that they wouldn't turn them down, but that isn't necessarily the truth. Naturally, we all want things the easy way, but when we get them the easy way we don't appreciate them and sometimes don't even acknowledge them. To be truthful, sometimes we don't want these great things as much as we want the conflict. Without the fights, without having to work for it, it isn't as appealing and we beat ourselves up for not going after those "easy" things. We want the drama and we want to work and sometimes we're willing (thrilled even) to beat ourselves up over being so dramatic. We say that we want those wonderful things in our relationships, but sometimes we want the bad parts more--and don't even realize it.

Our biggest fear isn't the work, it isn't that we might have to change or make hard decisions. Our biggest fear isn't that we are inadequate or that we might face pain or failure. Our biggest fear is really that we might actually get what we want, and then once we have what we want the whole world will be open to us. We fear that we will be so confident and comfortable with our lives and our relationships that we get lazy about getting there. We fear fulfilling our dreams so much that we are willing to settle for things that aren't as good and say that we have had enough of our dreams to satisfy us, but remember: a near perfect relationship is not a perfect relationship. Keep striving for your dreams until you have them, don't give up, don't quit, not until you really have it.