5 relationship-interfering behaviours you need to stop.

The following is an edited extract from The 8 Love Links (Publish Central, $34.95) by Shahn Baker Sorekli & Helen Robertson.

In order to reflect on our own contribution to conflict, identifying any relationship-interfering behaviours is helpful. You need to be open and curious about these behaviours, understanding that insight is the first step to change.

In this process, you may identify relationship-interfering behaviours that are more obvious but still uncomfortable to admit — for example, any anger, from frustration to rage, being critical and mean to your partner or being passive-aggressive.

However, sometimes behaviours are less obvious and harder to identify. These include submission or compliance behaviours, entitled behaviours, over-functioning behaviours, pursuing behaviours and avoidant behaviours.

Let's look at some of the less obvious behaviours in more detail. You may identify with some of these behaviours or see them in your partner.

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Submission or compliance.

If you find yourself surrendering your needs and submitting to what your partner wants all the time, you're in a submission and compliance dynamic. You may feel you're making the relationship run smoother because you are avoiding feelings of guilt or potential conflict. However, this behaviour is contributing to a negative relationship cycle.

Relying on submission and compliance to defuse conflict or avoid guilt means you are not being authentic. Your genuine needs, wants and interests are not shared and not prioritised. This can lead to resentment within you and an imbalance in the relationship. It can even result in your partner respecting you less and your value in the relationship being reduced.

Entitlement.

It's not just people with narcissistic personality disorder who are entitled. Each individual is at the centre of their universe and, therefore, capable of entitlement. Often people are quite blind to it. Entitlement might be as simple as feeling you deserve something and getting fiery when you don't receive it.

When present, this relationship-interfering behaviour means you are not willing to put yourself in an empathetic position to understand your partner's needs. Instead, you pursue your own needs with little compassion for them.

Reflecting and identifying entitlement requires deep commitment. If you do not realise you are being entitled, you will likely remain stubborn in your pursuit with little awareness of the impact you are having on others and on your own reputation.

Over-functioning.

Many partners feel like a parent in their relationship, dealing with under-functioning partners who constantly let them down. Labelling their over-functioning as a problem seems unfair, because they're picking up all the slack and doing all the heavy lifting in the relationship.

However, let's say you are taking care of 75 per cent of all relationship requirements. That only leaves 25 per cent of space for your partner to function. There is no room for them to step up.

Continuing to over-function enables their under-functioning and causes you a lot of pain and stress because the dynamic does not change. If you do not learn to step back, lower your standards and put in healthy boundaries, you will always feel like the parent in the relationship and that's not fair to you.

Pursuing behaviours.

Pursuing behaviours refers to behaviours that are intense, insistent and persistent. This could be repeatedly bringing up an issue in the relationship that needs resolving, insisting on an immediate behaviour change from your partner, or passionately expressing opinions or desires.

Pursuing behaviours are commonly driven by feelings of anxiety, overwhelm and insecurity, making people feel required to address issues in the relationship. Such behaviours, however, can come across as controlling and bossy. Unsurprisingly, these pursuing behaviours can lead partners to feel controlled and pestered, resulting in avoidance and distancing.

Avoidant behaviours.

If you dodge the difficult conversations and issues, you are engaging in avoidant behaviours. Avoidance leads to communication procrastination and white lies. Internally, the behaviour is driven by the desire to avoid conflict or friction, and so feels rational or justifiable.

However, when you avoid a problem or issue in the relationship, it inevitably surfaces and you end up dealing with the problem at hand plus the fallout from the avoidance. This means double the problem and double the stress.

Some relationship-interfering behaviours trump others. For example, aggression and intimidation is much worse than submission. But that's not the point. The point is all relationship-interfering behaviours are maladaptive and counterproductive to good solutions or connections.

Over time, they can have dire consequences on your relationship because they bring more negative associations and stress. And, as uncomfortable as it might be to admit, each partner is always playing a role in the relationship system. Your partner might be mean or entitled and you might be thinking, Why should I have to change?

We're not suggesting your partner's behaviour isn't bad or worse than yours. It might be, but if you get stuck on that, you relinquish any power to change. Learning, identifying and taking responsibility for your own behaviours provides opportunities to break conflict cycles.

Edited extract from The 8 Love Links (Publish Central $34.95) by Shahn Baker Sorekli & Helen Robertson. Shahn and Helen are clinical psychologists and couples therapists, as well as co-founder of the couples coaching app My Love Your Love. For more information visit 8lovelinks.com.