Signs It Really Is You, And Nobody Else, Messing Up Your Relationships
You know the old saying, “It’s not you, it’s me?” Well, that’s usually the saying people use when it really isn’t them but the other person who is messing things up, and they just don’t think the other person is stable enough to hear that truth. If you hear those little words during most of your breakups then there is a good chance you do some things that make a guy think, “Okay A) I need to get out of this and B) I need to let her down lightly because if I tell her the truth, she may throw a drink on me or slash my tires or hire her therapist for seven days out of the week. Your friends may tell you you’re picking the wrong guys, but your friends might just be sparing your feelings. That’s sweet, but not helpful. Here are signs it’s you, not them, messing up your relationships.
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You’ve made him your whole life
You won’t say yes to plans with your friends until you’ve confirmed that your boyfriend didn’t have some vague plan in his head for the two of you that night. No man wants to say, “I think you need your own life and stop looking to me for your entire social calendar.”
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You don’t believe in yourself
You can list a hundred reasons why you won’t achieve your goals but not one reason why you can. If your ex thinks your biggest problem is self-confidence, then he certainly isn’t going to break up with you by telling you that you have no confidence in yourself.
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You presume monogamy
Even if a guy was going to say that he wanted to be exclusive with you if you just presume you’re exclusive before it’s discussed (and yell at him for not deleting his online dating profiles yet) then he’ll want out. He won’t tell you it’s because you’re possessive, of course, because that will probably cause you to angry-stalk him.
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You try to fix men
The second a man senses that a woman is trying to “fix” him or alter him in any way, he’ll bail. If you try to push men into taking jobs they don’t want or being more assertive/less abrasive/you name it, they will leave you. They’ll just say, “It seems we aren’t compatible,” but what they mean is, “You’re bossy and won’t accept me for who I am!”
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Or fix yourself for men
The only thing you should ever change about yourself for a man is whether or not you’re hooking up with other men. Clearly, if you commit to a guy, that should change. But if men sense you caring too much about their opinion of your apartment, your friends, the way you dress etc. they’ll become uncomfortable with that power and leave. They’ll probably just say something like, “I don’t deserve you” since they can’t very well say, “You don’t seem to think that you are deserving of love.”
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You don’t care enough
Plenty of women make this mistake; for fear of caring too much, they overcorrect and don’t care at all. This means they barely call the guy, barely make plans with him unless he initiates them and barely asks what he’s up to. Obviously, a guy is going to leave then, but he isn’t going to say, “You don’t pay attention to me!” because, well, nobody wants to say that.
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You can’t be sweet or nurturing
Maybe you’ve been burned in the past—you were very sweet to a guy who let you down—so now you withhold your nurturing side. No guy wants to pay for the mistakes of others and every guy wants someone who will bring them some freaking cough syrup when they’re sick and rub their back. Don’t you want that, too? If you can’t be nurturing, the guy will probably take off. But he’ll say it’s that he needs more than you can give him, rather than blame you for not being giving.
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You “peacock”
If male attention (males who aren’t your partner) is clearly important to you, your boyfriend probably won’t trust you. You should feel free to dress however you want, but if you clearly dress and behave just to get the attention of men everywhere you go, this belies insecurity on your part, and nobody can trust an insecure person.
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Or you’re very down on yourself
Maybe your insecurity manifests itself in a much more honest manner; maybe you constantly criticize yourself and point out how much better you think other women are than you. If you don’t think you’re a catch, why should anybody else?
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You fight with your family a lot
With maturity comes the realization that you and your family will never see eye to eye on everything, and it’s better to smile and nod sometimes than pick the same old fight and ruin the visit. If you haven’t figured that out, and complain about your parents every day, you probably come off as a bit immature.
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You’re flighty in friendships and your career
You have new friends and new lines of work every two months. You rave about the new ones until you suddenly hate them and discard them. If a person’s surroundings (their work, their friends, etc.) are constantly changing, this is a sign that they don’t know who they are internally.
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You monitor his friends
Maybe he does have some jack*ss friends who tell him he should stay single for life or are bad influences on him. If you don’t trust him to resist those bad influences and assert his values on his own, but rather you monitor his friends, your boyfriend won’t want to stay with you. He doesn’t want a chaperone.
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You attempt, just once, to use sex as a tool
Sex is supposed to be intimate and loving. The moment you treat it as a power tool, you ruin it forever. And no man wants to stay in a relationship where the sex has been tainted.
