Maybe you’ve hit a rough patch in your relationship, or maybe it’s time to move on, but if you’re regularly complaining about your significant other, you need to reevaluate some things. There are many reasons that we feel compelled to complain about issues in our lives—sometimes we just need to blow off steam, and sometimes we have serious problems that require others’ help. When you’re constantly griping about your boyfriend or girlfriend, however, you’re doing no one any favors, least of all yourself.
Assess The Issues You Have With Your Partner
Before you can get a handle on your complaints, you need to take a moment to assess them. Do you have one or two big problems with your significant other, several small problems, or a combination therein? If the source of your complaint is something major—say, your boyfriend is cheating on you yet again—then you should probably just end things. There is no point in putting up with a problem of that magnitude, especially if it’s a repeat offense that you’ve previously addressed. If you’ve got smaller things you’re complaining about, however, then you need to decide whether those small problems outweigh the good aspects of your relationship. You also need to determine whether or not your expectations for your partner are unrealistic. Then you should discuss all of your feelings with your S.O., not your friends and family.
What Are The Pros And Cons Of Your Relationship?
How best to go about this process? If you’ve decided this isn’t an obviously a problem worthy of a break up, you have to start weighing the pros and cons of your relationship. Sure it may annoy you that your girlfriend baby talks to your cat, but if you dump her over it, you would also lose all of the support she gives you when you’re having a bad day. When you look at it that way, her cooing and calling your kitten her little fuzzy-wuzzy-face may not seem so bad after all. Secondly, you need to have a reality check with yourself, because odds are that you have at least one habit that annoys her. She’s probably not so keen on you leaving your dirty socks all over the apartment, but she overlooks it because there are lots of other things she loves about you. You should take a page from her playbook and stop whining about this rather negligible issue. Then wait for a moment when you’re both in good moods and mention the problem to your mate. Bring it up in a non-accusatory way, for instance: “I’m so glad that you love my cat, but my aunt baby-talked to me well into my teen years and it carries a bad association for me. Do you think you could try to cut back a little, please?” Making it about your own issue, and not about the other person’s, always helps. If you discuss the cause of your complaints with your S.O. in a non-heated moment, you’ll likely see him or her make an effort to modify their behavior. At the very least, you’ll feel better for being proactive about addressing the problem.
Should You Just Break Up?
Oftentimes the assess-and-discuss method above will help alleviate your issues much more than complaining about it to uninvolved parties. If it doesn’t, perhaps you need to question what’s really causing your complaints. Maybe you’re really just looking for an excuse to break up with someone who no longer holds interest for you. If that’s the case, just end it. There’s no point in dragging out a bad relationship—you’re just making you, your partner, and all the people you’ve been whining to miserable. No matter what your situation, you should also give serious thought to who you complain to about your relationship problems. You put your friends and family members in an awkward position when you constantly gripe about the person you supposedly love—especially if those friends and relatives like or have befriended your S.O. You also risk them telling your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse that you’ve been regularly complaining about them, which could be disastrous. Better that your mate hears it from you than through the grapevine. Regardless of the outcome, you need to take steps to cope with or eliminate the source of your complaints—otherwise your relationship will never be a healthy one.