5 Honest Reasons To Keep Your Relationship Problems To Yourself
You may have moved on, but the damage has already been done.
Sharing your relationship troubles with friends, family or coworkers may release you from frustration, but it also imprints mental notes in other’s brains. If you say your partner is a jerk, your friends have no choice but to believe you. By the next day, your partner is sorry, all's forgiven and life is good, but the imprint has already been etched. The next day you may have moved on, but the damage has already been done.
Here are 5 honest reasons to keep your relationship problems to yourself:
1. Protect your spouse/partner
Your spouse/partner will feel betrayed when they find out you’ve been talking about your private matters.
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2. Don't give your boss a reason
Your boss will say he's noticed that you’re distracted at work, and that’s why you’re not getting a raise.
3. Preserve your friendships
Your friends stop inviting you over as a couple because your hubby seems like a "real piece of work".
4. People will see you as weak
Some people you tell your secrets to view you as weak for staying in a bad situation even if in reality it’s not a bad situation.
5. Future good news is tainted
Sharing any future exciting news in your life will be met with a lack of enthusiasm and probably be viewed as a cover-up.
Here are signs you overshare:
Unfortunately, it doesn’t take more than one or two bad instances that you’ve shared to make people jump to conclusions and adopt their scenarios. When you overshare, you risk hurting your relationship and its reputation as well, possibly causing some real damage to your other relationships. Do any of the following scenarios sound familiar?
1. It is all their fault
You walk into work 15 minutes late. You sit at your desk, and next thing you know, you're sharing your review of the morning with your cube-mate. "It's all their fault. Do you know what they did this morning?" And then you proceed to tell them your side of the story; the only side they’ll ever get to hear.
2. Your partner thought it was private
You call your mother or sister and share something your partner is sure was just between the two of you, like finding intimate items in their briefcase. Next time the relatives come over for dinner, they’re shooting daggers at your partner for what your partner thinks is no reason, and they go on the defensive. Another fight between you is a good possibility, not to mention their feelings of having the bond between you betrayed.
3. Sharing inconclusive evidence
Your friends see you’re upset and you divulge that you found a phone number on a piece of paper in your hubby’s jacket. They’ll be full of advice of course, and full of anger towards him. Two days later when you see the number on their cell phone, you answer it. It’s a new client who wants to invite you both to their summer house for the weekend. You feel so silly that you never mention it again, not even to your friends. Later when they ask about it and you explain what happened, they don’t believe you. They think you’re covering up your partner's infidelity.
We don’t often tell people when things are going well in our relationships, but we do tend to share when we’re feeling upset. And whether the people we tell are supportive or not, they never really get to know the whole story, just the parts we tell. It can have detrimental effects on your life as a couple.
Every couple has troubles from time to time, even the couples we regard as having “a good relationship” or a relationship we admire. These are the couples that don’t share their business with others and work out their problems alone, together. Of course, if there are serious issues to work out, talking to someone in a professional capacity can be a good thing, and it will most certainly be kept confidential.
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LJ Innes is an intuitive and empathic life student whose passion is to not only help people find the passion in their own lives but to also help them live it every day.