爱是喜悦，爱是麻烦。我们都以为自己懂得怎样去爱，却在这种自以为是中渐渐与爱背离。

要与你的男朋友/女朋友、同伴或配偶建立良好的关系并不容易。这也不意味着不可能，但它理所应当需要你去经营，当事情水到渠成的时候你就会收获喜悦。

许多时候我们做的工作还不够。对待感情，不管我们有多用心去经营，我们往往陷入那些不仅是错误的，而且通常会破坏彼此关系的主观思维方式和态度中。

我已经见过很多分手的例子(也包括我的)，其中包括戏剧性般昙花一现的恋情，也包括持续很久之后的平淡分手，我设法找出其中的原委。下面就是在我看来导致人们破坏彼此关系的因素。

1.你想扮演赢家的角色

感情的“致命杀手”之一就是竞争的欲望。我并不是指你不能忍受输掉一场网球赛，而是你那种游戏感情而且想要当赢家的态度。在竞争的关系中人们往往只想着怎么得到好处，占上风，和抓住对方的一些把柄。如果你觉得有些事情你不能告诉你的伴侣，因为他/她会以此而反抗你，那你们就处于一种竞争的关系，但最好不要持续太久。

2.你的不信任

在感情生活中有两种十分重要的信任，一种是你非常相信你的伴侣以至知道他/她不会欺骗你或伤害你，并且知道他/她也象你想的那样相信他/她。另一种是相信他们以至知道他们不会因为你的一句话而离开你或不爱你。如果第二个层面的信任已经不存在了，不论是因为你们其中一人利用对方的信任而做出有害的事，还是因为你们其中一人认为对方会这样，你们的关系也已经结束了，即使你们多用了十年时间才分手。

3.你不愿意表达

在他们的感情生活中，太多的人对令他们烦恼或失望的事情保持沉默，也许是因为他们不想伤害自己的伴侣，或者是他们想占上风(见第一点；例如：“"如果你不知道我为什么发火，那我也决不会告诉你！”)即使这样会让事情在短期内有所改善，但长远来看它会逐渐把感情的根基侵蚀。小事情之所以会变成大麻烦，是因为你的伴侣没有意识到，更糟的是，他们完全知道但却认为这并不会困扰你们。最后，保持沉没折射出信任的缺乏，就象我说的，那是感情结束的原因

4.你不愿意倾听

倾听，而且是真正的倾听，是件难事。当听到象批评这类声音的时候，我们就会想要辩护，这是很正常的。所以我们通常会打断别人来解释和为自己找借口，或暗地里准备我们的防御，而不是听别人把话说完。但你的伴侣值得你主动地倾听。她/他甚至值得你去听出日常闲聊内容里的暗示，去发现他/她的梦想和心愿，当他/她自己都还不知道到底是什么的时候。如果你不能做到这样的倾听，至少对于你爱的人来说，这可是个难题。

5.你像个单身汉一样花钱

我用结束一段七年恋情的代价，才懂得了这个难题。当你单身的时候，你可以在任何时候去买你任何想买的东西，几乎不用考虑将来。但这并不明智，可你是唯一一个承担后果的人。当你和某个人处于一段长期的感情中，这就不再是一种可能了。你的伴侣，和你的孩子(如果有，或者将来会有的话)，将会是你开销首先考虑的因素，所以你最好养成先考虑家庭必需品花费的习惯，在这以后如果还有钱剩余，就和你的伴侣一起讨论花掉它的最好办法。

目前这是一个日益增长的问题，因为越来越多的人选择保持他们的经济独立分离，即使他们已经结婚。不管怎么看这样的安排本身是没有问题的，但它需要伴侣间更多的沟通和牵连，决不能少，如果你花钱就好象钱是你的，谁也没有权利去告诉你该怎么花一样，那么你们的感情就完蛋了。

6.你害怕分手

在一个真正愉快的伴侣关系中，没有人会害怕分手。如果你害怕，那就是一个巨大的警告，肯定某个地方出错了。但通常来说，错误的是恐惧本身。它不仅仅泄露了信任的缺乏，也泄露的自信心和自尊心的缺乏，你害怕找不到一个好理由让别人和你在一起。你的伴侣迟早都会知道这件事并离开你。所以你把更多的精力放在了去维持表面上的幸福，而不是去塑造你自己。很明显，这样的事既不讨好自己，也不讨好你的伴侣。

7.你过于依赖

伴侣关系，支持和依赖三者之间有细小的界线。如果你过于依赖你的伴侣，换句话说，如果没有了他/她你就不能生活，那么你已经越界了。目前你的伴侣的压力就是去填补你正在失去的东西，这种压力会让他/她产生怨恨。如果你期望你的伴侣能带给你一切而你对你们的感情却什么都不能给予，我指的是物质和精神支持双方面，此时，你就处于麻烦中。(注意：我不是说你须要为家里赚同样多的钱，我是指如果你既不能为家里赚钱，也不能在其他方面有所贡献，那事情就会变地一团糟而且却不会好转)。

8.你总是指望幸福

感情不好的一个迹象就是情侣单方或双方都希望能为对方制造快乐或让对方给自己制造快乐。这不仅加在你或对方身上来说都是不现实的期望，没有人能使你快乐，除了你自己；这加在你们的关系中也是不现实的期望。感情生活不会只有快乐，很多时候你们都不会快乐甚至是不能快乐。当你心烦、痛苦、沮丧或是忧伤的时候能够依靠某个人，远远比总是快乐还要重要。如果你期望你的伴侣能让你快乐，或更糟的是，你为你的伴侣不能给你快乐而感到失望，那么你们的感情将不会顺利。

9.你从来不争吵

时不时有一次良性的争吵是必须的。有时候，争吵能在小事变成大问题之前把它引出，而且争吵能把人类一种很正常情感——生气，表达出来。你们的感情必须足够坚固到包容你们的全部，而不只是一些快乐的事。

夫妻之间不争吵的原因之一就是他们害怕冲突，这会反映出信任的缺乏和恐惧的根源。那可不好。另一个夫妻避开真挚的原因是他们知道生气是不切实际和徒然的。他们认为争吵表示着关系破裂而不是一种自然的关系升华方式。如果有一次不愉快的争吵，它会帮助伴侣双方看清已经存在但彼此都还未知的问题，并帮助他们远离激战，直到你越过了不可挽回的界线。

10.你认为它应该很顺利/你认为它会很艰难

对于感情我常听到的有两种严重的错误态度。一种认为感情应该很容易，如果你们真的相爱并打算在一起，问题就能自然而然的解决。另一种是认为任何值得拥有的东西都很难得到，而正是这种来之不易，才值得拥有。

持这两种观点的后果就是你不会去经营你的感情。你不会去经营因为你认为这太简单了所以你不需要做任何事，或者你认为这本来就很艰难，如果你去做了那就不会有来之不易的感觉了。在这两种情况中，你很快就会疲惫不堪，可能是因为你忽略的那些问题并没有象你想象那样消失，或者是你认为理所应当的难题持续不断的消耗你的精力。一段需要很多精力的感情可能是源于以上其中一种观点，但一段不需要任何经营的感情也决不会更好。

你的选择

对于以上的问题，找不到唯一的答案。但有一些选择：你可以找出一个答案，来解释为什么你在破坏你们的关系，或者你可以为自己推脱感情失败问题(也许下一次还是这样，再下一次……)。失败并不意味着分手——很多人可没有这么幸运。但人们可以闷闷不乐的在一段失败的感情中生活几年甚至是几十年，因为他们害怕找不到更好的，或更糟的是，他们害怕这是他们应受的。你不会像他们一样——如果你遭受了这些中的任何问题，找到解决它的办法，不管是需要治疗，一次独自的登山行，或者只是跟你的伴侣谈谈并彼此允诺都要改正。

(原文刊自CHINA DAILY)

Ways We Hurt Our Romantic Relationships

It’s not easy to have a great relationship with your boy/girlfriend, partner, or spouse. But it’s not impossible, either — it takes some work, of course, but it’s work, work that’s a joy when everything comes together.

A lot of times, though, the work isn’t enough. We get in our own way with ideas and attitudes about relationships that are not only wrong, but often work to undermine our relationships no matter how hard we work at it.

I’ve watched a lot of breakups (some of them my own). I’ve seen dramatic flare-ups and drawn-out slow fades, and I’ve tried to pay attention to what seems to be going on. Here are a few of the things I’ve seen that cause people to destroy their own relationships.

1. You’re playing to win

One of the deadliest killers of relationships is the competitive urge. I don’t mean competition in the sense that you can’t stand to lose at tennis, I mean the attitude that the relationship itself is a kind of game that you’re tying to win. People in competitive relationships are always looking for an advantage, the upper hand, some edge they can hold over their partner’s head. If you feel that there are things you can’t tell your partner because she or he will use it against you, you’re in a competitive relationship — but not for long.

2. You don’t trust

There are two aspects of trust that are important in relationships. One is trusting your partner enough to know that s/he won’t cheat on you or otherwise hurt you — and to know that he or she trusts you that way, too. The other is trusting them enough to know they won’t leave you or stop loving you no matter what you do or say. The second that level of trust is gone, whether because one of you takes advantage of that trust and does something horrible or because one of you thinks the other has, the relationship is over — even if it takes 10 more years for you to break up.

3. You don’t talk

Too many people hold their tongues about things that bother or upset them in their relationship, either because they don’t want to hurt their partner, or because they’re trying to win. (See #1 above; example: “If you don’t know why I’m mad, I’m certainly not going to tell you!”) While this might make things easier in the short term, in the long run it gradually erodes the foundation of the relationship away. Little issues grow into bigger and bigger problems — problems that don’t get fixed because your partner is blissfully unaware, or worse, is totally aware of them but thinks they don’t really bother you. Ultimately, keeping quiet reflects a lack of trust — and, as I said that’s the death of a relationship.

4. You don’t listen

Listening — really listening — is hard. It’s normal to want to defend ourselves when we hear something that seems like criticism, so instead of really hearing someone out, we interrupt to explain or excuse ourselves, or we turn inward to prepare our defense. But your partner deserves your active listening. S/he even deserves you to hear the between-the-lines content of daily chit-chat, to suss out his/her dreams and desires when even s/he doesn’t even know exactly what they are. If you can’t listen that way, at least to the person you love, there’s a problem.

5. You spend like a single person

This was a hard lesson for me to learn — until it broke up a 7-year relationship. When you’re single, you can buy whatever you want, whenever you want, with little regard for the future. It’s not necessarily wise, but you’re the only one who has to pay the consequences. When you are with someone in a long-term relationship, that is no longer a possibility. Your partner — and your children, if there are or will be any — will have to bear the brunt of your spending, so you’d better get in the habit of taking care of household necessities first and then, if there’s anything left over, of discussing with your partner the best way to use it.

This is an increasing problem these days, because more and more people are opting to keep their finances separate, even when they’re married. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of arrangement in and of itself, but it demands more communication and involvement between the partners, not less. If you’re spending money as if it was your money and nobody else has a right to tell you what to do with it, your relationship is doomed.

6. You’re afraid of breaking up

Nobody in a truly happy partnership is afraid of breaking up. If you are, that’s a big warning sign that something’s wrong. But often, what’s wrong is the fear itself. Not only does it betray a lack of trust, but it shows a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem — you’re afraid that there’s no good reason for someone to want to be with you, and that sooner or later your partner will “wise up” and take off. So you pour more energy into keeping up the appearance of a happy relationships than you do into building yourself up as a person. Quite frankly, this isn’t going to be very satisfying for you, and it also isn’t going to be very satisfying for your partner.

7. You’re dependent

There’s a thin line between companionship and support and dependency. If you depend on your partner — that is, if you absolutely cannot live without her or him — you’ve crossed that line. The pressure is now on your partner to fill whatever’s missing in you — a pressure s/he will learn to resent. If you expect your partner to bring everything while you bring nothing to your relationship — and I’m talking finances as well as emotional support, here — you’re in trouble. (Note: I’m not saying that you need to contribute equally to household finances — what I’m saying is that if you’re not contributing to the household budget, and you’re not contributing anywhere else, things are out of whack and that’s never good.)

8. You expect Happiness

A sign of a bad relationship is that one or both partners expect either to make the other happy or for their partner to make them happy. This is not only an unrealistic expectation to lay on yourself or on them — nobody can “make” you happy, except you — but it’s an unrealistic expectation to lay on your relationship. Relationships aren’t only about being happy, and there’s lots of times when you won’t and even shouldn’t be. Being able to rely on someone even when you’re upset, miserable, depressed, or grieving is a lot more important than being happy all the time. If you expect your partner to make you happy — or worse, you’re frustrated because you aren’t able to make your partner happy — your relationship isn’t going to fare well when it hits a rough spot.

9. You never fight

A good argument is essential, every now and then. In part, arguing helps bring out the little stuff before it becomes major, but also, fighting expresses anger which is a perfectly normal part of a human’s emotional make-up. Your relationship has to be strong enough to hold all of who you are, not just the sunny stuff.

One reason couples don’t fight is that they fear conflict — which reflects a lack of trust and a foundation of fear. That’s bad. Another reason couples avoid arguments is that they’ve learned that anger is unreasonable and unproductive. They’ve learned that arguing represents a breakdown rather than a natural part of a relationship’s development. While an argument isn’t pleasant, it can help both partners to articulate issues they may not have even known they had — and help keep them from simmering until you cross a line you can’t come back from.

10. You expect it to be easy/you expect it to be hard

There are two deeply problematic attitudes about relationships I hear often. One is that a relationship should be easy, that if you really love each other and are meant to be together, it will work itself out. The other is that anything worth having is going to be hard — and that therefore if it’s hard, it must be worth having.

The outcome of both views is that you don’t work at your relationship. You don’t work because it’s supposed to be easy and therefore not need any work, or you don’t work because it’s supposed to be hard and it wouldn’t be hard if you worked at it. In both cases, you quickly get burnt out — either because the problems you’re ignoring really don’t go away just because you think they should. or because the problems you’re cultivating are a constant drag on your energy. A relationship that’s too much work might be suffering from one of the attitudes above, but a relationship that doesn’t seem to need any work isn’t any better.

Your choices

There isn’t any one answer to any of the problems above. There are choices though: you can either seek out an answer, something that addresses why you are hurting your relationship, or you can resign yourself to the failure of your relationship (and maybe the next one, and the next one, and…). Failure doesn’t always mean you break up — many people aren’t that lucky. But people can live quite unhappily in failed relationships for years and even decades because they’re afraid they won’t find anything better, or worse, they’re afraid they deserve it. Don’t you be one of them — if you suffer from any of these problems, figure out how to fix it, whether that means therapy, a solo mountain retreat, or just talking to your partner and committing yourselves to change.