Qualities That Make You Difficult To Be In A Relationship With (Part II)

My last post spoke about the first five qualities that can be difficult to be around. Below are the remaining four qualities. Read this list with courage and an open mind. Once we are aware of our edges, we can then work hard to smooth them out.

1. Depressed: Depression can be a debilitating entity in a relationship—for both the person who’s depressed as well as for the people around them. If you struggle with depression, get help. Don’t accept having or being a black cloud in your life. You deserve more and so do those around you. Live your life -- don’t wait for it to end.

2. Negative: There’s nothing worse than having a constant cloud of negativity surrounding you. Leave pessimism and the grumpy, old Scrooge attitude out of your relationships—even the most optimistic or people can only take so much before they too begin to drowned in the negativity. Don’t be a constant downer—it brings people and relationships down.

3. Unaccountable: A huge part of humanity is imperfection. None of us is God. We will make mistakes no matter how hard we try. Making mistakes, however, is not the problem. The problem comes when we don’t admit our mistakes, don’t learn from our mistakes and when we continue to make the same mistakes repeatedly. When it comes to relationships, being accountable is a must. Refuse to minimize, justify or defend your mistakes—instead just own them. It feels incredibly healthy and empowering to be able to be honest about our actions and to have the courage to repair the damage we’ve caused.

4. Selfish: Relationships are about give and take. If all you want to do is take, then be alone. It’s not okay for everyone to have to do what you want to do, when you want to do it. If you expect others to give in to your wishes, it is equally important that you give in to theirs as well. If you can go out and buy a car without talking to your partner about it, so can they. Don’t ask more from others than you are giving or eventually you will wear out your welcome.

It’s important to note that if you struggle with any of the characteristics listed above or in the previous post, you are not alone. In fact, you are in a very large group of fellow human beings who also struggle. Being imperfect is just a part of our humanity. We all have our edges, which are the less than perfect parts of ourselves. Having edges is being human--refusing to see or work on our edges is our narrow-mindedness. Be human not narrow-minded.

Challenge: Look at the list above with an open mind and circle the areas where you struggle. Choose one area to focus on at a time and do your best to smooth out this edge. Take a moment to congratulate yourself each time you work it successfully—you earned it.