Five Relationship Mistakes, Are You Paying Attention to Those Red Flags?

Someone asked me for this list so I started thinking about why relationships fail.   If you’re divorced and looking, keep in mind that it’s easier to avoid a bad relationship than get out of it.  Keep your eyes wide open when you meet someone and don’t ignore those red flags.  I look back on my first date with my husband and all the red flags were there – I just overlooked them because I was lonely and wanted to get married.    So girlfriends, this is the second time around (maybe third) you know better, don’t make the same mistakes.

1. Ignoring Your First Impression. You can tell everything you need to know about a guy in the first 15 seconds.  OK maybe 15 minutes, but during those first minutes after you meet your intuition is on overdrive.  You  haven’t had time yet to rationalize  away all those red flags just because he’s good-looking or rich.   If you don’t pay attention to that first impression you will regret it.

2. Confusing Sex And Intimacy. Women who jump into bed right away are often hoping to skip the getting-to-know-each-other stage of the relationship and get intimate right away.  It doesn’t work that way.  Don’t use sex as a cheap substitute for intimacy. The act itself doesn’t take all that much time or effort, and it will allow you to fantasize a sense of closeness that doesn’t really exist.   It takes time to establish real inti macy and there are no short cuts.

3. Trying To Change Him. It’s so tempting not to see or accept who a man really is, but who he could be if only you could help him get a job, quit drinking, or move out of mom’s house.   We women tend to see guys as a pile of potential rather than for sale as is, then we waste years trying to “fix” him.   Don’t bother.  If you want to change anything more substantive than the way he dresses, forget it.   In fact forget the style change too, a lot of guys just refuse to give up those ripped sweats and pony tails.

4. Making Excuses For Him. How many times have we said to ourselves:  “Oh, he only gets drunk occasionally,” or “He loves me, that’s why he’s so jealous,” or “I know he has a good heart even though he doesn’t show it.’  I made excuses for my husband’s lack of integrity for years, including his lying, “forgetting” and eventually cheating until he finally left me for another women.

5. Taking Him For Granted. We women tend to get caught up with our jobs, our businesses, the children or grandchildren and ignore our husbands,, thinking we don’t have to make an effort to keep our marriage vibrant and alive.   If you don’t pay attention to your husband you take the risk of him finding someone who will.   This is the biggest complaint of men who leave—that their wives lost interest and stopped appreciating them.   Men are like plants, they need a lot of watering or they wilt.

Submitted by Erica Manfred Your “girlfriend in a book!” He’s History, You’re Not: Surviving Divorce After Forty