Relationship Wreckers to Help Your Client Avoid

Knowing patterns is the first step to changing them.

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

– William Shakespeare

Ah, love, friendship, intimacy, passion, mutual support… all the perks that turn life from ‘meh’ to marvellous. The fabric of existence itself. The subject of legions of studies showing how healthy and meaningful good relationships are for us.¹

The truth is, who we love, and are loved by, matters more to us as we fade into the eternal night than how much time we spent at the office or the car we never bought.²

That special someone you can laugh with, dream with, vent to – and best of all, you don’t need to schedule a session or fork out 100 bucks an hour for the privilege.

Love. True love.

And yet, talking of forking out 100 bucks (or whatever you charge!), sometimes clients come in wanting help maintaining a relationship, finding ‘the one’, or even avoiding always falling for the ‘wrong’ person.

It’s as well to see where they might be going wrong in their search for love.

Not that everyone needs to be ‘coupled’. And of course, people can be happy without an intimate partner. But however you cut it, relationships matter.

For example, research on pain perception even found that we experience less pain when looking at a picture of a loved one.³

No wonder many people want a relationship. But for some people, it’s harder for new relationships to ‘take’, to grow and thrive. And this may, at least in part, be down to some common relationship mistakes.

So what are the seven most destructive relationship mistakes? And how can you help your clients avoid them?

Mistake 1: Being too desperate to ‘hook up’

This is a classic and universal relationship mistake, fuelled by a fear that time is running out. The biological clock is noisily ticking away like an oestrogen-filled time bomb threatening to explode. Panic sets in. Suddenly, anyone with a pulse and clean(ish) fingernails starts to seem like a good bet!

Wanting a relationship is not the same as wanting to be in a relationship with a particular person.

One client, Dana, lamented that she felt so pressured to “find a mate”, as David Attenborough might put it, that she would continually go for anyone who seemed in the slightest bit interested in her.

She was so desperate that she should fit other people that she never really stopped to consider whether they were right for her.

A few months into it, she’d wake up feeling this person was a stranger and they had nothing in common – different aspirations, dreams, and interests.

I suggested (with more sensitivity and subtlety than I’m about to here!) that:

If you get too hung up on wanting ‘a relationship’ as a general idea, you may fall into the trap of flinging yourself at the first vaguely available (or not!) creature to enter the room.

Obvious desperation, as in wanting something too much, can cause the very thing we desire to flee from us. Desperation is a turn-off for many people.

What to do

I reminded Dana of the words of the song ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ and suggested she didn’t need to.

As she relaxed in trance, I suggested words to the effect that:

Starting a relationship with someone ‘just because’ is like setting out on a voyage without checking your boat’s condition, engine performance, and seaworthiness. And in the long run, if you have one eye on the stopwatch, starting up with the wrong person wastes more time.

It seemed to help Dana.

All this links, of course, to the next relationship error…

Mistake 2: Repeatedly going for Mr/Ms Wrong

If your client is in the market for relationship mistakes (and I sincerely hope they’re not), this one can be neatly combined with the first mistake. And we see this with clients all the time.

I’m reminded of the adage that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Whether that really does define madness or simply blind optimism or lack of creative flexibility is another question.

But the fact remains that if I repeatedly scrape my face on tarmac and then wonder why it hurts, I may need to take stock a little.

Red flags and ‘psychos’

But hold on a psycho-pickin’ moment, I hear you cry! Anyone can mistakenly get together with a ‘psycho’. And it’s true. Who among us can’t look back and think, What was I (not) thinking?! But some clients may be more prone to getting together with unsuitable types.

It might be a type they go for that’s the problem. And this in turn may be down to low self-esteem.

If your client views and treats themselves badly, it may feel more natural to be with someone who also treats them poorly than with someone who treats them like royalty. We tend to go with those who share our worldview, even if that worldview contends that we are the worst person in the world.

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Dive deep into their patterns

Deliberately going for someone with ‘dysfunctional features’ that match the characteristics of a past destructive relationship, then later wondering where it all went wrong is, perhaps, a more common pattern than many of us might like to admit.

Another client, Dave, told me he always seemed to end up with helpless women he felt he needed to rescue.

They would desperately demand more and more from him until he started to feel his life was simply there to serve them. He had been parentified as a child and we found that certain signals early on from a woman had been attracting him. Signals such as instant neediness.

So we can explore what it is about these unsuitables that attracts your client to them (or them to your client). Has it just been bad luck, or have they been going for a certain flawed type?

One client I recall from decades ago told me she always got together with “strong, silent types” – men who “can’t express their feelings”. I suggested that not being able to do something wasn’t a sign of strength. She found that reframe useful.

Over time she began to find a greater variety of men attractive and eventually met a man who treated her well and was generally kind and considerate.

What to do

Talk to your client carefully about just what it is they really need from a relationship. Talk to them about their emotional needs and how the right person might help meet them.

If they’re chronically pursuing mates (to use the National Geographic term) who are obviously flawed to the extent that relationships will be painful and doomed, then helping them be clear about that, especially if it was an unconscious pattern, will at least help them gain some objectivity.

Knowing patterns is the first step to changing them.

Mistake 3: Game playing

Another pattern that can cause some clients problems is treating relationships like a game.

There’s a great line from a Seinfeld episode – and I’ll try not to misquote here! – in which one of the characters says to Jerry, “You shouldn’t play games in relationships!” to which he replies, “What’s the point of dating without games? How do you know if you’re winning or losing?”

If we view too much of life through a competitive lens, we come to treat everything like a tussle, a chance to score points and get ahead.

Trying to make someone want you more by acting ‘standoffish’, ignoring them, or trying to make them jealous is, of course, all about manipulation.

If relationships start off on the basis of game playing then things may go south very fast.

Paula admitted she would try to make her boyfriend jealous sometimes by talking about male co-workers to him, describing how attractive they were and other qualities. She’d also not message him back for long periods sometimes, to “let him know who’s boss”.

I suggested that relationships didn’t need to be about control. People tend to eventually sense that they are being ‘played’, which can diminish trust and banish intimacy. Paula started to wean herself off game playing, which was a real win for her and her partner.

What to do

Spot any patterns of possible game playing. Discern with your client what possible needs they may be meeting (or subconsciously trying to meet) through their game playing – perhaps it’s the need for a sense of control or security, or even excitement – and help them meet those needs in other ways. Encourage honest communication and straightforwardness.

If your client is in fact the victim of game playing, then help them not be drawn into that.

Mistake 4: Wanting too much too soon

Sometimes it’s what your client demands from a relationship too soon that causes potential partners to flee. This mistake is a close cousin of mistake number one.

Wanting to peg someone down too quickly, to see whether they’re ‘committed’, is like trying to insist cabin crew serve you their delicious vacuum-packed fare during takeoff. Clients sometimes need to give their relationship time to naturally develop. Rushing can scare people off.

One man I worked with, who, admittedly, was on the autistic spectrum, met a woman online. He spoke to her a few times and she told him where she lived (not a wise thing to do too soon either!). Anyway, no sooner had she done this than he sent a dozen red roses to her house with a card saying: “I love you forever”!

Now that might have been romantic had they actually met and been seeing each other for a few months, but after having messaged one another only a few times? It was simply creepy. The result?

She dropped him quicker than a vegan might drop a steak.

Telling someone you love them on the first date, planning your retirement together, or talking about ‘us’ and ‘we’ prematurely applies too much pressure and saps the spontaneity and fun from the early stages of a relationship.

Having to know how someone feels may be fair enough down the line, but asking them too soon where they see this relationship going can make them feel like they’re being interrogated in a job interview.

What to do

We can suggest to relationship rushers that everything in life has a proper ‘rollout period’. That a relationship is an exploration of possibility.

Yes, after a time they may need to know where they stand, but people often don’t even know how they feel until they get to know someone properly.

Feeling a new partner is a commitmentphobe just because after a few dates they haven’t proposed marriage is a self-defeating strategy.

I think many of these common mistakes blend into one another, and the next one certainly links to this one.

Mistake 5: Being too insecure

I’ve written a whole piece on this, so I’ll try to be brief.

Wanting eternal commitment after a few dates, acting too desperate, being overly insecure, and making demands based on that insecurity can destroy a relationship with horrifying haste.

One client I worked with told me how his partner had called him a “needy child”. This seemed cruel and unfair until he told me what he’d actually been doing. He’d been calling her every day, sometimes two or three times a day, asking if she still loved him! If you seek constant reassurance that your partner loves you, it can begin to erode the very love they have for you.

This isn’t to say that some reassurance seeking is a bad thing but, as with all things, proportionality is key.

Another client, Jo, told me how her new partner had expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that she kept asking him what he was thinking.

“How often do you ask him what he’s thinking?” I asked.

She’d reflected for a moment and admitted, “On a given date? Maybe five or six times.”

Wanting certainty where there may be none, wanting to know how things are definitely going to be when no one can possibly know, is a lot of pressure.

So if we find our clients have been feeling and acting very insecure, then that might be the very issue that’s been undermining their relationships.

What to do

We can help our clients acknowledge to themselves that it’s natural to feel worried they might accidentally ‘break’ something they feel is precious, especially in the early, ‘fragile’ stages; but we can remind them that a flower seed, once planted, needs to be left a bit rather than constantly picked and scratched at. It needs space to grow.

Mistake 6: Partner perfectionism

Fairy tales in real life may not look like the fairy tales presented by Mr Disney. Prince Charming may have a crooked nose, and your princess may have pigeon toes.

What am I wittering about? Being so fussy that you miss out on genuine relationship opportunities.

I talked above about being too desperate, but it can work the other way too. It may be that your client demands too much of their partners and then feels let down when reality doesn’t match the fantasy.

Expecting someone to be perfect, then getting mad when their behaviour doesn’t exactly accord with your imagination of how they should be, is a fast track to disappointment and bitterness.

If people don’t live up to your client’s self-made image of them, is that their fault?

If we have too-tight parameters for how our love should be before we even meet him or her, then we may be positioning ourselves out of the market. Sure, there are things we all prefer, but some people are so specific:

“He has to have green eyes (and two of them!).”

“He has to wear designer jackets.”

“He has to have the body of a Greek god and the mind of Albert Schweitzer.”

“He has to have a dollar-shaped beauty spot on his left buttock.”

I kid you not; some people (usually younger people) cut off their own options to this extent. They may defend this with: “Why should I accept anything less?! I’m not going to settle!” and so on.

But this misses the point that, so often, something can seem to have all the right ‘parts’, but when those parts are put together, you find they don’t really work as well as expected.

Love is so often a surprise, and the person you fall in love with may not match the prototype you’d carefully constructed in your brain at all.

Paradoxically perhaps, often it’s a person’s imperfections, even vulnerabilities, that we fall in love with just as much as their strengths.

What to do

We can help our clients open their minds to the possibility that they could be mistaken in assuming they can only have a relationship with a person who fits the exact mould of what they have imagined. Love encompasses tolerance and understanding of flaws (though this isn’t to say that certain flaws might not be deal breakers).

Our clients are having a relationship with a real-life person, not a phantasm of their making.

And if a partner doesn’t seem to fit how your client imagines and demands they should be, then too much of the next relationship mistake may creep in…

Mistake 7: Trying to change them

There is an old Sufi tale⁴ in which some villagers find an eagle, a bird they have never seen before. Because it is unfamiliar, they don’t feel it is a ‘real’ bird at all. So they cut its beak, trim back its feathers, and clip off its talons, at last deciding that now it looks like a ‘proper’ bird. Of course, it can no longer fly.

Treating a new partner like a project that you need to work on, something to ‘improve’, is disrespectful and can make the person feel like you don’t appreciate them for who they are or even know them at all.

Jake told me how his girlfriend had gotten upset with him because he kept asking her to tone her body up. She was a healthy weight but he wanted her to look “more athletic” for the beach.

Another client kept joking that she was always trying to get her boyfriend to “look different” and be more outgoing at social events.

A subset of this pattern is to continually compare your partner to someone else: “Sara’s boyfriend makes jokes and tells great stories when we all meet up!”

Intimacy is, in part, about accepting someone ‘warts and all’ for who they actually are, not demanding that they be ‘improved’ in the way we think they should be. This can leave them feeling unvalued for who they actually are and tends, over time, to lead to a loss of intimacy.

This isn’t to say our clients shouldn’t encourage their partners to develop and improve in ways the person wants to.

But trying to get someone to wear more trendy clothes, go for the jobs you recommend, or act how you think they should begs the question: What did you see in this person to begin with?

What to do

Remember the story of the villagers and the eagle. I’ve told this story to clients sometimes and found it’s a beautiful reminder that excessively trying to mould someone is a form of tyranny, however well intentioned.

Dating someone new should be fun, exciting, and enjoyable. If our clients can monitor and influence their own behaviour during this “getting to know you” phase, then they have much more hope of getting to know whether they and this person will really be compatible.

Knowing what may be wrong can help us all better understand how to find what is right.

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About Mark Tyrrell

Psychology is my passion. I've been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998, specializing in brief, solution focused approaches. I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses.

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