7 Common Relationship Mistakes and how Couples Therapy Can Help

What are the most common mistakes that couples make that lead them to couples therapy? Making mistakes is part of being human and romantic relationships are possibly the most challenging and fulfilling part of our lives. Because they are so challenging, we are bound to get it wrong, mess it up, and be the imperfect human beings we all are! Couples therapy can help you to change the unhelpful patterns that you are stuck in and adjust your relationship expectations. Part of the change process in couples therapy is to recognize our imperfections and to use the relationship to become better versions of yourself. After all, why else do we get into relationships if not to change ourselves for the better?

Let’s look at some common mistakes that couples make that can be helped by couples therapy.

Couples Therapy Mistake #1: Mind Reading

It is no secret that miscommunication is one of the main culprits in couples therapy issues, but mind reading is a specific form of miscommunication that often goes unnoticed while causing significant issues. Couples tend to run into difficulties when they either attempt to mind read their partners or expect partners to read their minds. For example, if I expect my partner to do the dishes because I am tired, then that need has to be communicated properly. If I passive-aggressively suggest or simply hope that my partner will notice that I am tired and also notice the stack of dishes, then I am setting us both up for failure in an unwinnable game.

There is an expectation that the person that we’re “supposed to be with” should “just know” what we want. We create this expectation as a litmus test for our partner’s worthiness, as if their anticipation of our needs proves that we have a great relationship. That is not conducive to a satisfying relationship because we are always putting roadblocks in the way of getting our own needs met. Part of this issue is that people who identify as women often have been culturally conditioned to not express their needs for fear of being perceived as “high maintenance” or “bossy” or any other number of pejorative labels. If you don’t ask, then you will seem affable and easygoing, but that is such an unsustainable practice to actually live out. For men, we’ve been taught to ignore our needs, bear our burdens in silence, and forget that we even have needs. Again, this creates significant barriers to expressing our needs and creates the expectation that we should “just know, which will never actually work in reality.

There is no partner in the world who will always know what you need, will always say the right thing, and will always prove to you that they are “the one.” You have to communicate your needs and your partner has to do their best to meet them, but they cannot please you if they do not have a roadmap. In couples therapy, you can learn to clearly communicate these needs, desires, and wants in clear language to set your partner up for success in your relationship.

Couples Therapy Mistake #2: Projecting Our Narratives

We all have stories that we have inherited about ourselves, whether from our genes, our families, culture, or our friends. We make sense of the world through stories and we make meaning of those stories. When we face rejection as a child, we might say to ourselves that there is something unlovable about us. It makes us see the world in more cautious ways and to protect ourselves from hurt, but to also prevent us from experiencing authentic love from another. We might live with a parent who has addiction issues, which could teach us that we are caretakers who do not get to have our own needs, which causes us to work hard to keep the ones we love around and to place our worth in what we do for others. That comes to a head when we are burnt out and exhausted by doing so much to keep our partner happy, which is an expectation that we have created for ourselves solely out of the narratives we grew up with.

Understanding how your life story impacts the way you show up in your relationship is crucial to undoing the negative cycle that your relationship has become stuck in. Couples therapy works on identifying those life narratives to separate them from the lessons learned and the relationship that we actually want to have.

Couples Therapy Mistake #3: High Expectations

We live in a world where, in theory, every need could be met almost instantaneously. We think of a book we want to read and seconds later we can have it. We think of food we want and can get it delivered in less than 30 minutes. We live in a world of assumed high expectations, which we carry with us into our relationships. Not only do we believe that our relationships have to meet our physical needs, but we also make our relationships responsible for healing all of our emotional, sexual, and attachment wounds that we have carried with us since childhood. We expect our partner to both be our safe and comforting person, as well as our exotic and mysterious erotic partner who we are never bored with. Not only do we want these things, but we want them now! We want them consistently! These high demands can place significant stress on relationships. Relationships are a consistently evolving system that changes over time. As individuals naturally change, the relationship changes too. However, our expectations tend to remain the same without much acceptance of the limitations of ourselves and our partners. Having a solid relationship is incredibly important, but there also has to be a recognition that we have our own lives and that there can be some space to explore ourselves and the world with the safety and support of our relationship behind us.

Part of the shift that can be helpful in couples therapy is to accept a “good enough” relationship. A good enough relationship still has the capacity to offer healing, belonging, acceptance, romance, erotic energy, and all of the great things that come with being connected to another. Ironically, high expectations can actually be preventing you from having the kind of relationship you want because you are the missing the potential of the relationship you actually have. By looking for perfection, we are missing the gifts of imperfection. Adjusting your expectations can be learned in couples therapy and can help you to create a more mature and realistic relationship that is more fulfilling to you and your partner.

Couples Therapy Mistake #4: Weaponizing the Past

Past hurts and unresolved couples conflicts can still hurt in the present. When remembering past events, it can feel like they are happening to us in the moment. That is a legitimate experience and it deserves to be worked on in couples therapy. When the past becomes problematic is when it is used as a weapon to hurt our significant other in the present. When we are arguing over not being invited over to the in-laws house for dinner, we tend to get sidetracked and start to bring up past times when we have felt that same rejection, loneliness, and animosity. Then, something that could be empathized with becomes an attacking and blaming cycle that raises your partner’s defenses to the point that they cannot hear you anymore. You want them to understand how significant this is, which causes you to bring up the pain points of the past, but they blindside the other partner and cause further wounding. To put it another way, when you make a mistake at work and brought it to your boss, would it be helpful for you if your boss then reminded you of every other mistake you make in the ten years you’ve worked?

Again, your pain deserves to be heard, acknowledged, and empathized with as a way to heal. That cannot happen in the heat of the moment without warning. What happens then is that you have caused a disruption in the safety of your relationship, which will add yet another moment to be worked through in the future. Save the past for when it can appropriately be heard, such as in couples therapy or in relatively calm moments in your relationship. That can be hard to do and requires significant bravery, but it can absolutely be worth it.

Couples Therapy Mistake #5: Bringing Up Your Stuff at the Wrong Time

How often has it happened to you that you find yourself only bringing up what you are unhappy with in your relationship when your partner does the same thing? Your partner comes to you with something that is bothering them and then you get out your laundry list of unacknowledged issues. “I’m unhappy about the way you speak to me too and here are five examples from the past six months of how you’ve given me an angry tone that I didn’t talk to you about!” Again, talking about what bothers you is important, but waiting until our partner is talking about their issues creates a steamrolling effect in which you take over their legitimate concerns with your own, thereby ensuring that neither of you gets heard. As a couples therapist, I have noticed this dynamic happening all the time. My theory is that there is something to the idea of not wanting to “rock the boat” of a relationship until it becomes so overwhelming that you have to say something. All of these small moments build up into a mountain of issues that is much harder to climb. At the same time, your partner has been building up their own mountain of issues. One of you bringing something to the table seems to send the message that “It’s fighting time” and you get to finally bring up all of your issues without fearing rocking the boat because the boat is already sinking.

It makes sense to worry about hurting your relationship in good periods, but not bringing up concerns creates a false illusion that everything is perfect when it is not. Then we shock our partners, put them on the defensive, and create a battle arena in which everyone involved ends up injured at the end of the game. Couples therapy can help you build skills to check in with more regularity, to actively listen to each other, and to actually focus on one person’s needs at a time rather than a free for all brawl.

Couples Therapy Mistake #6: Keeping Score

Keeping score in a relationship is used by some to keep things “fair.” Reciprocity and equality are reasonable relationship expectations, but keeping score creates a culture of disappointment in your relationship. We start to believe that our partner is lazy, intentionally disappointing us, and disinterested in contributing to the relationship. We create this idea in our minds by focusing on what we are doing. In patting ourselves on the back, we protect our egos, but also miss out on what our partner is contributing to the partnership and what we value most about them. We’re also building resentment, which can act like plaque on a relationship. Very easy to build up and tough to get off without special tools. Heading resentment off at the pass can help you to experience more happiness in your relationship.

Couples therapy can assist you in shifting from resentment to gratitude. Creating a relationship culture of gratitude and appreciation can help you to more honestly appraise each other’s contributions to your relationship. Often, we assume that we are doing 70% of the work because we are completely unaware of just how much our partner is doing. Paying attention to the little efforts can encourage your partner to want to keep you happy. To borrow a cliched term, it is easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar. Communicating from a place of appreciation can get us more of what we want. Rather than saying “I hate it when you don’t do this,” learn to speak from the perspective of “I love when you do this.” That is a simple language shift that has a significant impact.

Couples therapy can also help you to learn to give with generosity rather than with strings attached. Additionally, you can learn to understand the differing values that you and your partner have to create more understanding and prevent resentment from growing out of false assumptions.

Couples Therapy Mistake #7: Listening to Respond, Not to Hear

“Are you even listening to me” is one of the most common relationship refrains. Let’s be honest, we all think we’re good listeners in the same way we think we’re good drivers. Everyone thinks they’re a good driver, yet there are many bad drivers out there on the road. Funny how that works, isn’t it? Our listening skills are similar. We think we are listening well, but often we are listening with the intent of responding. We are waiting to hear something we can latch onto and hear something that confirms the point we are trying to make. A stat that I tell people as a couples therapist that always shocks them is that 70% of couples issues are not resolvable. They simply come down to differences of personality, values, upbringing, etc. So how do we get through those unresolvable differences? By changing the way we listen and shifting our goals from winning to understanding. Couples therapy will help you to develop active listening skills, which is the practice of intentional listening. With active listening, you can mirror your partner and help create calmness. You can validate your partner to bond the two of you in mutual understanding. You can empathize to humanize your partner and allow them to feel truly understood, which is far more important than any conflict resolution could ever be.

Couples Therapy Benefits

It is important that if you are seeing yourself in these common mistakes, you are not alone! The reason that they are common is that so many of us are behaving this way in relationships. That does not make you wrong or broken, nor does that make your relationship wrong or broken. It might mean that you need to tweak a few small things and change your relationship. It could also mean that you just need a little bit of help, which we all do at some point in our lives. Couples therapy can be a life-changing journey that rebuilds your relationship and helps you to understand your partner in ways that you did not even know were possible.

If you’re ready to get started with a Colorado Springs couples therapist, please reach out today to see if couples therapy can help you to get the relationship you want!