ROMANCE WRECKERS

More often than not, it’s the little things that come between a man and a woman in a relationship. So, while you are busy tackling the bigger issues like your looks, money, ex lovers, etc, it is the smaller issues like your day to day habits that actually harm the relationship with your guy. If you want to ensure the relationship you’re in maintains a clean bill of health, you need to kick the following annoying habits before they do permanent damage:

MOULDING YOURSELF
He likes squash, so you learn it too. He goes for action films, so you never mention your love of romantic films. If you’re trying to please your partner by trying to be someone you’re not, you’re setting yourself up for a fall. Eventually they will discover what you’re really like or you’ll resent having to live a lie. A relationship should be based on honesty or it doesn’t have a future. Breaking the habit: Give yourself credit. You’re compelling enough to attract someone by being yourself. In subtle ways like expressing your opinions or nominating what film you’d like to see, you can reveal your true personality. Rest assured he is in love with the real you.

JOINED AT THE HIP
If he’s playing a game on his PC, you park yourself next to him. If he leaves your side at a party, you spend the entire evening and the next frowning. Sound familiar? Then it’s time you reclaimed your life. Unless you maintain some individuality, your possessiveness could have him bailing out to escape. Breaking the habit: Put yourself on a strict ‘relationship diet’ where, like reducing kilojoules, you cut down on time together. At a dinner party, make an effort not to sit directly next to him. Give him breathing space and he’ll be the one making excuses to stick by your side.

MAKING THEM OVER
Is your mental diary always crammed with proposed adjustments for your new lover, like changing his haircut, suggesting a low-carbohydrate diet for him to lose those extra kilos? Beware! Either your standards are so elevated you’re never satisfied with someone like him, or you initially romanticise fatal flaws — only to find later on they were really neon signs flashing “this is the wrong person for you”. Breaking the habit: Don’t let on that you’re overtly changing him. He is likely to feel annoyed and hurt that you don’t love him for himself. Use occasions like birthdays or festivals to start something new. If you abhor his new habit of smoking, express your anxieties and hopefully he’ll want to initiate change.

CUTTING ON TIME WITH FRIENDS
When he says there’s nothing he does with his mates that he couldn’t do with you, he’s lying. Women often make the fatal mistake of presuming they should be able to fulfill all of each other’s needs. But the fact is that there are some things we get from same-sex friendships that we can’t get from our lovers. Maintaining outside interests and friendships is crucial because it ensures both partners continue to grow, rather than suffocating their relationship through lack of new stimulus. Breaking the habit: Negotiate how often you both have partner-free evenings. Then plan something special to occupy that time. It will help you to value each other’s company more.

EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION
Do you expect your partner to read her mind and contextualise it as a measure of their love for you, wrongly assuming that their inability to do so means they don’t care? By clamming up, you’re not taking any responsibility of ensuring your own needs are being met. In a relationship that’s viable in the long term, each partner has to make a concerted effort to communicate — particularly when there are problems. Breaking the habit: Sulking is the most immature and ineffectual way to angle for attention. So when your partner asks what’s wrong, speak up. Better still, don’t wait for an invitation. As soon as possible after the event, sit them down and say: “You know, you really hurt me when you did that.” This will save both of you a lot of time and effort.