All relationships have their ups and downs. The best way to handle problems is to communicate with your partner. However, sometimes it isn’t easy to express yourself, especially when you try to bring up a problem and your partner:

• Gives you the silent treatment
• They bulldoze you
• They minimize your feelings

People with dysfunctional communication styles often believe can ignore their problems, or, if they chose to not acknowledge them all, pretend they don’t exist. This is a form of placebo feeling like they are erasing the past.

With such an attitude, they operate in their own private bubble doing and saying whatever they please no matter what you say, or how much you protest. They don’t want to discuss anything that may force them to be accountable for their own behavior and actions, especially when they have behaved badly. They refused to be challenged and will try to penalize you for attempting to do so. They will create so much conflict that you come to feel the effort is not worth the aggravation. Essentially, you give in. If your partner does not understand what they did to cause you hurt or to fracture your relationship, then there is no way to prevent it from happening again.

People who want to be in an honest relationship are prepared to be honest with themselves and their partner. They know that conversations can sometimes be uncomfortable. They know they sometimes are to blame and have to admit fault. People who refuse to acknowledge any of these things are dangerous people to involved with.

When you continually sweep the issues under the rug, pretend there isn’t a problem, and a myriad of other methods to not address problems, you become disconnected from your actions. This in turn makes it difficult for you to see how you behavior impacts others as well as how it impacts you.

People like this always think the problems that keep reoccurring in their life are due to bad luck and someone else’s problem. They never look at themselves as the source. They think in the short-term and never think about consequences. They do whatever they please and try to rewrite history to suit what makes them feel more comfortable. The distort the real version of events in order to make themselves look like victims when often, they are the persecutor.

We have all met people like this. You meet a guy who tells you he is broken-hearted. His long-term girlfriend dumped him for another guy. He feels victimized and betrayed. When you get to the meat of the story, you find out that he treated his girlfriend terribly and cheated on her multiple times. Yet to the world and himself, HE IS THE VICTIM.

People like this will often try to screw with your mind. They will tell you one thing, and then immediately tell you something that contradicts it. And then they will claim they never changed their story. No one should feel they have liberty to feed you an alternative realty and wound you in the process.

People who act out of love, care, trust and respect don’t behave this way. Anyone who expects you to disregard their contradictory actions does not have your best interest at heart. It’s best to not allow people like this to bully you into returning into a relationship where you weren’t treated with decency. Don’t even try to rationalize such behavior because people like this never feel enough consequences to behave properly unless you remain firm in your right to be treated with respect.

If you feel ill at ease and unhappy, it is a sign that things are unresolved. Don’t allow them to minimize how you feel. You should call them out on their behavior and if they aren’t willing to work with you in resolving things on an equal playing field, then they don’t deserve to be in a relationship with you.