1 Indifference

This is where partners no longer care about one another and no longer see each other as important. When a depressive sigh is met with silence. Most people equate having arguments as an indicator of a relationship gone wrong, but having arguments shows that you on some level still care about the relationship. Not arguing can be a problem in itself. With conflict comes closeness. It’s about how you handle conflict that counts.

2 Neglect

This is where partners no longer even try to connect or engage with one another, they take each other for granted, they become complacent. When you bring the best part of yourself to work or out with friends and bring the left overs home. When you take more care of the car than you do the relationship.

Neglect comes about when couples fail to recognise that a relationship is not static, it’s dynamic. Just because you’re in a relationship, you’ve shared your vows, started a family, doesn’t mean you don’t need to do anything else. A relationship can thrive, grow and flourish, just as easily as it can deteriorate, decline and die.

What happens when you buy your dream house and do nothing to maintain it?

The same happens in relationship.

3 Violence

Violence destroys all relationships.

Intimidate partner violence is bad, but micro aggression is more than enough to destroy a relationship. You don’t feel physically beat up, but emotionally – criticism, contempt, defensiveness. There is only so much relational violence a relationship can take before throwing in the towel.

Contempt is especially potent. This is where remarks are made where the underlying message suggests “I am better, smarter, kinder than you are”, there is a superiority/inferiority dynamic, a power imbalance that relationships struggle to survive through.

4 Trauma

Trauma can come in two forms, individual personal trauma or trauma that comes about in relationship.

Firstly there’s personal trauma, this trauma can be played out in relationship, the trauma of the one’s past comes alive in within the couple relationship. For the other partner, it can feel like being part of a play they never auditioned for, there can be confusion and frustrated about the origin of the relationship problems as it seems to have come out of nowhere.

Then there’s relational trauma, this is trauma that comes as a consequence of couple interaction. Relational trauma is an event that challenges the very foundation of a relationship, there is a deep betrayal of trust or there’s abandonment at a crucial moment of need, the other partner is inaccessible or unresponsive in the face of urgent need and the relationship is redefined as no longer being secure. A typical example of relational trauma is an affair, but isn’t always an affair.

5 Unresolved conflicts

Conflict is not a problem in itself, but it can become a problem when it remains unresolved. Couples sweep their problems under the rug rather than deal with it, it saves them from having to face the pain. What happens with these couples is those problems become a rock in their shoe, it’s out of sight, but still somewhere there. And it will inevitably manifest itself in the relationship.

An indicator of unresolved conflicts is kitchen sinking. That is, piling on all the dirty dishes – bringing all the complaints and transgressions of the past and present to the table all at once. An accumulation of rocks.

6 Loneliness

Feeling lonely is different to being alone. Being along is not having anyone within your physical proximity, feeling lonely is not feeling understood. So, you can be laying in the same bed and still feel lonely. Feeling lonely in a committed relationship. It’s living in a paradox. There’s only so much dissonance one can take before wondering, why am I even in this relationship?

7 Right fighting

This is where couples fight to be right and refuse to agree to disagree. Someone has to be right. To these couples I ask, do you want to be right, or would you like to get this (the relationship) right? Translated differently, is being right more important than the relationship? If it is the case, then that would make it very hard to be in relationship with any one.

We live in subjective realities, which means we all experience with world differently, it just depends on our perspective – no one is necessarily right or wrong. When we fight to be right, that means invalidating and denying the other persons experiences and their subjective reality. It's disallowing their psychological and emotional existence. Eventually it becomes a choice, do I disallow my existence to be with my partner, or allow myself to exist but without a partner. Many eventually choose the latter.

These are the 7 relationship red flags.

While they are worrying signs, the good news is that these are all fixable problems. You just need the right fix.