We’ve all had our moments when it comes to relationships. Relationships that bring out the worst in us at times, from a lack of connection with your partner’s family, being heartbroken, and making compromises you rather not even think of. The truth of the matter is, relationships can suck!
We’ve created this list to go over every single ugly truth that usually pops up in every relationship. While these little signs are not positive and aren’t great things to deal with in your life, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t any hope for your relationship or dating life. All of these red flags mean that maybe you should really step back and evaluate your unique situation and if it’s worth it to you in the long run. Whether you say yes or no, it’s important to note that if these signs start all piling up and showing themselves in your relationship, that’s when you need to figure out if all of the stress and negativity is really worth the few minutes of love you might feel from that person. Relationships are all about balance, communication, and staying connected, if these issues affect your daily dynamic between you and your partner, there should be a talk about what the real issues are, be honest and open. Just remember to always put yourself first when you feel like you need to, you should have to feel like you need to stay deprived from your own self-love and confidence just because of the negativity happening in the relationship.
15Heartbroken
One of the worst feelings you can possibly experience while in a relationship, and yes it can be felt even when you’re in a relationship. Often times when this feeling is experienced, it’s amplified to more extreme levels when you’re in the middle of a relationship because it’s typically felt by one person while the other individual has no clue that that feeling is even present. Being heartbroken can’t be fixed by a simple trick or hack, but if you’re currently in a relationship and feel like your heart is in two, then you need to be upfront and brutally honest with your partner. Either they will want to work it out with you or they will just want to break it off and go separate ways. Either way, depending on how they handle the situation, you’ll have to make a choice that benefits you and what you want in your life. Being heartbroken in the middle of a relationship is just another ugly truth we’ve all seen.
14You’re Boring
Sometimes we can get too comfortable in a relationship and we end up assuming that the other person is okay with how things are going just because nothing is said. This can end up affecting your daily routines and many other aspects of your life. When you get too comfortable or if the other person in the relationship does, this can make you lose your touch, aka making you seem boring. Not only will this affect your relationship, but in the end, if you just let things go, you’ll lose yourself and what it means to be you. Don’t let your relationship turn you into a boring person that makes you feel like you shouldn’t try anymore. Not only is it not fair for yourself, but it’s also not fair to your partner or the relationship in the long run! Try to spice up the relationship by doing more activities you both love, together!
13Family Time
Two dreaded words: family time. Meeting your partner’s family can be an extremely positive or negative event. When it comes time to meet your partner’s family, be prepared for the ugly truths you might experience. Some of those ugly truths that are quite common can include them not liking you before they even meet you, they end up judging you the whole time you meet them and spend time with them, or they think you’re not good enough for their child. No matter what the situation might be, the ugly truths lurk around every corner. Prepare yourself for any outcome because if your partner is a family person, this kind of issue will either make or break a potential future with the person they love. Family is a key aspect that even as an outlier in the relationship, it plays a huge role in the future between two people, no matter what.
12Compromises
Making compromises you don’t want can affect your relationship in ways that can make you feel like you’re being driven insane. While compromises are a regular part of a relationship, when people become too comfortable, that’s the moment they can start turning into ugly truths that will create a drastic rift between you two as a whole unit. When your partner starts asking you to make compromises about things that don’t even effect them in the relationship whatsoever, you need to let them know before it goes any further. No one should have to deal with their partner making them compromise important parts of their life that they enjoy and doesn’t even play a part in the relationship can and should be a deal breaker. While everyone compromises about different things, they should generally have to do with the serious comfort and need of the other partner in the dynamic, not just because they want to be in control of you.
11White Lies
Little white lies generally pop up in everyone’s life every once and awhile. But when they become a common occurrence in any relationship it can be a bad sign. While it’s never okay to lie especially to your partner, the person you’re supposed to love, and the same goes for them, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen often in relationships. White lies tend to bring the worst out in people, because it’s only a matter of time before they lead to more and more lies to keep your story straight. If you ever tell a white lie, beware that it can turn into an ugly part of the relationship that can make moving forward almost impossible if it is allowed to get out of hand. Move on from all the little lies you or your partner has fibbed about (unless it was something unforgivable), and try to be in agreeance that you need to move forward in a positive direction together. No one wants this ugly truth in their relationship, so we doubt you want it either.
10Blurred Lines
When it comes to a standard relationship (which doesn’t usually ever happen), but when it does, typically you know when you’re in a relationship with the other person. But when you have blurred lines, either after a simple hookup and they say, “I love you”, to when you think it’s just FWB, but in reality, they’re already planning to text you in the morning. There can sometimes be a bit of confusion when it comes to this kind of behavior, making it hard to really figure out whether you two are dating or just friends with a little extra. If you find yourself dealing with a relationship like this with some kind of person, you need to step back and either decide to be honest with the individual you had some sort of connection with or just go with the flow. But if you choose to go with the flow, you need to make sure you understand what that means before moving forward and what you want out of the relationship, otherwise, you’ll end up with a broken heart, the number one ugly truth.
9Changing Yourself For Them
We don’t condone this, but sadly it usually happens to everyone, including the other individual in the relationship. It’s something that happens naturally in most cases, but that doesn’t necessarily make it right. It’s hard not to lose yourself in a relationship and usually you don’t even notice that it’s happened until you spend time away from your partner, whether that be living alone again, taking a break, or breaking up completely. You shouldn’t ever have to feel like you need to change yourself so the person you’re with, if you want to make changes in your life, you need to make sure that you do it for yourself! If your partner keeps hinting at changes you can do for them, make sure that they understand that moving forward needs to require some more respect from them. Respect how you both want to live your lives and if that doesn’t work, then you need to go your separate ways.
8Trying To Improve Your Partner
In many relationships, especially when you’ve been in the same relationship for a long period of time, it’s quite normal to feel like you want to help your partner succeed in some areas of their life. But when you start to feel like you wish they would dress a different way or want them to change habits that don’t negatively affect themselves or the relationship, it can become very selfish and overall end up harming the relationship. Just like you don’t want your partner to hint to you that you need to change things about yourself, that also means that you shouldn’t do the same things back to them. Making requests like this only shows the ugly truth that you don’t want to be with them for who they are in the moment. We’re always changing as people and the fact of the matter is that you need to either accept your partner and love them for who they are, or find someone who fits your requirements better.
7Lack Of Privacy
Relationships have a really great way of eliminating any sort of privacy you may have had while you were single. This can change how you sing in the shower, to even influencing how you get ready in the morning! While it can be great to spend quality time with your partner and do fun things together as a team, sometimes we just need to be able to do things alone that we enjoy, that should reflect badly on you for wanting that while in a relationship, but unfortunately some couples can’t seem to find a healthy balance that allows them to spend time together and time with themselves. This ugly truth can be the end all to relationships if people let this issue go too far before it’s discussed and solved, but at the end of the day if your partner doesn’t want you to be alone because of their own issues when you tell them that’s what you want for a short period of time, maybe it’s time to find someone else.
6Fighting
This should be obvious to anyone who has seen anything about relationships, from being in one to even watching a romantic movie, but couples fight. It’s important to note that not all relationships are the same, which means not all fights are either. Meaning that you should assume that every fight will follow the rule book because that’s simply not how it works in any relationship. Fights can vary from drastic to petty, whatever way they fall on the spectrum, that doesn’t mean that you should deal with it if it’s constantly happening and ruining your perspective of that person. Fighting is never okay, even though it will always happen, it’s an ugly truth that we wish we could just cut out of every bond between two people. Fighting is our insecurities and pain being expressed in a way that just word vomits it all out into the open. It’s unhealthy and shouldn’t be the go to between any two people.
5Letting Yourself Go
Relationships contain tons of ugly truths, but one thing that can happen if you aren’t careful with yourself in a relationship is how easy it is to lose your sense of self. Losing yourself and letting yourself go can be a symptom of either being too comfortable or even just being unhappy with your current situation. If you let yourself go, your health, mental stability, and your motivation will leave you. This can end up leading to a downward spiral that can get easily out of control if you don’t pull yourself together. Talk to your partner and work on it together, let them motivate you and help you reach your goals. If you discover that your partner is also feeling the same kind of way, help them, talk to them, and figure out what you can do for their sake. Don’t just let this kind of ugly truth take over your being and the whole of the relationship because if you do, it can be extremely hard to recover the relationship as a whole without any sort of resentment.
4No Forgiveness
When too many ugly truths pile up in any relationship it can trigger a series of events that will lead to an additional ugly truth: no forgiveness. Not forgiving your partner over things that are minor and pretty petty will leave you feeling bitter and unstable when it comes to the relationship. Sometimes even this can become a habit and it will end up eating away at the dynamic until it’s just full of holes and unrepairable. If you let this kind of thing get to you and you continuously let problems slide just because you don’t want to deal with the fighting or petty remarks, either the relationship is too broken to move on, or you need to come to a point where you both change for the better, where you can move on and forgive. No matter what your choice is, a lack of forgiveness is an actual ugly truth that will always try to but into the relationship one way or another.
3Forgetting Why You Love Them
If you’ve made it to the end of this list and you’ve discovered that you have also experienced these ugly truths, then you aren’t alone. If you’ve experienced even half of these ugly situations in your relationships and dating life, you’ve probably forgotten why you love them at times. If you allow yourself to lose that understand why you love them, then you’ll open up more space for misunderstandings, fighting, and an overall lack of forgiveness. If you keep floating through the relationship without any cares it can start to become easier to fall into that routine, a routine full of ugly truths, which leads to forgetting why you love them in the first place. A few great ways to avoid this kind of trap, remember the past and remember your goals for the future. Don’t let your current frustrations eat away at your and ruin your relationship. Every relationship has ugly truths and it takes work to overcome them.
2Lack Of Confidence
Similar to the idea of losing yourself when you’ve been in a long-term relationship, a quality that stands out in many relationships that is also quite the ugly truth, is a lack of confidence. It’s actually quite simple to lose your confidence in a relationship that you’ve grown comfortable in because if you feel comfortable, your partner probably does too. Because of this lack of trying and motivation, compliments can disappear and any acknowledgment when it comes to feeling good about yourself because of the individual you’re with. If you aren’t with an individual that respects you and encourages you to do your best at all times, you’ll be put in a position where you can easily become depressed or generally down because of the feeling of no support. There are ways to turn this around, especially if they don’t know that they’re doing it in the first place. Be patient and work together.
1Taking Them For Granted
Relationships can push people to the edge in many ways, but when it gets to the point that you find yourself taking your partner for granted, it can be a snowball effect into bigger and more complicated problems. Of course, it’s normal when you’re comfortable with someone to take things for granted occasionally, but if you acknowledge that you’re stuck in this habit, yet you do nothing to solve the issue, this is where things start to take a turn for the worse. If you are just ignoring how you feel and not addressing the issue as soon as possible, it might be an ugly truth, but you probably don’t feel the same as you used to when it comes to the relationship. No one should feel like they’re being taken for granted, which is why you shouldn’t continue this kind of behavior if you catch yourself.
These ugly truths are just that, they’re ugly and shouldn’t be involved in any relationship, but sadly they are. Just remember working together and communicating is what will save even a seemingly hopeless relationship.