5 Bad Habits In Your Long-Distance Relationship

In previous blogs, we have spoken about the importance of communication in your long-distance relationship. We mentioned how insecurities, culture, and time-zone differences can pose as significant struggles when not handled delicately or correctly, depending on the couple.

On the other hand, there are personal choices and mannerisms that are not a part of a person’s core values or beliefs but rather habits that they have built up over time. Everyone has habits, whether they are deemed as good or bad, does not change the fact that they are there. Unfortunately, many of us have spent, days, months, years, and decades building up bad habits that will be difficult to change. Especially, since habits can happen at both the conscious and subconscious level.

Bad habits are defined as ‘a negative behavior pattern’ with common examples including procrastination, overspending, and nail-biting. Bad habits can not only display physically but can also stem from emotional reactions. Many times, we are unaware of how our bad habits are affecting our relationships at both small and larger scales. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, habits are changeable and can be turned into a positive experience once you are aware and willing to do something about them.

Therefore, let’s explore certain bad habits that you may be exhibiting in your relationship. 

Using work or outside activities as an excuse to avoid arguments and issues within the relationship.

Now, this is a bad habit regardless of if you are in a long-distance or an in-person relationship. Using work or extracurricular activities is a lazy excuse to not address the issues and challenges within your relationship. Now we understand that most people do not like conflict and others are generally non-confrontational, but you cannot avoid issues just because it is temporarily easier.

In the long term, you are creating a toxic environment between you and your partner. It is important to address issues as soon as possible and work together to find solutions and to build trust between you and your significant other. We’ve mentioned many times through several blogs, that communication is key in a relationship. When you are in a habit of avoiding arguments and issues, you are communicating that you are either lazy, scared or you don’t care enough to have these conversations.

All of which are fundamentally detrimental to how your partner perceives you and the overall relationship.

Lying.

Building off of our first bad habit, lying is definitely a habit you don’t want to fall into the trap of. Many of us don't notice that we tend to say small white lies all the time. When your significant other asks you “are you okay?” and you reply “yes” when you are not, that is a lie. We don’t consider the impacts of small white lies because everyone focuses on the bigger ones. Of course, we understand that when you lie about where you were or what you are doing, it is generally considered worse than lying about your current feelings. However, lying about how you are doing and whether or not you are truly okay can compound and create either an internal or externally toxic environment for you and or your significant other. We encourage everyone to speak honestly about how they are feeling instead of lying because it’s the norm to do. This is because among many other factors:

When you are caught in a lie it can lead to mistrust and fallacies that completely changes your partner's belief in you. 

No future outlook.

This is especially important for couples in a long-distance relationship as you will need to have a goal, an idea, and a plan on where you and your significant other are going to be within the next few months, years, and possibly decades. Without a future and goals in mind, you are setting your relationship up for failure, because within a long-distance relationship it's not easy to simply go with the flow and ‘see where things take us'. Your relationship is dependent on whether or not someone is going to move to where the other person is going to be or you're both going to move to a new location. All of that requires planning at both the financial and overall resources level.

It requires time, patience, and understanding, all of which cannot be accomplished if you're trying to avoid the future. If you or your significant other are trying to avoid planning, there is a likelihood that an underlying issue must first be addressed. Without a proper resolution of this issue, it will be difficult to ensure that the relationship can thrive in both the present and the future.

Looking for happiness from your significant other instead of yourself.

Unfortunately, society has taught us that we require external validation in order to be happy. Whether that is through the likes we receive on social media, or the praise and accolades we get for doing well in school or at our job, many of us have been taught that we must seek validation in order to feel fulfilled within. Of course, this includes our relationships. We struggle to understand what makes us happy and how to stand proud in our happiness, even if other people don't like what we are doing.

For example, if you have a hobby that you really love, but others around you are telling you it's stupid, it's harder for people to not only continue but to also find enjoyment in that hobby. Now when we translate this to a relationship, especially a long-distance relationship, it is detrimental if you are seeking for your partner to keep you happy. We've mentioned in our blogs that you should not be using your partner as a punching bag if something goes wrong at school or at work; the same can be applied in the reverse.

You should not expect that your partner will shine happiness into your life where everything else seems meek and sad. Yes, your partner should add to your happiness, but they should not be creating your happiness. This is simply because at the end of the day you should be happy whether or not your partner is there. Not to say that you don't love your partner, but it's to say that you should love yourself. No matter the circumstance, if you are dependent on someone else to bring you happiness, you are going to struggle in finding your own personal happiness and growth.

You look for the bad in your partner.

Now to continue the bad habit we mentioned above, but from another perspective, instead of finding happiness from your partner, are you looking for the bad?

Sometimes external factors can make us upset, and we see the world through a lens of anger or frustration. However, what happens when that lens never leaves how you view your partner? When you constantly look at the person that you are supposed to love with, with contempt, anger & frustration, this can lead to unnecessary arguments.

This can be due to a variety of reasons, perhaps in a previous argument you never let go or moved on from the thing that upset you; or maybe the last time that you saw each other,  they did something you didn’t like, and now instead of viewing your significant other as a whole, you pick apart and have their bad characteristics or habits at the forefront of how you view them. Some people are just plain mean, however, there is a majority of those that have bad habits but that doesn't make them bad people. So you need to have grace when thinking of your partner, and all of this is not for you to make an excuse for them, but to make sure you are looking at the situation as a whole and that you take a step back and try to evaluate what is happening without your unconscious or conscious biases shaping the narrative.

To conclude, we are aware that there are many bad habits that can be detrimental to you and your significant other. We believe that everyone has bad habits, however, as with any habit they’re changeable. We ask that everyone tries their best to self-reflect and improve on themselves and change their bad habits to the best of their abilities.

We hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog!

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