As psychotherapist I have not seen so far discussed a very important theme that can lead to the break-up of a couple or even depersonalization.
Friends are those who, along with a partner or independently, may help develop a person or damage it. I can help you at any time creating a stable couple relationship.
Unfortunately, many friends manage to break up a relationship, highlighting the negative characteristics of the partner over the positive ones. What you must understand is that this behavior can have many reasons such as: selfishness, narcissism, loneliness, boredom or desire to put your friendship with them above your relationship with your partner.
I will try to enumerate the types of behavior that can lead to the dissolution of a person or couple.
1. The colleague or friend who likes to drink (some maybe alcoholics already). The one who draws your partner in all kinds of situations such as daily meetings or situations like the below:
- Meetings in clubs organized by “friends”
- Sport (tennis, football, pool, etc.) events from which your partner is coming later than agreed to
- Trainings during the day or weekend organized by the company, after which your partner comes drunk or with different opinions than initially about your couple, kids or maybe about relationships with other colleagues, male or female.
2. The romantic friend. In this category we have the people who are eternally in love and their love is not reciprocated. Or ones who find only one night stand relationships. These are the ones who are insisting in telling you, a thousand times, in details everything about their love interests…They can be very dangerous if you don’t realize that at the right time, as they can make you listen to their wining for hours, and in the end you will end up suffering just like them without having a real personal reason.
3. The workaholic colleague. This is the one who no matter the situation does not manage or maybe he doesn’t want to, get out of the work stories. He can talk forever about: company, vision, objectives, etc.
He is the one who will emphasize at any point in time the importance of the work, money and company, no matter your family situation. Your family needs to come on the second place, as it comes for himself, if he has a family. Or how he thinks it will be when he will have a family.
4. The ladies’ man. He is the friend who does not accept the fact that you are in a stable relationship. He will accuse you if you are not accompanying him in his escapades that you are controlled by your partner. Or that you don’t know how to have fun anymore.
The problem is not with you, the one who committed to be in a stable relationship. The problem resides with him, because he does not understand or accept your current situation due to his selfishness or lack of maturity. The faster you are discovering his behaviour, the sooner you will save your relationship. And this does not mean to choose your partner over all your friends. It means to set up clear boundaries for each relationship and having clear priorities.
The conclusion is one: a relationship is not depending only on the two partners.
What is the psychologist opinion? A love relationship can depend on many other relationships:
- The relationship with the family of origin (mother-in-law, father-in-law, mother, father, etc.)
- The relationships with the friends (who may want your friendship to be superior to your love relationship)
- The relationship with your colleagues (the ones who are workaholics)
- The relationships with an old flame (who comes back only to damage things), etc.
And the list can go on and on…
What you would need to do is to discover very early if you or your partner are in a relationship with a toxic person. After that we can work out the solutions together.
Autor: Psiholog Constantin Cornea