7 Ways You Sabotage Good Relationships (After Bad Ones)

If left unintegrated, the experience of a bad relationship can mess with your head… and impact future relationships.

You might unintentionally sabotage good relationships as a result of lingering emotional scars or learned behaviors.

No judgment here, sister. If we’re honest with what hurts and what's here, we can heal it.

So, let’s check…

Is your past sabotaging your future with a good man? Here are some ways it might manifest!

7 Ways We Sabotage Good Relationships (After Bad Ones)

1. Fear of Vulnerability

Sabotage Behavior: You might struggle to open up emotionally or be vulnerable, fearing that it’ll lead to pain or disappointment. When you keep your real feelings or needs hidden it can feel as incongruent (and uncomfortable) as wearing layers of armor while trying to cuddle with your partner. 

Impact: Healthy relationships require emotional intimacy and openness in order to build connection and trust. If you’re unable to be vulnerable, it can hinder the building of this strong foundation.

2. Trust Issues

Sabotage Behavior: Lingering trust issues from past relationships may cause you to be overly suspicious or insecure, sending you on adventures scouring your partner's IG page or breaking into his phone to look at his texts, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Impact: An invasion of privacy feels no bueno, so it can often result in the other person putting their guard up and/or pulling away. Without trust (that is earned) there can't be genuine connection because you won't feel safe enough to let your guard down.

3. Communication Barriers

Sabotage Behavior: Difficulty in expressing thoughts and feelings, or avoiding conflict altogether leaves you stuffing your feelings down hoping they will just go away, and/or banking that your partner reads your mind in order to get your needs met.

Impact: Effective communication is crucial in a relationship. If you struggle to communicate openly it will lead to passive aggressive behavior that ultimately dead ends into a word vomit explosion of feelings that most likely will hurt you or the other person.

4. Self-Sabotage

Sabotage Behavior: Engaging in self-destructive behaviours, such as pushing your partner away, testing them, picking fights, or creating unnecessary drama.

Impact: Self-sabotage creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where you physically create an external situation to confirm your deepest rooted inner beliefs... i.e., your belief that, "people always leave me because I'm unlovable" drives you to unconsciously push away your partner (via the behaviors above) to confirm that this is true.

5. Emotional Baggage

Sabotage Behavior: Staying unconscious to your past wounding (in past romantic relationships and childhood) sets you up to be sleep walking in your now relationship. 

Impact: When you're operating from a place of unawareness, your past is ruling your present. Of course then, you will feel frustrated when you are experiencing a repeated trigger with your partner and it is causing the same fight over and over. When two people enter a relationship, they are bringing their past with them so in order to maturely connect, you need awareness of what is happening for you (as well as the skills to communicate it). 

6. Fear of Commitment

Sabotage Behavior: Keeping yourself at arms distance, not expressing how much a person means to you, or downplaying their importance in your life due to fear of being hurt again.

Impact: Commitment is the ultimate vulnerability, because you are entrusting yourself in the hands of another. Working on your ability to self-soothe and regulate so that you can give yourself the sense of okay-ness no matter what direction a relationship takes is one key to committing. Otherwise, you will keep the relationship surface-level out of survival. 

7. Lack of Self-Worth

Sabotage Behavior: Biting your tongue because you aren't confident that what you need or feel is important, or feeling inadequate without the validation of your partner so you chameleon into whatever they want you to be.

Impact: It is exhausting to be someone you are not out of fear of being alone (which will eventually lead to you resenting your partner). It is also a heavy burden to need your partner to make you feel worthy, and will likely cause tension as they realize they can never hold that responsibility.

Got some? Great! Recognizing these potential sabotage patterns is the first step toward building healthier relationships in the future.

And if you do, Bre, don't worry.

I specialize in helping women stop sabotaging themselves so they can find and keep a good relationship with a good man ❤️.

Start with this free guide, 3 Questions to Ask Yourself if You Want Healthy, Mature, REAL Love to see where you land!