And one rule of thumb that can keep you from making them

As anyone in my personal life can tell you, I’m pretty relationship-challenged. Even in the best conditions, I still struggle to keep a relationship peaceful and happy.

But as they say, experience is the greatest teacher. Painful experience taught me about two of the most common — and destructive — mistakes people can make in relationships. That same experience also taught me one rule of thumb that can help you avoid them forever.

These mistakes are:

#1: Waiting for them to accept that they love you

There are a lot of emotionally immature people out there who tell themselves they are looking for “just sex” or that they’re “not into relationships” because, in reality, they are too heartbroken to admit they want love or too cowardly to shoulder the responsibility that comes with it. These people end up using people.

First, they treat the person like their one true love. They go on dates, buy that person gifts, have sex like making love, cuddle, and talk about their emotional past together. Then they tell them “this is just physical,” “I don’t have feelings for you,” and introduce them as a friend with benefits (or worse, hide them).

I dated a man like that once. He had me over 6/7 nights a week, we cuddled for hours, spent nearly all our time together, and he talked to me about his past and his feelings all the time. When he was drunk, he would tell me he loved me. When he was sober, he told me I was just a hookup. This went on for months.

I decided to stick around, and it wasn’t because I didn’t respect myself. It was clear to me he did love me. His actions proved his words were just bullshit he told himself. I thought if I stayed, he would see it was safe to open up to me, and then we would be happy together.

In the end, I was right. He did love me! And he did realize that! But we didn’t end up happily ever after.

He did open up to me, some, in an on-again-off-again kind of way. He would respond to my feelings attentively some days, and then other days he couldn’t be bothered to put up with “his needy girlfriend.” He didn’t allow his emotional experience into the relationship, either. Some days he wanted me to move in with him, and other days he wasn’t sure he wanted to be in a relationship at all.

Ultimately, his emotional issues won. He was so avoidant that he was emotionally absent from our relationship. I met his needs, but he didn’t meet mine.

Instead of trying to create a safe space for him to grow, I should have said, “I can tell you love me, but until you can be a stable partner, I’m out.”

#2: Waiting for them to grow

This is a classic mistake people make. We meet someone who is has a lot of flaws, but who we know will (or at least, could) grow and become an amazing person. They are not that person yet, but we see that person inside them, just beneath the surface.

But they’re not that person. The person we see exists only in our imagination. And when the person they are in reality intrudes on our fantasy, we either ignore it or try to “help” that person grow.

This was my mistake with my first long-term boyfriend. I saw in him the capacity to become a very thoughtful, kind, devoted family man. He may have had the capacity to be that person, but he wasn’t that person. He didn’t commit to work or school and frequently flunked classes and missed promotions. When we had problems in our relationship, he avoided talking to me about them, gave me the silent treatment, or outright lied to me to avoid difficult conversations.

It was my first long-term relationship, and I made more than my fair share of mistakes in that relationship. But my biggest mistake was believing his words, not his actions.

In my dreams, he grew up, and we began to solve our problems together. In reality, he wasn’t interested. For years, he lied to me and told me he was interested in growing together, but his actions showed me the truth every time.

The rule of thumb that can save you

In one of these relationships, I trusted the man’s words instead of his actions. In the other, I trusted his actions instead of his words.

In both of those relationships, I should have only trusted them when their words and actions aligned.

This rule of thumb can save you from making either of these mistakes in a relationship. Do their words align with their actions? Then you can trust them.

This rule of thumb works for romantic relationships, hookups, and every kind of relationship in between.

• Does he say he only wants a hookup and then only calls you late at night when he wants to hook up? Then you can trust he only wants to hook up.
• Does she say she wants a relationship and then tries to have relationship talks with you? Then you can trust she wants a relationship.
• Does she say she’s okay with it just being a hookup, but then try to talk to you about what you are? Chances are she really wants something more, but she either hasn’t realized that for herself or is afraid she’ll lose you if she tells you.
• Does he say he is okay with dating you but then is consistently emotionally absent and unavailable when you could use his support? Chances are he wants a hookup but won’t admit it to himself.

So if you want to avoid making these mistakes, ask yourself if their words and actions align. If they do, then great! If they don’t, then rethink the relationship.

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