In which ways do we sabotage our relationships?

What is self-sabotage?

I would say that self-sabotage is a form of manipulation. But manipulation towards yourself. Because it consists of ruining or messing things up for yourself. Especially those things that you were truly looking forward to doing or having. It is important to mention that self-sabotage isn’t completely conscious most of the time. We take certain actions that in a way we know we shouldn’t be doing but we impulsively do.

These then hinder the outcome of something that we really wanted to do. In other words, it is when we do things that prevent us from reaching our desired goals. Self-sabotage can exist in various areas of life from relationships, to our jobs, personal goals, and dreams. 

For example,

You can self-sabotage your dream job by being late all the time when you perfectly know that it might get you fired. Or you can always be questioning your partner’s motives in a relationship which causes unnecessary fights. Or maybe you keep spending money on things that you don’t need at all and lose all your savings for your dream trip to an island. 

How do we sabotage our relationships?

Unfortunately sabotaging your relationships is easy. Take one wrong step and it can make the other person leave.  Most of the ways we sabotage our relationships come from either our fear of losing the other person or a fear of losing ourselves.

So in conclusion a fear of being alone and not knowing who we are. Cheating is a form of self-sabotage in which even if you love the person you go and seek someone else. Then you can also avoid your responsibilities in a relationship or ignore boundaries. Pretty much everything becomes self-sabotage when you lose control over your actions and you do something that you know you are not supposed to be doing. And that you know will hinder your relationships.

But are we truly the problem?

I have asked myself this question before. If I truly felt safe and loved in my relationship why would I be actively seeking to destroy it? And the answer is that it isn’t always self-sabotage. Sometimes it is an escape route because we don’t know how to set boundaries or leave someone. And that is okay. The thing is doing it that way will bring a lot of guilt and you will become the bad guy. Even though it is hard and painful there needs to be a level of maturity that we reach to talk things through correctly.

Why do we do it?

Going back to self-sabotage, why do we actually self-sabotage ourselves. The answer hides deep within ourselves where our inner child resides. All of those fears of abandonment and rejection that were created when we were young come up to the surface. Our Inner child starts whining and wondering if they will be lonely so when they take control we start doing childish things that we know that we are not supposed to be doing. We are acting out of fear and in the end making those fears come true.

We are scared that they might leave us so we do things that will make them leave us. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy In order to avoid this, it is important to look at our inner child from a loving and understanding point of view. We need to reassure our inner child that they are safe and that no one is going to hurt them.

The slowness of improvement

Something that might be scary for us is the time it takes to actually change self-sabotaging habits. Since it is something so deeply ingrained within us it can be hard to change the way we think and react to situations. What is crucial is that we don’t give up and keep up with our healing.