Member-only story
5 Ways You’re Unintentionally Damaging Your Relationships
But there’s still time to change
Your personality is built from a mixture of your genetics and experiences.
Your character is built through your choices and how you respond to those experiences.
Sometimes it’s easy to see your own character flaws and what behaviors and attitudes are holding you back; other times it’s not until a relationship fails that it becomes obvious.
Whenever you experience growth in your life, or your relationships improve, it’s because you’ve seen an aspect of your character that you need to change — you’ve worked hard to learn new ways to respond to others around you.
Some traits and behaviors are extremely damaging to relationships, and can creep into your character without you realizing.
1. “I’d rather protect myself than be vulnerable and get hurt.”
When we learn that people can’t be trusted we become closed off. We sometimes learn this as children, when adults who we love let us down or hurt us in some way. Families break up, parents are sometimes unable to be emotionally available, and sadly the world is full of imperfect people who let us down.
