How I Blew My Marriage

To add to this, I think the only way to not ruin a relationship is to listen to the person, often and with honest intentions. People tend to be saying something straight to your face which you have a habit of missing, I know this is my experience, but I've found that since I stopped talking at her and starting talking with her our relationship has improved in leaps and bounds.

Though I suppose like almost anything, you improve with iteration, I hope you take your mistakes and what you have learned and better apply them in your next relationship, thanks for sharing this with us, it made me realise some of my own flaws.

~

Comment: Wow, this flew up to the first page, looks like these flaws must be pretty common, or general enough to seem common, anyway.

You know, I have some experience with this. I had a friend in college that had parents that never once argued in front of him. Not once. This guy was completely unable to resolve any conflicts. You know what? People learn conflict resolution by watching others, and that goes for kids.

To give more details about my friend, he was a really nice guy, but he avoided confrontation like the plague. The problem is, you can only avoid it for so long. When he finally did get into it with anyone, he would literally start to fall apart. It drove him to drink and eventually most of his relationships fell apart and he became a binge drinker/alcoholic. He ended up dropping out of school and disappeared from the face of the earth. He drunk dialed me years later and left a message on my answering machine (without any details about where he was). A very, very sad situation.

I'm not saying everyone will react like this, but that watching an argument be properly resolved is a good thing for a kid to see.

If that stops happening, you are in trouble.

First marriage: door open, miserable New relationship: door closed, happy