5 Habits That Can Seriously Hurt Your Relationship, Experts Warn

Relationships take a lot of work. And, according to experts, there are a few bad habits that can seriously damage yours. The bad news? There's a good chance you are guilty of at least one of them. The good news is, by educating yourself, you might avoid destroying your relationship for good. 

Have you ever tried talking to someone, but instead of paying attention to you, they were glued to their phone? This combination of "phone" and "snubbing" has been dubbed "phubbing" and there is plenty of research claiming it is damaging to your love life.  One  recent study linked higher levels of phubbing to marital dissatisfaction, another study found it can lead to feelings of distrust and ostracism. "Phubbing can be a range of different behaviors, from glancing at your phone in the middle of a conversation, to checking your phone when the conversation stalls out a little bit, or keeping your phone close by," Anthony Chambers, a board certified couple and family psychologist and the chief academic officer at the Family Institute at Northwestern University, told the New York Times. 

Patti Wood, body language expert and author of SNAP Making the Most of First Impressions Body Language and Charisma, tells Good Housekeeping that another habit that can destroy a relationship is not paying enough attention to your partner first think in the morning. "It's as simple as how you leave the house for work in the morning," says Wood. "Avoiding touch, contact, or even an interaction with your partner can have a serious impact." 

Choosing work over your partner will not lead you down a good path. "Consider problems at home to be just another task, like jobs at work," suggests  Tina B. Tessina, PhD, psychotherapist and author of How to be Happy Partners: Working It Out Together. "Your mate is your team partner, and you need to create a strategy for working together to solve them."

Are you really listening to your partner? If you are using words like "mhm," "hm," and "oh" the answer is probably no. "These filler words are indicators that you aren't actually listening," says Wood. "It may appear to your partner that you're listening but in fact, it's actually telling that you don't really care about the subject matter."

If you are running to the kitchen to grab a glass of water, are you asking your partner if they need anything? "In a healthy relationship, both partners should try to fill each other's needs as well as their own," explains Woods.