10 warning signs that your relationship is approaching critical failure
Part 9 of 10: Negative Perception by Family/Friends
This 10 part series is all about the most critical warning signs that can spell trouble for your marriage or long-term relationship (LTR).
Once you understand these factors, you’ll get a clearer picture of how healthy your LTR or marriage may be at the moment, and your risk of separation or divorce.
If you’ve been following this series, you know that there are 8 “internal factors” and the last 2 are “external factors.”
What do I mean by this?
Warning sign #9 is one of the external warning signs.
Part 9 of 10: Negative Perception by Family/Friends
This warning sign happens when your family and/or friends no longer like your partner, or worse, never did.
While there are times when their perceptions may be unfairly negative, there are other times when they may notice aspects of your partner that are blind spots for you.
This is an especially important sign when you’re close to certain family and friends, and you’ve historically trusted their opinions.
One study shows that for females, perceiving that her social network supports her relationship increased the stability of it.
How to Course Correct
If you trust the opinions of your family and friends, try listening to their concerns without defensiveness.
Is there something you can learn from their perceptions that may help improve your relationship?
Is there something you can learn from their perceptions that can help you decide if your relationship is not a healthy one for you?
Are their negative perceptions based on misinformation that can be clarified?
Decide how much weight to put on the opinions of your family and friends, and how important it is to you (if at all) that they like your partner.
Depending on factors like closeness to your family and friends, cultural expectations, and your individual values, letting their opinions influence your relationship decisions may or may not fit for your situation.
Do your family and friends support your relationship? How do they feel about your partner? Does it matter to you if they do?