Annoying Girlfriend, Boyfriend, or Spouse Driving You Crazy?

Annoying girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse getting on your nerves? There are peaceful, loving, productive ways to deal with it. This article examines some of those ways, and also some of what not to do.

All of us sometimes in our lives get annoyed with people we love. It’s only normal that when humans interact in close quarters they are inevitably going to get on each other’s nerves. And in relationships this annoyance can happen regularly. In fact in many relationships it does.

When we think of saying I love you to someone we certainly don’t think that I am sorry belongs in the same category. In our heads they seem far apart. One is an expression of our truest most wonderful feelings for a special person. The other is said when we think we might have hurt someone and we want to make it better.

So what would tie the two together? Before we see the connection I want to talk about how we learn each concept. The loving sentiment we might have heard from our parents when we were small. We might have heard them say, “I love you.” We might have been encouraged as children to say it to others, maybe grandparents or other relatives, and we probably heard it from them. We learn this is a good thing to say. Maybe we learn it’s just for families.

Resentment in marriage is dangerous. Knowing how to deal with it might just be the difference between a happy relationship and one that ends. Resentment festers, not only building a wall between you and your loved one, but it can even grow to drive you increasingly further apart. Here’s an exploration of how to, and how not to, deal with resentment in marriage before it grows out of control.

One of the hardest parts for some couples is how to move beyond hurts from the past. Sometimes old wounds just sit and fester and stay thick as concrete between two people. These couples still talk around the concrete wall. There is conversation, but in most cases there is almost never a close connection. There’s too much pain from the past clouding any attempt to move forward, even though the desire for more closeness is there.

Humans are funny beings. We are extremely well equipped to tell instantly when something doesn’t feel right. We know immediately when we don’t like something. And we are experts at understanding what we need to stop when something bothers us so we can feel better.

We use these skills almost automatically, especially when we are in a relationship. We are the first ones to tell our partner, the one person we love the most, exactly what we don’t like about what they do or didn’t do.

It would be helpful if all of us in relationships knew exactly what love is supposed to feel like. If we knew, then we would know if we were in love or if we weren’t. We wouldn’t wonder about it. As a couples specialist I work with a lot of people in relationships who are often not sure about the love they feel.

Some people will be very angry at their mate and tell me all the things the partner does to make them pull their hair out. Then I ask the same person, “Do you think about ending the relationship?” Then they scold me as if I haven’t been listening and then they tell me, “I can’t leave, I love him.”

Learning how to handle conflict in a relationship is tough, because it forces us to challenge our instincts.

When people get their feelings hurt, most of us don’t want to go near the person who hurt them. This holds true in families, with co-workers and in relationships. It’s just easier to back away when something painful happens. It’s just the way many humans are wired.

As a couples specialist I know that even with the person we love, for some of us it’s instinctive to pull away when things get messy. I work with people who love each other who just want to know what to do when they fight. They usually wonder if they could do the fighting part better so they don’t have to stay wounded and apart for so long.

It’s hard to know when our relationship is over. There is no red light telling us to stop, nor is there a green light telling us to go or continue. We are left to our own feelings inside ourselves to tell us what is right for us when we search for an answer.

Usually this search comes after a fight. Painful feelings occur, maybe they are accompanied with a difficult past that becomes highlighted and pretty soon we may become overwhelmed with what is happening to us. In this state we might be asking our self, what am I doing here. Why am suffering in this relationship like this?

As a relationship guide, I spend a lot of time simplifying the most important elements that make a good relationship. The more I teach, the more concise it gets. And I think I have it boiled down to just three parts, three important ingredients to help your relationship thrive.

While they are few in number, the steps might be considered challenging as they require a lot of thought, patience, and trust. The thought part is you thinking about the parts and actually deciding to make yourself do the work. The patience is not expecting to get things right all at once, to be able to allow yourself to develop new positive behaviors in the time it takes. The trust is so you will believe in yourself when you doubt your progress and remind yourself that you can indeed do this.

It happens to all of us. We hold on to our thoughts and don’t say them because we are afraid of hurting the other person’s feelings. We stuff them down inside and just stay silent. We may grouse about them later with someone else, but most of the time a lot of us don’t speak up.

If this sounds like you, you are not alone. This is one of the most common themes I come across while helping people in counseling. Most people are aware they do this, and they are not sure how to change it because it’s something they have always done…put their feelings aside and take care of the other person first.

Many people struggle with taking responsibility in a relationship. They feel victimized, they blame, and they feel miserable. It doesn’t have to be this way.

One of the hardest things I see couples struggle with is the idea that each person in the relationship is responsible for his or her own part of the problems that surround them. It’s not uncommon for people to want to blame the other person for how they feel as if the partner did something to cause the upset. Something bad happens and people start pointing fingers at the other person.

I'm retired.

Couples/Relationships Articles

Annoying Girlfriend, Boyfriend, or Spouse Driving You Crazy?

The Hidden Connection Between “I Love You” and “Sorry”

How to Deal with Resentment in Marriage & Relationships

Positive Communication in Marriage for Happier Relationships

What Does Love Feel Like?

How to Handle Conflict for a Happy, Healthy Marriage

How Do We Know It’s Over?

3 Relationship Rules to Live By

Open Communication for Getting Your Needs Met

How Taking Responsibility in a Relationship Brings Peace