How To Ruin Your Relationship, In 5 Easy Steps

Reject opportunities to say you’re sorry.

Give weight only to your feelings, and dismiss the others along the way. Forget that just because you didn’t think it or feel it or mean it, the situation is still worthy of your regard. Settle instead on silence or a passive suggestion to move on. Decline giving the other person what they’re after (because it’s not so much about the actual words as it is the effort behind them). Refuse to let the other person know they have been seen and accepted, even when not fully understood.

Think (mostly) about yourself.

Be passionate, but only about the things that hold weight in your universe. Your enjoyments, your fears, your problems. Forget entirely that there exists a plethora of experiences outside of your own. That each and every one of us is feeling and fearing and thinking meaningful things. Remain too caught up within your world to see what lies beyond that place.

Assume without question, that the people you love will always be around.

Reason with yourself that there will be another time. There will be plenty of nights together and endless opportunities to enjoy. Assure yourself you aren’t operating within some kind of hour glass system. You’ve got your whole life, and so do they.

Forget to express gratitude.

Do not prioritize, and if you do, be wrongly selective about where your attention lies. Grow so accustomed to sweet actions and loving thoughts that you fail to recognize their importance altogether. Replace appreciation with assumption, becoming so comfortable that you see each meaningful expression as mundane. Believe that love lies only in the grand gestures, rather than the simple moments that once defined your happiness.

Refuse to grow.

Remain stagnant. Feel so rooted in the place within which you reside that the idea of further growth feels unthinkable. Shy away from any desire to develop, to progress or to expand. Expect that those around you do the same. Do not root for their dreams or encourage their success, and do not support yours either. Instead, remain solely content where you are. Overlook your own ability to strive, the individual strength you have to bloom. Forget that you are fully whole, and have the power to constantly, repeatedly do great things.