Re­la­tion­ship eti­quette is a re­al thing. Find out why you or your part­ner may be en­cour­ag­ing in­se­cu­ri­ty and ar­gu­ments in your re­la­tion­ship.

Truth be told, you don’t have to go to the movies or buy a new book to ex­pe­ri­ence a hor­ror sto­ry these days, poor re­la­tion­ship eti­quette can make you feel like jump­ing out of any seat com­plete­ly scared out of your wits. It is a sad re­al­i­ty that peo­ple seem to be so self ab­sorbed that they for­get some ac­tions are ex­treme­ly dis­turb­ing and hurt­ful no mat­ter the times­pan of the re­la­tion­ship. There are dos and don’ts re­gard­less of how long or short you are in­volved with some­one.

Let’s imag­ine it’s a Sat­ur­day night and you are on a date. The restau­rant is great, you were tired all day but still made the ef­fort to get dressed nice­ly and spend some qual­i­ty time with your spe­cial per­son. The mood is right and you are just thrilled to be in his/her com­pa­ny when the most an­noy­ing thing hap­pens. An at­trac­tive per­son pass­es by and you see your part­ner ogle at that per­son from head to toe. Even worse, you catch them turn­ing their head thirsti­ly to watch the per­son’s “be­hind” in the dis­tance. To­tal CRINGE WOR­THY be­hav­iour! In what world is such be­hav­iour ac­cept­able and why aren’t some peo­ple able to con­trol them­selves? Well, the an­swer is sim­ple, it all comes down to the lack of sim­ple re­spect for oth­ers and their feel­ings. Yes, it is un­der­stand­able that you will find peo­ple at­trac­tive and some­times an in­no­cent glance hap­pens, af­ter all its hu­man na­ture. At times, the cou­ple may even ad­mire some­one else to­geth­er and give com­pli­ments, but the is­sue here is where to draw the line. Ogling or leer­ing at some­one oth­er than your date is just plain in­sen­si­tive and rude and can stir up emo­tions that fu­el mis­trust and jeal­ousy. Let’s be frank, no­body wants that dra­ma in their love life so be con­sid­er­ate and con­trol your­self.

An­oth­er re­la­tion­ship killer is deal­ing with a phone ad­dict. Trust me, I know this one is com­mon and full of ex­cus­es. “Oh I need to re­spond to this right now”, “ Gosh, let me post this!” or “Babe, hold on, I need to tell Jen this”—all these ex­cus­es right in the mid­dle of an im­por­tant con­ver­sa­tion or dur­ing re­lax­ing mo­ments be­fore bed every night. I mean how many times have you felt like fling­ing the phone across the room or snap­ping your fin­gers and hop­ing that mag­i­cal­ly, your part­ner will want to spend undis­turbed mo­ments with you, giv­ing their ut­most at­ten­tion to you every once in a while. Elec­tron­ic de­vices have perks but they have tak­en away so much in­ter­ac­tion with­in re­la­tion­ships. We have all lost time and pre­cious mo­ments that we will nev­er get back. Don’t take time for grant­ed, en­gage with your part­ner dai­ly and show in­ter­est when he/she is spend­ing time with you and speak­ing to you. Tru­ly live in the mo­ment and know when to put the phone down and switch off the tele­vi­sion and com­put­er.

Mov­ing on to an­oth­er ter­ri­ble hor­ror sto­ry, The Tale of the Se­cret Keep­er. Sim­ply put, lies break trust and trust is a foun­da­tion­al must in all re­la­tion­ships. If your part­ner is con­stant­ly caught both telling lies and keep­ing se­crets for no par­tic­u­lar rea­son, this is a sign of big­ger prob­lems, es­pe­cial­ly if you are a per­son who is un­der­stand­ing and com­pas­sion­ate. Some peo­ple like to lie and dis­close in­for­ma­tion from their loved ones over the small­est de­tails and it’s a nasty habit to break. If you have some­one who is a chron­ic liar in your life, look in­to it, do not ig­nore be­cause that type of is­sue does not van­ish overnight.

Last­ly, but cer­tain­ly not least, is the sto­ry of Up­tight Jim and Deb­bie Down­er. Ever sat down for a chill evening and some­thing fun­ny hap­pens al­low­ing you to just burst out in­to a nev­er end­ing laugh­ing fit and the per­son you are with looks like they bit in­to a juicy, green lime. “Shhh you are laugh­ing too loud” or “Be­have your­self” they say to you as if you are some sort of child. This in­stant­ly makes your hap­py mood shift in­to bit­ter an­noy­ance and anger. Some part­ners are so up­tight and both­ered that they make the term “kill-joy” seem like an art. Hey, loosen up and smile more, life is too short to be so grumpy all the time.

The list of hor­rors is long and in­clu­sive. There are many oth­er dis­mal threats such as lazi­ness, poor hy­giene and slop­py drink­ing, but one thing is for cer­tain—all the habits and poor de­ci­sions are caused by self­ish­ness and not know­ing the im­por­tance of bal­ance and healthy lim­its with your re­la­tion­ship. Every sit­u­a­tion and per­son­al­i­ty is dif­fer­ent but with com­pro­mise and the mag­ic of un­der­stand­ing that give and take is need­ed, we can all get along in a spir­it of to­geth­er­ness and con­tin­ued hap­pi­ness. Say no to com­pla­cen­cy, bad man­ners and neg­a­tiv­i­ty. You can de­cide if your sto­ry will be a hor­ror or a tale of love. Make the choice to­day.