Life and love are not always a bed of roses. Sometimes you can’t help it, sometimes you can. It certainly helps if you know what causes the problems.
According to psychologist and author Leon Seltzer, there are three causes that often underlie relationship problems, he writes on Psychology Today.
We think we know exactly what the other wants or needs.
It is a cliché that still applies: you think you know what is good for your partner, but he or she prefers to decide for himself what he or she does. You got to know each other in a certain way in the beginning and then it is difficult to see that people have different values or ideas. Do not try to change the other, but accept and embrace the new wishes and needs
We forget where someone comes from.
The moment you start a relationship with your partner, he has already had a whole life. How someone was brought up, or who felt at home in the family and what their school days were like, it all influences the way they live their life now. Discovering and accepting this together leads to more understanding for current behaviour.
We think that the other person behaves and reacts as we would ourselves.
No matter how well you know your partner and how much you may resemble each other, you are two very different personalities, who behave differently in certain situations. We often project motives for the other person’s behavior from our own views and preferences. This way you make all kinds of assumptions and an image is created that may not be correct at all.