Relationships are not always perfect. Someone you love and trust may disappoint you and ruin your life. However, many people ignore relationship deal-breakers and put up with their partners to save their relationship and avoid heartbreak.
While adjustments and compromises are necessary for a relationship to run smoothly, they are not an excuse to encourage toxicity and unhealthy practices. It becomes a deal-breaker when your partner pushes you to compromise your principles and beliefs and asks you to do things you don’t want to do. Identifying and acting on these relationship deal-breakers is critical for your emotional and physical well-being.
In this post, we will define dealbreakers and discuss some of the most amusing dealbreakers people encounter in relationships.
What are Deal-Breakers in a relationship?
Deal-breakers in a relationship are behaviors, values, and/or characteristics of a potential long-term partner with which you fundamentally disagree. Deal-breakers can help you avoid potentially unhealthy behaviors, unbalanced relationship roles, and potentially dangerous situations in your relationship. Discussing your dating deal-breakers is the first step in weeding out any deviations from your values and desired lifestyle, and it will bring you and your potential partner closer together if your preferences are similar.
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Common Personal Relationship Deal-Breakers
Meeting a potential romantic partner allows you to express your desires, needs, and non-negotiables for the relationship right from the start. The most common relationship deal-breakers are listed below, which you can bring to your new partner and discuss where each of you stands, whether there is room for compromise, or whether you need to find someone more compatible.
Wanting vs. Not Wanting Children
Many people looking for a partner consider children to be major deal-makers or deal-breakers. With greater acceptance of different lifestyles and greater access to career and educational advancement, more and more people are able to choose children rather than having them forced upon them. With this new flexibility, it is even more important to discuss your own choices for or against children at the start of a relationship so you can determine whether your pathways will align or diverge.
Liking/Disliking Their Friends
Meeting your partner’s friends gives you an insight into your partner’s world. If you like your friends and feel at ease with them, you will be more confident when you meet with them for events and have more trust in your partner when you are out with them alone. If you are unable to connect, respect, or weave yourself into your partner’s social circles, it can feel frustrating and isolating, and it may cause future conflict when they are discussed or when you or your partner meet with them.
Various Saving and Spending Habits
Finances are one of the most important aspects of our lives, and they can also be a deal-breaker, depending on your preferences. Ask questions about how each other manages their financial responsibilities, fun money, and even what they are saving for to ensure that your financial habits can align or complement each other. Your partner may be more concerned with possessions, whereas you may be more concerned with experiences. While differences are natural, it is important to discuss how your various lifestyles will complement or compete with one another.
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Various Social, Political, and Religious Beliefs
Knowing your partner’s preferences and affiliations can help you understand how they function in their environment. What are their personal religious, spiritual, or other convictions? How important or insignificant is it to you and them? What effect do your political beliefs have on you and your relationships? If you’re looking for a long-term partner, use open questioning to determine compatibility. Keep in mind that strong opposing views without flexibility in these categories can be a recipe for disaster.
Being clingy or needy
We require our own uniqueness, time, and space. If you have a clingy partner, your availability to participate in activities within your own social circle or to find personal alone time is severely limited. It can also add pressure, responsibility, and expectations to entertain and be the only person for your partner. It is exhausting always to have a partner in need, and it is one of the most common undesirable personality traits to have in a partner.
Lack of Aspiration
Aspirations direct you in the direction of your desired well-being. When we see our partners progressing toward their goals, we find them more desirable because we see them becoming more confident and assured in their own skin. It can be very discouraging to have a partner who cannot move towards their independent aspirations or recognize their own uniqueness. If you’re looking for a go-getter, someone who doesn’t have a plan may be a deal-breaker.
I don’t believe them.
The importance of trust in the relationship cannot be overstated. It demonstrates and provides respect, dependability, and trust for and with one another. Your reliance on your partner to be reasonably accessible, supportive, and present in the relationship feeds a healthy relationship. If you can’t trust your partner, it’s a huge red flag that can lead to future strife and resentment in your relationship.
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Stubbornness / Refusal to Compromise
We all bring our unique personalities and preferences to relationships. Take note if your partner is obstinate, set in their ways, or uninterested in your viewpoint. If you are paired with a partner who is unable or unwilling to compromise, expect rigid conflict, which is a deal-breaker.
Ineffective Communication
Connection is one of the most important benefits of being in a relationship, but if you can’t communicate, you can’t connect. You will have difficulty discovering each other and planning for your future if you feel unheard of or unable to understand your partner. Furthermore, different communication styles, such as tone and verbiage, can be re-triggers. Take note of your behaviors and look for flexibility and compromise; if you don’t find it, find another mate who will work better with you.
Unwilling to Try New Things
We have increasing access to the ever-expanding world around us, and many of us want to experience it! Couples report that one of the top qualities they admire in their partner is their desire to travel and share new experiences. You and your partner may be spending a lot of time apart if you and your partner have opposing views on trying new things. Consider whether this is a deal-breaker for you or if you don’t mind going on mostly solo adventures.
Various Diets and Preferences
Have you ever found yourself in a cycle of searching for restaurants that not only meet your dietary needs but also those of your partners? It can be difficult to find a restaurant that checks all the boxes, so discuss your eating habits with your partner to see if you match or if you’ll be scrolling indefinitely.
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It is also important to remember that some food preferences, such as vegan, vegetarian, or carnivorous diets, can be instant deal-breakers in a relationship. When viewing the menu, check in with your partner to see if there are any potential sources of contention and complications.
Spending Too Much Time on Social Media
We want to feel chosen, not just as an option, but as the chosen one. We become second to the electronic when we notice our partner spending too much time scrolling through articles, playing mindless games, or even engaging in online arguments. While there may be too much television, Instagram, or video games, remember that you have the time to pause and spend intentional and meaningful moments with each other. Make time for each other or give the phone to someone who can put it down for you.
Funny Deal-Breakers in a Relationship
Nobody can love everything about someone. Everyone must have at least one relationship stumbling block. Of course, some people have amusing relationship deal-breakers. But, before you pass judgment and label me as picky, let me say that everyone has funny relationship deal-breakers that they can’t quite explain, as evidenced by a couple of Reddit threads.
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Men and women explain their funniest relationship deal breakers in the threads, and it’s about to get weird up here:
- Having Poor Grammar
- Enjoying Too-Cheesy Food
- Lack of a Hairy Chest
- Having Large Feet
- Beards
- Not Interested in Oral Sex
- Having The Smell Of A Sibling
- Women Who Wear High Heels
- Being Uncomfortable With Certain Drugs
- Dislike for Dogs
- Using His Photographs on Social Media Without His Permission
- Making Horrible Facebook Statuses
- How to Grow a Goatee
- Possessing Long Fingernails
- Wearing Socks to Sex
- Cats are disliked
- Possessing A Mole
- Being an Overly Picky Eater
- Having Family Members In The Mob
- Too Many Alarms to Wake Up In The Morning
- Animal Cruelty
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Now, don’t change all your amusing quirks to please some freak who posted their relationship deal-breakers online. Be yourself and find someone who accepts you for your flaws and all.
What are your 3 deal breakers?
A partner’s attitude toward having kids, a lack of fiscal discipline, or a lack of desire are some common deal-breakers. We asked experts in dating and relationships to list some of the most common reasons why people end a relationship.
What are women’s deal breakers?
Women were more likely to think that a trait was an issue for every deal-breaker. For both sexes, the top five deal-breakers were: an untidy or messy look; being too needy; being lethargic; lacking humor; and living more than three hours away.
What is your deal breaker in a guy?
And the first they steer clear of like the plague? Dishonesty. Although it’s a broad phrase, any form of deception—including lying, omitting to disclose, or hiding anything else on this list of deal breakers—should be an automatic deal breaker.
What is a deal breaker on a first date?
Simply put, if you possess a bad quality that your date has mentally flagged as a “deal breaker” for dating (e.g., you’re a racist/you cut your nails at the dinner table, etc.), you won’t be seeing them again. There is no if, but, or maybe in this situation.
What is a dealbreaker question?
The “deal breaker” query has the potential to be a landmine. Analyze your comfort level in communicating the most important things to you. Make a decision regarding your “must haves” and whether you can mention them during the interview.
Conclusion
A compromise is an expression of respect. When it is given and received in the early stages of a relationship, it can provide long-term relief. Partners who compromise report feeling more able to adjust and align with one another, as well as being more “on the same page.”
If you believe your relationship could benefit from more compromise, consider speaking with a relationship expert during couples counseling. On level ground, this can be an excellent way to introduce the concept. Make sure you’re aware of your areas of flexibility in these relationship deal-breakers, and be honest with your new partner about where you can compromise.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the biggest deal-breaker in a relationship?
Problems with Substance Abuse
Substance abuse is one of the most severe relationship killers on this list. It can lead to your partner mistreating you, being untrustworthy, wasting money, and making bad decisions that will harm you.
What are the red flags in a relationship?
In any relationship, physical, emotional, and mental abuse are unmistakable red flags. Physical abuse is more easily picked up. However, emotional and mental abuse can be equally harmful in the long run. Mental and emotional abuse, like physical abuse, can result in PTSD.
How do you identify a deal-breaker?
People’s most common deal-breakers are smoking, drug use, financial difficulties, infidelity, and a lack of desire for children. While those characteristics are related to major lifestyle choices, other deal-breakers, such as hair color or film taste, may appear insignificant to some but be critical to the individual.
How you know a relationship is over?
One of the most telling signs that your relationship is coming to an end is that you are no longer vulnerable and open with your partner. A key component of happy, healthy relationships is that both partners feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and opinions with one another.
