Successful relationships aren’t just about rainbows and butterflies. A healthy partnership requires communication, respect, and plenty of good habits from both people.

When you are in a relationship, you probably do what you can to keep it relatively healthy and happy. You would never do anything to deliberately sabotage it.

You must understand that relationships typically don’t end over one big thing, but rather lots of little things that slowly bleed it to death.

Since little issues don’t seem as important as bigger problems, it’s easy to let them go until they pile up into something toxic that feels too big to change.

Bad habits weaken the foundation of a relationship, leave people feeling more vulnerable, less invested, more full of self-doubt and more likely to surrender or less able to collaborate when under stress.

These men and women told Effects how bad habits ruined their relationships.

Evelyn: My ex boyfriend was on his phone all the time

As a hardworking lady, I understand that sometimes work stuff can’t wait, but regularly being glued to your phone or checking it when I am having a conversation with you sends a subconscious message that I am not your priority.

I called the attention of ex boyfriend Francis to his bad attitude of ignoring me and staying glued to his phone but he told me to stop whining. I felt like I didn’t matter to him. He was always giving me excuses on why he should be using his phone and talking with me at the same time.

It can help to either be all present with your partner or let them know that you can talk once you are off your phone. Splitting your attention often leaves the other person feeling neglected and less valued. That was exactly how I felt and I broke up with him.

I expected him to take time to put other distractions aside as much as he could when were together, even if it’s for a short time. And if he had to take a call or answer a text during our quality-time together, he would have kept the conversations short. But for the one year we were together, I didn’t have his full attention. I left him.

Claire: He was always making public jokes at my expense

I once dated this guy who won’t think twice at making tasteless jokes about me. He would make jokes about my hair, my body, my clothes and even my private parts. He seemed to love amplifying my insecurities. So while he thought it was funny to tell me my hips looked like that of a buffalo before his friends, I felt insulted.

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I talked to him later to stop making jokes about my body in public but he didn’t listen. We ended our relationship five months after it started because of this issue. That habit was ruining my self esteem.
John: My ex girlfriend was good at keeping scores, even in her head

My ex girlfriend was good at keeping scores. She remembers things that happened one year ago and use them to insult me whenever we had another disagreement.

Obviously, I know our history as a couple, and I know we have both done some things that have ticked each other off, but once we address the stuff in the moment, I let it go. But my ex wouldn’t. She would bring it up again and again that I became miserable in our relationship.

I realized early in life that counting the rights and wrongs that each person does can cause pettiness and resentment. I didn’t want that for our relationship but my ex was good at that. She kept doing that until I got tired of her and broke up with her.

Nonye: I couldn’t stand my passive-aggressive partner anymore

Passive-aggression is a relationship killer. This reflects indirect communication and usually a fair amount of unhappiness and challenges with self-esteem and insecurity on the part of the passive-aggressive person.

My ex husband was passive aggressive towards me for the nine years that we were together. I tried telling him that it passive-aggression doesn’t make him look good and it pisses me off but he didn’t listen.
Throughout our relationship, he would do something just to provoke me and when I react, he would start crying saying I was the one destroying our marriage. It got so bad that I left him without explaining what happened to people because they won’t understand me.

Chinedu: She was criticizing my family all the time

While I probably wouldn’t start railing on my partner’s mom out of the blues, family issues can come up. I try to be respectful to her family to the best of my ability but she doesn’t do the same.
She was fond of always criticizing my family, insulting my mother and calling me the son of a prostitute. I tried to be diplomatic and keep in mind how I would feel if she said the same thing about my family.
But overtime, her words started affecting the love I felt for her. I started distancing myself from her. I begged her many times to leave my family out of her misunderstandings as a couple but she refused to listen to me. To me, blood ties are some of the strongest ones out there, so even if I am normally super-level-headed, I will get defensive you start attacking my family. We broke up after series of insults on my family.

Vivienne: My ex boyfriend didn’t show me regular acts of love

Acts of love those sweet little things you do for your partner are important for letting your partner know they matter to you and that you are just as into them now as you were during the honeymoon phase.
I love regular acts of love but I fell in love with a man who didn’t believe in acts of love. He didn’t use words much. He didn’t take me to surprise dinners. He didn’t prepare breakfast and serve me in bed like I wanted. I didn’t buy me gifts without my asking. He simply didn’t know how to show me love. I was frustrated.
Even though there is no formula for how often you should express your love for your woman, but you should definitely try to show acts of love on a daily basis. My ex failed woefully in that aspect. He wasn’t mindful and present in our relationship.

If he was mindful, he would do the act of love each day without thinking about it. But if I asked him to remember the last time he did something loving for me, he will start making excuses by saying he’s not a romantic person and can’t behave like white men.

I tried to endure his lack of expression of love for four months but it was choking me. I called him one day and told him that it was over between us. He tried to get me back but I was done. I can’t date or marry a man who won’t show me love. I am a hopeless romantic and I deserve a man who won’t blink while showing me how much he loves me.