Can't Keep My Mouth Shut - Are You Sabotaging Your Own Relationship?

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

This podcast contains strong language and discussions about relationships, sex and love. It may not be suitable for younger listeners. This is the Sex in Singapore City podcast, and I am Nick Salina. Hello, it's Nick Salina. Welcome back to my podcast. I hope you are all well and happy. This episode has been a request for some time and I have not been avoiding doing it. I just had it in the list and thankfully I have got around to it. This is called, Are You Sabotaging Your Own Relationship? Ooh, interesting.

Lots of people have DM'd me about saying, hey, you know, I feel like I'm sabotaging or I feel like this, I feel like that. Do you think I'm sabotaging because I'm doing this, I'm doing that? And it seems to be like a convoluted, murky water that we all need to straighten out and get to grips with. And I'm going to go through this episode quite methodically. We're going to start with a why you would be sabotaging your own relationship. We're going to offer signs that you are sabotaging.

And then we're going to go to the fix it stage, which is what we all want to get to, of course. So let's begin. Why? Why does anyone sabotage their own relationship? It sounds very strange because it's like you're in the relationship, you're in love, right? You're happy, you want to be in a relationship with someone and you're ruining it on purpose? Then you might as well just be single, what? It's not that easy, unfortunately.

So here are some reasons why people sabotage. And often it's subconscious as well. it's not something they are actively doing. They might have low self-esteem and self-worth. They think, oh, you know, he's going to cheat on me in the end, or I don't deserve this love. I don't deserve him to be faithful to me. Look at me. You know, I'm so fat. I'm so ugly. Why would he want to stay with me those kind of like inner thought processes will lead you to sabotage in your relationship because you're like well why you know why would he or she stay with me I'm not worthy okay you might also be avoiding the sting of rejection which ties into the the above so

basically oh they will eventually leave me so I might as well just ruin it now and get it over and done with because at least then I'm prepared you know it's just not I'm not going to be blindsided by them upping and leaving I know this you know so you you could be pushing them away to avoid the rejection that you've assumed that you will definitely automatically have like this happy ever after of a committed relationship just doesn't enter your mind field you might be stirring up drama because you think it keeps your partner interested that is also a highly subconscious but very active thing that people do it's quite a i was going to say popular it's absolutely not the right word but it's common that's it it's not popular it's common that people think you know

those highs and lows keeps people on their toes, keeps the partner interested, creating the arguments and the makeup sex after. They get addicted to the ups and downs. And yeah, that's not going to be a long lasting relationship. That's got a shelf life on it for sure, because that's not healthy and okay. You might have fear of abandonment from your childhood. you might have trauma in your childhood this is pretty much the majority I would say of the sabotaging is it something from your upbringing you need to I guess look at your attachment style so maybe you're an anxious attachment or an avoidant attachment and I will do another episode on attachment styles for you. But for now, if you're not sure, you haven't really heard about

it, just Google research. And then when we talk about it another episode, it will definitely become clearer for you. But these attachment styles will basically impact on how you interact with your partner. And then another one as well is trauma from past relationships. So this isn't trauma from your your upbringing or your parents this is trauma from your I've been cheated on all the time I've been constantly you know lied to I've had boyfriends or girlfriends that leave me and you know so the trauma from the past then seeps into your current relationship and is causing you to sabotage it because you are expecting the worst there is also another option where you are simply keeping your distance because you want to maintain independence you have a fear of attachment or

commitment maybe you you know like being single maybe you're very comfortable being single and being in a relationship scares the crap out of you um you know or any or maybe you're just like I want the best of both worlds but whatever it is to try and maintain your sense of self maybe and your independence you keep the person at arm's length and or you push them away that's covering most of the whys okay if you take a look from everything i just said the main focus from the whys is it comes from a place of fear and negative thought patterns about yourself i shall repeat that self-sabotaging in a relationship comes mainly from a place of fear and negative thought patterns about yourself so that why is the bit we're going to tap into to fix it because

that's the great fucking news ladies and gentlemen is it is all fixable okay so don't be like oh childhood trauma my childhood sucked and um now i'm going to be forever ruining my relationships and i'm going to die alone you know eaten by savage dogs not the case let's move on to the signs also dogs you know so we love dogs they're not all savage signs of your sabotage okay so we know why how do we pick it out now uh there could be lots of paranoia so fears it can be fears of cheating without any evidence you know your partner goes out with uh friends clients or colleagues and your immediate go-to is i'm being cheated on they're cheating on me they're cheating on me they're not where they say they are they're lying they're cheating on me just like deep

paranoia you might be avoiding all communication and refusing to address any negative emotions so any kind of like fear that you have any sad feeling you just don't want to talk about it you avoid it or cost you don't want to address anything and of course that we know that that's never helpful in your relationship because communication and open communication is key to a healthy happy relationship you might be experiencing extreme jealousy this can of course be with other people oh I'm jealous their relationship with that person I'm jealous that you know they're this or you might be just jealous of them I'm jealous of their success I'm jealous of their looks I'm jealous of their personality yeah just harboring negative thoughts

about your partner you might then be criticizing your partner on repeat picking up on things you don't really need to criticize them for or things that aren't really a problem and in that way you'll be driving a wedge between you both and pushing them away you may be avoiding plans canceling last minute, avoiding maybe meeting the family, meeting the friends, just keeping that person at arm's distance. You might even be cheating yourself. Yes, people cheat as a self-sabotage type of mechanism in a relationship. And it sounds fucking crazy, but it's true. A lot of the cheating is coming from that fear and that negative thought about your process. And you think, oh, well, why would that person not cheat on me? I'm not worthy. I'm, you know,

not attractive and then you flip it around and you think right well i need attention or i will cheat first so that when they cheat it doesn't hurt as much right fear always fear you might lean into external negative coping mechanisms what's an external negative coping mechanism we're looking at alcohol consumption drug take smoking um we're looking at unhealthy eating maybe then addictions to the gym maybe flirting elsewhere looking online for attention all of that is unhealthy coping mechanisms that we actually go through rather than dealing with the painful issue the foundational crutch of the issue you might give up on a sexual connection maybe you just let sex go maybe that's the way you sabotaged it you just don't want the closeness you don't

in the physical contact anymore. You might put your entire mind focus elsewhere, for instance, work, friends, fitness, diet, whatever you can fixate on that means that you don't spare moments thought for your relationship or your partner. And finally, you might just give them a silent treatment, which for me is the worst, if I'm honest. So that's a long, long list of sabotage signs. It is not the only list. There are many more things that go on in relationships, but you get the general gist from across the board on how people sabotage. And we've gone through why. So now let's address the fix it bit. You know what I'm going to say, don't you? You know what I'm going to come out with because this is always top of the list when we talk about

how to fix something in a relationship. Let's say it all together. Therapy, therapy. sadly my dear listeners it's time to have some counseling and i say sadly but it fucking ain't because i'm a big lover of therapy and counseling and this is how you are going to stop the sabotaging you're like how but why okay so if we're going back to the attachment styles that we talked about earlier, the ideal attachment style is a secure attachment, okay? Whether you have a very healthy, happy relationship, healthy boundaries, okay? That's your ideal. Getting to a secure attachment, mindset is very difficult if you've had childhood and relationship experiences which is having a detrimental effect to your attachment style. So you could become insecure,

you could become an anxious attachment you could become avoidant okay but to change your own narrative here you need to work with a therapist and you can develop a more secure style by facing your own fears it's that word again and removing your false beliefs about relationship I'll give you an example. As we know, I'm engaged to a wonderful human, loyal, like loyal ever, like just loyal, lovely, the best guy. I love him, right? Love him.

However, I still have my demons about being cheated on. And especially because I left such a traumatic, emotionally abusive relationship before I met him that I went into it feeling very anxious and insecure because I spent four years with a narcissist and this is what they do to you. You know, they bring you fucking down. So then you got to bring yourself right back up. And how do you do that? You fix it. And the great thing is, is it's actually all in you. And that's why I love this kind of help, self-help approaches. It's all in you. Whatever that narcissistic did to you, whatever your childhood trauma did to you, you have the ability to change this around and you don't have to live with the burdens of other

people's bullshit that they've put onto you anymore so you will get your therapist and you have some counseling and you start to work out where this insecurity may have come from where that fear has started and how you evolve from that fear and how you manage to get that insecurity and change it into self-worth and self-confidence that you then can be happy and in a healthy, loving relationship. Beyond therapy, what I would definitely encourage you both to do is have open communication. So all those horrible thoughts you didn't want to talk about, you need to talk about. You need to sit your ass down and have a chat together. and you need to say hey this is what's going on this is my fear I'm so scared that you're

going to cheat on me I'm so scared I'm going to lose you I'm so scared that suddenly I'm going to come home and you won't be here you know or whatever is going on with you you need to talk it out with your partner if you want that relationship because that's the other thing if you actually don't want it you might be sabotaging it because you just don't have the bollocks to leave them but deep down you're like i'm just not interested this is i'm not this isn't for me that's a very different scenario that just means you need to grow a pair and walk away basically um and the other thing i would say when it comes to fixing it aside from open communication and therapy um is understanding each other's attachment styles so work out okay you're

avoidant I'm insecure this is what's happening this is why we're not gelling right what does an avoidant attachment need you need this for me you need that for me right I need this from you and then like piece it together like a puzzle where you can build together between you a very secure space for you both to exist in and get what you both need from the relationship and the other point I will say is time give it time we cannot change years of inbuilt subconscious and conscious mindsets that we've been yeah that we've grown up with we can't change our fears of being cheated on overnight we can't switch out the mindset of oh suddenly everything's great and I'm in a happy relationship, but that means I shouldn't feel the way I feel. It's not fair to try and do

that to yourself. Give it time. Focus on healing yourself. Focus on your whys. Why are you sabotaging? Go back to the start of the episode and listen to it if you need to whenever you need to go back and think, what am I working on? Visit your whys. Understand your whys. Get a therapist to help you move on from your whys. Address your signs of sabotage, address what you are doing that's causing the issue, and then work with your partner to move on together. I hope this has helped. As always, you can DM me if you need any one-to-one personal advice. I'm always here for you. Instagram is at Nixalina, N-I-X-A-L-I-N-A. thanks for listening to the sex and singapore city podcast this episode was produced and hosted by me

nick selena and recorded at the splice car studio in singapore i'm available to listen to on spotify apple podcasts google and all major podcast listening apps do subscribe to enjoy a new episode every monday evening please do give me a five-star review it helps other people also find my podcast for more awesome content and features to read you can check out my website sex and singaporecity.com that's sex and singaporecity.com i'm also on social media simply search at nixalina n-i-x-a-l-i-n-a to find me don't be shy come say hi