If you are feeling powerless in your relationship, either in general or because of a particular problem, odds are high that depression will creep into your emotional state.
Depression can feel like you’re under a perpetual dark cloud. It also causes uncharacteristically negative thoughts about yourself, others and your future.
If you are feeling powerless, experiencing dark moods or noticing unusually negative thoughts, it might be time to check out the patterns of communication in your relationship and see if your relationship is the reason.
Here are 5 Relationship Warning Signs to Note
1. You feel dominated.
When you feel smaller and less powerful than the person you’re interacting with, you should re evaluate your relationship.
Not all power differences is bad. For instance, while a parent has most of the power in a healthy parent-child relationship, as long as the parent uses this power to nurture, rather than to dominate, over the child all will be well. Similarly, employers have more power than employees.
In love relationships between two adults, though, shared power is healthier.
2. You feel criticized.
“I don’t like your hair that way.” “You shouldn’t have bought that new sweater.” Criticisms are put-downs. Feedback is a not problem, but criticism is.
Feedback lets you know in a gentle way that something you have been doing is problematic and it usually starts with an “I” statement: “I get nervous that men will find you sexually attractive when you wear your hair that way,” or “I felt uncomfortable when I saw your new sweater because I’m worried about whether we’re going to have enough money to cover our bills this month.”
By contrast, critical words and a judgmental tone of voice make criticism problematic.
3. Your partner tells you what to do.
Bossy attitudes are demoralizing. Even a benign order like “Go get the paper for me, honey,” is likely to trigger either irritation or depression in the receiver because no one likes being told what to do.
It’s better to ask. Requests allow for yes or no as an answer.
4. Your partner tries to control you.
What to do with your time, controlling finances, friendship choices and how much you can visit your family: all these behaviors show that it is time to do something about the relationship.
5. Your partner is “always right.”
It’s fine for your loved one to be right, as long as he/she doesn’t require being right all the time. If your partner’s being right means that there’s no ability to admit mistakes, that’s a problem.