Relationships: Coping With Your Partner's Annoying Habits

It's not unusual for people in relationships to find their partner's habits annoying. 

This usually isn't discussed when people are considering moving in together or getting married.

Coping With Your Partner's Annoying Habits

Sometimes people get caught in the trap of trying to change their partner, which tends to backfire (see my article: The Problem With Trying to Change Your Partner).

When you and your partner live together, it's inevitable you will both experience moments of annoyance with each other. These moments might involve annoying habits you weren't aware of when you were dating (see my article: Relationships: The Ideal vs the Real).

Since you are two different people with your own unique personalities, values, habits and quirks, there are bound to be things that bother each of you. 

It's not a matter of whether you and your partner discover annoying habits about each other but rather how you will handle these situations.

Common Situations That People in Relationships Find Annoying

As a psychotherapist who works with individual adults and couples, I have heard many clients complain about their partner's habits including:

• Arriving late without an apology or reason
• Forgetting to do chores on a consistent basis
• Leaving clothes on the floor
• Ignoring personal hygiene
• Leaving dirty dishes in the sink

Coping With Your Partner's Annoying Habits

• Not acknowledging or appreciating a partner's efforts
• Chewing loudly
• Looking at their phone a lot when they are supposed to be spending quality time together
• Drinking directly from a carton and putting the carton back in the refrigerator
• Nitpicking
• Leaving the toilet seat up
• And many other examples

How to Cope With Your Partner's Annoying Habits and Be Open to Hearing About Your Own

What one person finds annoying might not be at all annoying to someone else. So, don't be surprised if your partner has a hard time accepting that their habits are annoying or that when your partner tells you what they find annoying that you're also in denial.

Steps to Addressing and Hearing About Annoying Habits:

• Communicate Tactfully and with Empathy: Rather than waiting until you have reached your limit, talk to your partner in a calm and tactful way.  Chances are your partner isn't trying to be annoying (just as you're not trying to annoy your partner with your habits) so give them the benefit of the doubt.  A little empathy can go a long way.

Coping With Your Partner's Annoying Habits

• Find a Convenient Time to Talk: Rather than having a conversation on the fly while your partner is racing out the door for work, find a convenient time for each of you where you can sit down calmly to discuss things.

• Put Yourself in Your Partner's Shoes and Be Flexible: You might feel that you have the best way for doing household chores, but your partner's way might be equally good. For instance, your way might be to wash the dishes as soon as you finish eating, but your partner might prefer to relax first. Neither way is right or wrong--just different.

Coping With Your Partner's Annoying Habits

• Be Patient and Find a Compromise: For example, your partner might not be as good as you are with planning their time so they tend to arrive late. While they are in the process of learning to manage their time better, instead of looking at your watch and getting increasingly angry, can you use the time to answer an email, call a friend or read a newspaper article on your phone? You can both agree this is a temporary compromise as your partner is developing better time management skills.

• Balance Positive and Negative Feedback: Often when people get fed up with their partner's habits, they unleash a barrage of criticism against their partner. They might also "kitchen sink" their partner by telling them about all their annoying habits at once, which can be overwhelming for your partner to hear. So, make sure you start with some positive feedback so you don't hurt your partner's feelings with only negative feedback  (see my article: Improving Communication in Your Relationship: How to Stop "Kitchen Sinking" Your Partner).

• Choose Your Battles: Think about what's most important to you. Maybe you live with your partner forgetting to put the toilet seat down, but you can't stand it when your partner leaves clothes on the floor. 

Are You Focusing on Annoying Habits When There Are More Serious Problems in the Relationship?

Sometimes couples argue about annoying habits when there are more serious underlying  problems in the relationship that they are either unaware of or they are reluctant to address.

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates how a couple can avoid talking about serious problems in the relationship by focusing on annoying habits:

June and Roger

During the honeymoon phase of their relationship, June and Roger were in a long distance relationship. 

June lived in New York City and Roger lived in Dallas, so they only saw each other once or twice a month. During that time, they were so in love with each other that they couldn't wait to be together.

Coping With Your Partner's Annoying Habits

Six months into the relationship, Roger accepted a job in New York City and he moved in with June.  Initially, they were both so happy to be together, but over time, they began to argue over seemingly little things.

After they sought help in couples therapy, Jane complained that Roger was constantly texting on his phone--even when they had carved out special time to be together.  Roger said he tried to put away his phone, but he felt he had to respond promptly to texts.

They agreed to a compromise where Roger would put his phone away when they were out to dinner and only check it as they were leaving the restaurant or when they got home. But Roger had a hard time not looking at his phone during the dinner and June felt frustrated with him and disrespected.

Then, during one of their couples therapy sessions June mentioned reluctantly that she thought Roger was texting another woman. In response, Roger got quiet. 

When the couples therapist asked him for his reaction, Roger hesitated to speak, but then he admitted he was getting texts from his ex-girlfriend in Dallas, who wanted to get back together with him. 

He said she had been very dependent upon him when they were together and he felt he had to respond to her desperate texts (see my article: Is Your Partner Stuck in a Codependent Relationship With an Ex?)

All the while when they were arguing about his texting during dinner, June sensed there was more to this problem, but she was in denial at that point. As a result, they were both reluctant to address the problem and their conversations focused on his phone use instead of the fact that he was secretly communicating with an ex-girlfriend.

Over time, June and Roger worked on her sense of betrayal and Roger's inability to set limits with his former girlfriend. He was clear that he didn't want to get back with her, but he was ambivalent about giving up his role in her life.

After June gave him an ultimatum to either stop communicating with his ex or she would leave him, Roger set limits with his ex and he blocked her on his phone. 

He also got into his own individual therapy to work on how unresolved childhood trauma related to his role as a parentified child contributed to his current problems.

Conclusion

It's common for couples to discover each other's annoying habits. 

Communicating with empathy can help your partner to understand why you find their habit annoying. You also need to develop an openness and willingness to hear about your own annoying habits.

There are times when couples focus on annoying habits as a way to avoid dealing with bigger problems like in the clinical vignette above.  

It's important to deal with underlying problems that might be causing problems in your relationship rather than tiptoeing around these problems.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

If you and your partner have been unable to work out your problems on your own, you could benefit from seeking help from a couples therapist.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who works with couples.

Once you have worked through your issues, you and your partner can have a more fulfilling relationship.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experiencing working with individual adults and couples (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

How to Increase Your Tolerance for Uncertainty to Reduce Your Anxiety

As I discussed in a prior article, Global Pandemic Causes Significant Increase in Anxiety and Depression, anxiety fueled by uncertainty is now the biggest mental health problem in the United States and around the world according to the findings of the World Health Organization (WHO). 

Increasing Your Tolerance For Uncertainty to Reduce Anxiety

But even before the pandemic, other types of uncertainty contributed to anxiety for many people.  So, the focus of this article is on how to increase your tolerance for uncertainty so you can reduce your anxiety (see my article: Coping With Uncertainty).

Increasing Your Tolerance for Uncertainty to Reduce Anxiety

What's the Difference Between Fear and Anxiety?

In a prior article, What's the Difference Between Fear and Anxiety?, I made this distinction: 

Whereas fear is a response to a known threat, anxiety is a vague feeling of apprehension about an anticipated unknown threat (see my article: Self Help Tips For Coping With Anxiety).

What's the Difference Between Coping with Fear vs Coping with Anxiety?

When you're struggling with a specific fear, you can deal with your fear directly because it's known.  

For instance, if you have a fear of public speaking, you can deal with it directly by taking a class to help you become more comfortable with speaking in public. 

But the vagueness of anxiety makes it more challenging.

Tips to Increase Your Tolerance For Uncertainty and Reduce Anxiety

Although it's not easy, here are some tips to increase your tolerance for uncertainty that fuels anxiety:

• Accept That You're Anxious: Rather than trying to deny your anxiety, start by acknowledging and accepting it.  Acceptance doesn't mean you like it or that you're being passive about it.  It's more about accepting that you have a problem as a starting point.  The more you try to deny and suppress it, the worse the problem will become.  It's better to admit it and have compassion for yourself.  Also, when you acknowledge and accept your anxiety, you're in a better position to do something about it (see my article: Awareness and Acceptance: Being Willing to See Things You've Been in Denial About).

• Educate Yourself About Anxiety: Knowing that anxiety is currently the most common mental health problem can be comforting by letting you know you're not alone.  

• Learn to Be Flexible With Change: When you're inflexible, you're more likely to feel stuck and unable to cope. But, in general, when you learn to approach change with a degree of flexibility, you're more likely to come up with ways to deal with change and feel better about yourself.  Over time, you'll be able to look back on times where you dealt with change and feel more confident about your current situation.  

• Learn to Distinguish Between What's Possible vs What's Probable: Being able to step back to ask yourself whether your apprehension is possible vs probable is a useful way to get a better perspective.  To the extent you can make this distinction, you can reduce your anxiety about something that isn't probable.  You can also remember prior times when you were needlessly anxious about something that was improbable and compare that situation to the current one.

• Get Information: If you're anxious, get information. For instance, if you're anxious about the possibility of losing your job (even though there are no known reasons for you to be anxious about it), you can seek information about other job opportunities in your field.  Just taking this step can get you out of an endless cycle of paralyzing anxiety by helping you to realize that there are other possibilities for you if the need should arise.  This can help you feel more empowered.

My Next Article

In my next article, I'll discuss how a history of unresolved psychological trauma can act as a trigger to increase your anxiety when you're dealing with uncertainty:

Working Through Past Unresolved Trauma So It No Longer Affects You in the Present

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many people to overcome problems with anxiety (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?)

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Achieving Your Goals With Perseverance

To achieve your goals, you often hear that you need to persevere and pursue your goals with resolve and tenacity.  While it's certainly true that few long term goals are achieved by happenstance, it's also true that, along the way, there are times when you need to be flexible and open to new ideas and possibilities.  Often, it's a matter of balancing perseverance and flexibility.

Achieving Your Goals With Perseverance

Let's take a look at the example below, which is a composite of many cases, and illustrates the importance of how balancing perseverance and flexibility can help to achieve long-term goals:

Dana

Dana had a lifelong dream of having her own clothing store.  By time she was in her early 30s, she had worked in the fashion industry, including upscale clothing stores, for several years.  At that point, more than anything, she wanted to be her own boss.

Her father agreed to provide the initial capital for her to start her business with the understanding that she see a business consultant first to get advice.  Her father agreed to pay for the consultant.  Initially, Dana balked at the idea of hiring a consultant because she felt she already knew what she needed to do to have a successful business.

She was ready to work hard to make her business successful.  She didn't want anyone else interfering with her ideas.  She wished she didn't have to rely on her father's money to start her business.  But she knew she couldn't do it without his help and her father wouldn't provide her with the capital to start the business unless she agreed to see the consultant.  So, she agreed reluctantly.

The consultant made recommendations that were counter to what Dana had in mind.  The consultant recommended that, before she opened her business, she should first take a continuing education course on how to start a business since she had no experience. But Dana quickly brushed this off.  He also recommended that she start small and keep her overhead low.  But Dana bristled at the idea that she would have to start small.

She felt both her father and the consultant didn't have enough confidence in her.  And, instead of following the consultant's recommendations, she plunged ahead and she sought a large space in a trendy area of Manhattan.  Never having rented commercial space before, she was shocked at the rent and that the landlord wanted a co-signer.

When her father refused to co-sign, Dana was forced to take a smaller space with lower rent.  She was somewhat deflated by this, but she felt she had no choice but to go along with it.

During the first few months, Dana was shocked at how many hours she had to put in to keep the business going.  She was more than willing to work hard, but she had little to show for it monetarily at the end of the month.  The consultant advised her that she would probably lose money the first year, but she couldn't believe how much money her business was losing.

Since her father agreed to pay the rent for the first year, she wasn't worried about losing the space, but she felt guilty about going through her father's money with nothing to show for it.  To make matters worse, she discovered that her part time sales associate was stealing money from the register, so she had to let her go.

By the second year, the business continued to lose money at an alarming rate, which Dana couldn't understand.  She had originally thought that hard work and perseverance would lead to success, but this clearly wasn't the case.

When Dana's father told her that he wouldn't foot the bill for the rent any more, Dana felt like a failure.  They had to hire an attorney to get Dana out of her commercial lease.  After settling with the landlord and closing her business, Dana felt depressed.

Dana had to move back into her parents' home because she had no money to pay rent on her apartment, which made her feel worse.  For the first month, she was so depressed that she could barely get out of bed.

By the second month, when her parents told her that she needed to get a job, she reluctantly went back to her old job.  She feared that her old boss and coworkers would see her as a failure, but everyone was very kind to her.  Even so, she could barely look anyone in the eye when she first returned.

As her depression got worse, she came to see me for therapy to begin picking up the pieces of her life.  Initially, we worked on basic coping skills because Dana was having problems just getting out of bed and getting through the day.

After a few weeks, Dana was ready to deal with her grief about losing her business.  As we explored her experiences, she was able to see that a big part of her problem was a combination of her misconception that perseverance alone would make her successful and her inflexibility to follow advice from a seasoned business consultant.

Dana realized now that there were so many things she didn't know about having her own business, and she would have benefited from taking the continuing education course that the consultant recommended.

She also realized that, contrary to her feeling that she was "a total failure," there were a lot of things that she did right:  She had a good sense of what customers wanted and her merchandise sold, but her income was still so much less than her overhead.  She realized now that she had been too stubborn to see that there was a lot more that she would have needed to know to be successful.

After several months in therapy, Dana began to recover from her loss, and she signed up for the continuing education course on how to start her own business.  She also found a business partner to share in the expenses for her next clothing store.  After taking the course, she was in a much better position to try her hand again at having her own business.

It was a humbling experience for Dana, but her new willingness to be flexible and learn from her experience contributed to her eventual success.

Perseverance Isn't Always Enough
As Dana learned, hard work and perseverance isn't always enough for you to achieve your goals.  Sometimes, you need to be flexible and compromise in order to be successful.  This isn't always obvious at the start.  Often, you don't realize the need for flexibility until you're already involved in your project.

Many people, like Dana, have strong beliefs and fixed ideas about what they want to do and how they want to do it.  Successful people learn from experience and recognize when it's necessary to either change course or make modifications to their plan.

Getting Help in Therapy
If Dana's story resonates for you in a particular area of your life and you're having difficulty overcoming this problem on your own, you could benefit from seeking help from a licensed psychotherapist.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many psychotherapy clients to achieve their goals.

To find out more about me, visit my web site:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.