How You Sabotage Your Relationships

Have you ever wondered why perfectly good relationships fall apart despite everyone's best intentions? In this eye-opening exploration of relationship self-sabotage, Coach Duran tackles the unconscious behaviors that derail promising connections and offers practical wisdom to break these destructive patterns.

Drawing from personal experience and observations, Coach Duran identifies several critical factors that lead to relationship sabotage. First, many people simply aren't ready for commitment—whether from inexperience or recent heartbreak—and need time to discover who they are independently. The common fantasy that something better awaits often leads to taking good partners for granted, only to discover later how rare genuine connection truly is.

Uncertainty about personal wants and needs emerges as another relationship killer. When someone can't define what matters in a partnership, they tend to hesitate even when things are going well, constantly wondering about other possibilities instead of nurturing what's in front of them. Coach Duran emphasizes that healthy relationships should naturally progress forward, not stall due to indecision or fear.

Perhaps most illuminating is Coach Duran's perspective on maintaining individuality within relationships. Having personal goals outside your partnership keeps both people growing, curious about each other, and fundamentally attractive to one another. Whether through fitness challenges, intellectual pursuits, or creative outlets, personal development strengthens both individuals and their bond. The final relationship destroyer—poor communication—transforms minor irritations into relationship-ending resentments when left unaddressed.

Ready to stop sabotaging your connections and build relationships that last? Subscribe for more insights on healing from trauma, breaking toxic cycles, and creating the life you deserve. Share your own experiences in the comments—what relationship patterns have you noticed in yourself or others?

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Relationship Sabotage
• 1:09 Not Ready for Relationships
• 5:58 Unclear About What You Want
• 8:15 Goals Outside of the Relationship
• 11:15 Poor Communication Destroys Good Relationships
• 13:43 Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So we're going to talk about how you can stop sabotaging good relationships. This is something that I've been guilty of and something I consistently see people do unconsciously. People who are good people, who have good intentions, unconsciously just say and do the wrong things within their relationship. So I'm going to break down the key reasons why that happens. If you're new to my channel, my name is Coach Duran. I help people heal from trauma, break toxic cycles and ultimately rebuild themselves and get the life that they ultimately are trying to live in, that they deserve. If anything I say resonates with you, feel free to buy me a coffee. There's a link in the description below. Also, I'm meeting with my subscribers, if that's something that you're interested in. Also, I'm meeting with my subscribers. If that's something that you're interested in, we can share. You can share your story with me. You can ask me a kind of question and we can get into it. So if you're interested in something like that, there's a link in the description to that as well. But anyways, let's get into it. So I have my notes next to me and I'm going to be referencing my notes throughout this video, my notes throughout this video.

Speaker 1: 1:08

But one thing that I see across the board, regardless of what your age group is, is that people? They sabotage their relationships because they're just simply not ready for a relationship. That could be because they lack life experience, or they just recently got out of a relationship. That can be a marriage or any kind of long-term relationship situation. I've known plenty of people who've been in relationships that they may have known each other since they were in high school. They've been together since they were in high school. They've been in a 10-year relationship, sometimes longer, and then all of a sudden they start getting the itch to see what's out there. They feel like, because they've been in this relationship for so long, that maybe they're missing out on something or they don't really know who they are, which I completely understand and because of this they start fantasizing about what life would be like with somebody else. A lot of the reason that this happened is because when you jump into a relationship at a really young age, you really don't know who you are. You don't know what really makes a relationship work. You could have a great relationship, but the simple fact that you don't have. You may have not seen a good example of it growing up, or you just may not have enough life experience to really know what you're getting. When you've been with somebody for so long, it's easy to take that person for granted. Things that you once liked. They start to become dull and boring. You start comparing your partner to other people, so you start doing things and saying things that ultimately start to divide the two of you. Your partner's anxiety grows, your anxiety grows within the relationship and then ultimately you guys call it quits or you get a divorce.

Speaker 1: 2:49

We've all heard of the statement the grass is greener, and I think it goes something like the grass is greener where you water the grass, something like that. But for whatever reason, people don't really understand that a relationship is only going to be as great as you make it understand that a relationship is only be as great as you make it. You're not going to go out there and find something that's amazingly better, especially if there's no kind of abuse in that relationship or deceit within that relationship. Not all of us have been fortunate enough to find our person at a really young age, so this only applies to a very small group of people. But I've seen it time and time again. There's guys complaining on the internet about women don't want a good man and I've actually had friends and family members who have had long-term relationships in because simply because they've been with that person since they were in their teens I think it's completely normal and healthy to go on a self-discovery phase of your life and I ultimately encourage people to continue working on themselves within that relationship. But in a lot of cases especially for those of you who are listening in a lot of those cases you're rarely going to find somebody that was better than your last partner, especially if they were a good partner. That rarely happens. You're going to go through a lot of different drama. You're going to have a lot of different experiences, a lot of heartache, a lot of unexpected surprises, and these things are ultimately needed for you to actually have a lot more appreciation for your person.

Speaker 1: 4:15

And when you've been in a long-term relationship and you just ended that relationship, you need time to really heal and focus on yourself. You need time to reset. Your entire identity has been tied to that previous relationship. You don't know who you are outside of that relationship. So when you jump into something really soon, even if it feels good at some point in time, a part of you is going to want to break free. It's going to want to break free because you haven't been free for a long period of time.

Speaker 1: 4:43

If you find yourself in this situation, I think that it's very important that you communicate where you are at within your relationship journey. You don't want to Don't screw over good people. Good people are very rare. You rarely meet somebody who wants to be in your life with good intentions. They want to grow, they want to help you grow and they want to build something with you. If you find yourself in that situation, the best thing you can do is just say, hey, I'm not ready. You know, I've just been. I just got out of a relationship. I need time to figure out who I am, to discover what's best for me. I need to date. Figure out who I am, to discover what's best for me. I need to date. It's going to be hard for somebody to hear, especially if they're into you, but it's the healthiest, the right thing to do, because if you do things the right way and say things just don't work out down the road, you can ultimately come back People who care about you, who really have strong feelings for you. They're not going to get rid of you just because they'll be upset initially, but ultimately they're going to have to understand that and then they need to actually focus on strengthening their own independence, being strong without you, because it takes two strong individuals, two complete individuals, to actually make a relationship work, even though that really happens.

Speaker 1: 5:58

The next reason people destroy good relationships is because they, ultimately they don't. They don't know what they want. I've known people who have been in long term relationships. They've been, say, they've been dating somebody for a few months and everything is going good, but they haven't made that person, they haven't committed to that person in relationship, not because a person is a good person, not because there's not a connection, but simply because they're still thinking about what are their other options going to look like? They want to date other people. They're afraid that if they commit to this person, that they're not going to be able to explore or do whatever is out there. The reason that this happens is because, ultimately, you don't know what you want. Things are good, it feels healthy, but because you're not sure what you need or what you desire within a relationship, you're kind of wasting that person's time. I've known plenty of men who have been with women who are cool or great. They talk about the woman all the time, but they're not taking things to that next stage and not taking it to that next stage because they're so worried about the future things that haven't happened yet that they're putting the brakes on the relationship.

Speaker 1: 7:06

When a relationship is going good, it should accelerate in the positive direction. You shouldn't be pumping your brakes. And because you don't have a clear idea of what you want, what you need, what character, what characteristics are important for that relationship to actually work, you start to fantasize about other people and you start dating other people and comparing that person to these other people, rather than building what you need within your current relationship. That's why it's important to sit down with yourself and ask yourself like what's ultimately going to make me happy? Looks are going to fade, but, yes, you do need to be attracted to your person. Those looks are going to fade. So what is the character like? What are the values like? Does this person raise my anxiety? Are they good for my mental health? These are the things that matter in a relationship. Experienced enough of life and you got an idea of what's out there and you have a degree of content, you're always going to wonder about the next best thing. And for number three, this is going to be pretty unique, but this is what I think.

Speaker 1: 8:15

I think that it's very important for people to have goals outside of the relationship. A relationship, you guys are building things, you're building the future. You probably have life, probably have family together, have kids, but it's important that you don't lose yourself within a relationship. It's very common in a relationship for people to stop hanging out with their friends, they stop doing their hobbies and they make this person the focus of their life. But you need to keep doing the things that actually made you attractive in the first place. You need to be an individual.

Speaker 1: 8:52

I believe that both men and women should admire the person that they're in a relationship with. If you have goals, that means that you're always learning. You're always growing, because in order for you to even accomplish that goal, you have to evolve. You're always growing because, in order for you to even accomplish that goal, you have to evolve. You have to change and become a better version of who you are to actually make that goal a reality. This is going to make you more attractive. This is going to make your person a lot more curious about who you are and you're going to feel better about yourself because your identity isn't tied to something outside of you. You can't control people. You can't control the world outside of you. You can only control yourself and how you feel. So when you give yourself these goals, you're growing spiritually, you're strengthening your own self-worth and that energy is going to be reflected within your relationship and, ideally, you want a partner who's doing the same thing.

Speaker 1: 9:40

We hear things about I hear this consistently about women. Excuse me, men don't want strong women. They don't like men. Women who are ambitious and women have their things together. They're intimidated're ungrateful. They're what is a very common one Women aren't accountable. These people are dating people who are not in alignment with who they are. So you're getting conflict. You're you're the breadwinner, but you're trying to make you're trying to help your partner rise. At the same time, you can't make that person rise. That should be something that's instilled within that person, because when two people are taking care of themselves, that's going to make the relate, that's going to keep the relationship healthy and it's going to keep you guys excited and curious about one another. So make sure you have some kind of something going on for you outside of relationship. That can be a fitness goal. That can be even something small, like reading a book every month. You know you have you guys have new things to talk about. You know it could be getting into some kind of like fitness competition. I've seen things like that, like fitness competition. I've seen things like that, something that challenges you and it keeps your mind going. These types of things are ultimately going to help you feel better about who you are.

Speaker 1: 11:04

And lastly, I was hesitant about adding this because I hear it all the time, but it's honestly the truth and I think that it's the root of even how some of my relationships have ended. I personally, I have real good communication skills, but what we already said it relationships tend to fall apart because of poor communication. It can be things that bothered you, bothered you at the beginning ofain for that person in your relationship, things that were once very small, became a big part of what your relationship was looking like. There's cases where you just don't come out and say what ultimately bothers you, but instead you start criticizing your partner about little things like oh you know you never take me to this place, or you know you're so messy about this, and you can tell that you're frustrated, but rather than actually asking that person to take you where you wanted to go, or asking them if they would clean up more. You start to build up some kind of resentment towards your person and then that resentment carries on into other areas of your relationship.

Speaker 1: 12:16

I've even seen cases where you're seeing somebody, you're not communicating with them, and then you start, you trick your mind to believe in that this person isn't a good person, you're not compatible, and then you start exploring other people on the side. Maybe you get your needs met from a friend of the opposite sex, or you start dating other people. A friend of the opposite sex or you start dating other people. And this one, things get really nasty because when another person enters your relationship, you're going to start criticizing your partner. You're going to be way more critical, you're going to complain about little things and then something that was great over a period of a few months it starts to fall apart simply because you didn't communicate your needs early on. I know that communication is hard, but for me personally, I prefer for you to say whatever you need to say, whether it comes out right or wrong, as long as I know, because if I don't know, there's no way for me to actually address what's bothering you. Communicating your needs will help you build your confidence. It'll make you feel a lot more secure within a relationship. It'll make you feel heard.

Speaker 1: 13:24

There's a tendency for people to feel alone in their relationship, but they're the ones that's creating that, that issue within a relationship. They're the ones that making themselves lonely in that relationship. You're only alone if you choose to. If you share in your space, you're sharing your bed with someone. It's up to you to let that person know how you feel. But that's all I have for you today, if you liked. If you have anything else that I may have missed out, leave it in the comments. Anyways, like comment, subscribe and I'll catch you next time. Peace.