3 Reasons People May Sabotage Their Relationships

For some people, relationships are difficult to hang onto. As much as they crave closeness, they also cannot avoid engaging in behaviors that commit the relationship to failure. Relationship sabotage is puzzling for everyone, especially a partner who can’t understand why they’re being pushed away for no apparent reason. However, the saboteur is also not necessarily aware of what is causing this paradoxical behavior.

Perhaps you have a close relative who seems to be unable to stay in a relationship for very long. In the beginning, these relationships always appear to be headed for great success. Your relative is optimistic about where things are heading, and you cross your fingers that this will be “the one.” Invariably, it all starts to fizzle out and your relative is thrust into misery, once again. From what you understand about the cause of this devolution, it seems to lie squarely in your relative’s court. As far as you can tell, your relative said some things that were hurtful to the new partner, pushing the person until they had no choice but to end things.

You’ve seen it happen before, even at times with you. Knowing that you are particularly fond of a well-known singer, this person goes out of their way to criticize their talent. You’re used to this, but it annoys you nevertheless. Why does this keep happening?

The Dynamics of Relationship Sabotaging

As noted by University of Southern Queensland’s Raquel Peel and Nerina Caltabiano (2021), an individual’s attachment style can provide part of the explanation as to why relationship sabotage occurs. You may be aware of a history in your relative’s past that would support this explanation. Their parents tended to be neglectful, leaving the children in that family to fend for themselves. No wonder your relative has difficulty maintaining an intimate connection with others.

An insecure attachment style, or the belief that others can’t be trusted, can make adult relationships feel tenuous as well. People with insecure attachment styles, in addition to being avoidant of closeness, may instead fear being close to others because they believe they will end up getting hurt.

However, Peel and Caltabiano believe that attachment style on its own is not enough to account for the chronic tendency to get in the way of a relationship’s success. The additional factor needed to explain this behavior involves motivation. Starting with an insecure attachment style, the individual sets out on a path intended to protect against being hurt. Citing previous research, the authors suggest that “individuals with insecure attachment often expect their relationships will fail, which in turn means they were less likely to express concerns and engage in strategies to resolve issues with their partners.” The fear a relationship will fail becomes, in other words, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's also important to contrast relationship sabotage to self-sabotage or self-handicapping, the tendency to prevent success by arranging situations that will guarantee failure. People who engage in this behavior are dealing with internal struggles that make it hard for them to accept the accolades that would likely follow a success. You’ve probably heard of people who can’t “hold onto” success. They may feel that, as the expression goes, they’re “not worthy.”

In relationship sabotage, a similar process may apply. However, all cases of this phenomenon don’t look the same. Some people may feel that they don’t deserve relationship happiness, but others may be embroiled in a cycle where they move through relationships too quickly if the partner doesn’t seem to be “the one.” People in this group stay in relationships that are unsatisfying but don’t make efforts to improve them.

Measuring Relationship Sabotage

The various patterns of relationship sabotage suggest that any explanation of this behavior must rely on more than one theoretical vantage point. The paper's authors believed that both attachment style and motivational theories can provide a useful start for characterizing chronic self-saboteurs. They began by pilot testing on an online sample of 321 adults (average age of 29) with an instrument based on prior research, which they then subjected to statistical scale analysis. Next, they moved on to a second online test sample of 608 participants (average age of 32) for running the refined scale. Finally, a third validational study on 436 adults (average age of 27) compared scores on the new measure with other, related instruments, including measures of attachment style, perceived relationship satisfaction (for current relationship), and a performance-based self-handicapping scale.

The final instrument, supported through both scale testing and validational analyses, consisted of the following items. Try it out for yourself, rating each statement on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree):

1. I get blamed unfairly for issues in my relationship.
2. I often feel misunderstood by my partner.
3. I constantly feel criticized by my partner.
4. My partner makes me feel a lesser person.
5. I get upset about how much time my partner spends with their friends.
6. I believe that to keep my partner safe I need to know where my partner is.
7. I often get jealous of my partner.
8. I sometimes check my partner’s social media profiles.
9. When I notice that my partner is upset, I try to put myself in their shoes so I can understand where they are coming from (reversed).
10. I am open to finding solutions and working out issues in the relationship (reversed).
11. I will admit to my partner if I know I am wrong about something (reversed).
12. I am open to my partner telling me about things I should do to improve our relationship (reversed).

Statistical analysis of these 12 items revealed that they fell into three scales, each with four items. They are defined as follows:

• Defensiveness. Items 1 to 4 (average score 2.9). This appears to be a common approach used by relationship saboteurs, and this scale was the strongest of all three. People high on defensiveness not only protect themselves out of fear of rejection but also are most likely to engage in either attack or withdrawal when involved in conflict with a partner. Both of these methods, known in relationship research as two of the “four horsemen” of the "relationship apocalypse," will almost invariably contribute to a relationship’s ending.
• Trust difficulty. Items 5 to 8: (average score 2.9). People with trust issues don’t just fear rejection, but can also become so clingy and demanding that the partner has almost no choice but to push them away. This lack of trust is related not only to attachment style, the authors suggest, but also to “a previous experience of betrayal or the expectation of betrayal.”
• Lack of relationship skills. Items 9 to 12 (average score 2.0). People who have poor relationship skills invariably will contribute to a relationship’s ending but, more specifically, in this context, added on are “unrealistic representations (e.g., fairy tale beliefs),” leading them to “tend to withdraw effort to repair the relationship.” They just give up when things don’t work out because, in their idealistic universe, a good relationship should just run on autopilot.

Relationships Essential Reads

Resentment's Toll on Sexual Intimacy

Building Lasting Romantic Connections

Helping the Relationship Saboteur

Knowledge of the dynamics involved in relationship sabotage can give you insight into how to help people who, like your relative, seem to condemn all their relationships to an early demise. Not only are they fearful of abandonment, but they also lack some basic insights into how to make troubled relationships better, including the relationships that deteriorate as a function of their sabotaging.

You may also be able to detect a bit of the relationship saboteur in you, or possibly your partner. How many times do you do a little too much checking on where your partner is and what they’re doing? Might there be instances where, looking at the third factor, you feel that your relationship is falling short of a romantic movie’s ending? It’s possible that you’ve become a little bit too perfectionistic in your views of what a good relationship looks like.

To sum up, it’s safe to assume that people who engage in relationship sabotage don’t like what they’re doing when they leave partners behind or push them away. By understanding these dynamics, they can be helped to accept relationships, with both their limitations and their joys.

Facebook image: PeopleImages.com - Yuri A/Shutterstock