Why You Should Stop Badmouthing Your Boyfriend Unless You Want Him to Become Your Ex

How often do you catch yourself criticizing the things your boyfriend does or says? Are his flaws really so bad or are you being unfair? It’s very possible that you’ve started a trend of badmouthing your boyfriend without even realizing it. Unless you’re wanting your guy to break up with you, you need to stop criticizing him and start treating him with respect.

  1. It’s not all about you. Relationships, for the most part, make people happy. If they didn’t, we probably wouldn’t have any desire to enter into them. When you first started dating your boyfriend, you probably did it because you thought it would make you happy, and that’s fine. But as the relationship progresses, you have to realize something—it’s not all about you. His job is not to be your only source of happiness. That’s YOUR job.
  2. He’s a human being who deserves respect. Have you ever witnessed a woman reaming out her significant other in public? Maybe you’ve even BEEN that woman. It’s cringe-worthy to watch but I can’t imagine what it feels like to be that guy. How demoralizing. If you don’t acknowledge that your boyfriend is first foremost a human being who deserves respect and kindness, you don’t deserve him.
  3. His feelings are just as important as yours. On a very basic level, we all know this. We’ve been taught this ever since we were kids. We learned about equality and I sure hope that’s something we’re all striving toward. Sometimes, though, we see a shift happen in a relationship. When you start becoming more interested in competing with your significant other than being his biggest cheerleader, you begin to downplay his emotions. If you catch yourself doing this, you need to check yourself. Your feelings aren’t more important than his or anyone else’s.
  4. Your standards are out of whack. Just as you should consider his feelings to be equal to yours, you shouldn’t be holding him to a higher standard than you hold yourself. If you hear yourself saying things like, “You can’t do anything right,” you should remind yourself that neither can you. You’re not perfect and neither is he. High standards are great but unrealistic standards are just that—unrealistic. Re-evaluate or risk losing him forever.
  5. Being mean doesn’t impress anyone. I had a friend who more or less bullied her boyfriend. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why and then it hit me—she thought this would somehow make people admire her. “Ooh, you’re so tough for picking on your boyfriend,” said no one ever.
  6. He won’t love you forever. I mean, he must love you now—why else would he put up with your crap? If you consistently badmouth him in front of your friends or in private conversation with him, he should by all means leave. Stop using his love for you as an excuse to treat him poorly. One day, he’ll walk away and find someone who does respect him. If you love him, you need to fix this before it’s too late.
  7. His friends will definitely tell him. If his friends catch a whiff of how horribly you’re speaking to him, you better believe they’ll tell him how they feel about it. You can bet you’re not their favorite person at the moment. If you can think back and remember talking down to your boyfriend, you should apologize not only to him but to everyone else who was around when you disrespected him.
  8. Your friends will definitely judge you. As well they should, really. You might just be mortifying your friends by badmouthing your boyfriend in their presence. They may value their friendship with you so much though that they won’t want to speak up. But trust me—they’re thinking some bad thoughts about you.
  9. You need to take a cold hard look at yourself. Despite your lapses in judgment, you’re not a bad person, but you need to start being honest with yourself. Why are you disrespecting your boyfriend? We don’t all come from “normal” backgrounds and healthy relationships can feel really foreign if you’ve never been in one before. Whatever the reason, you can’t use it as an excuse for mistreating someone.
  10. You need to talk to him. If you’ve read through this list and realized you’re doing some of these things, it’s time to eat some humble pie. After you do the necessary soul-searching to figure out why you’ve been so hard on your guy, you need to discuss what you’ve discovered with him. He’s not going to be shocked when you admit you’ve badmouthed him. He was there. He knows it’s been happening. Show that you do respect him by making the effort to improve. Ask him to help you recognize when you’re being overly-critical. It’s commendable to admit mistakes and even more commendable when you work to rectify them. Your relationship can be salvaged if you’re committed to treating him better.
is a freelance lifestyle and relationship writer. She is an advocate for the childfree lifestyle and blogs about this decision on therinkydinklife.com. Brittany enjoys traveling with her husband, binge-watching Netflix, and is a little too obsessed with her two Boston Terriers.
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