
When I was 17 years old, my parents got divorced after 30 years of marriage. I wasn’t shocked; things had been building up for decades.
After some time passed and it felt appropriate, I asked both of my parents separately what went wrong in their opinion. To my surprise, they both shared the same sentiment.
There wasn’t a moment where everything went wrong, it was decades of small things that had eventually just gotten to be too much to tolerate.
Watch: Relationship Deal Breakers. Post continues below.
Talking to them made me realise that the seemingly "small" issues have just as much potential to destroy your relationship as the big issues.
Here are some examples of mistakes that can cause long-term damage.
1. Constantly bringing up what your partner did "wrong".
When my best friend moved in with her boyfriend, they had a little party, and there was a couple in attendance – let’s call them Tony and Alicia.
In the middle of the party, Alicia began talking loudly about things Tony had done in the past that upset her. Loudly, she told us a story about how she had been out with some friends and he wouldn’t pick her up from the bar and she got stuck there for hours.
There were multiple examples Alicia used of things that Tony had done "wrong" and Tony was visibly uncomfortable and embarrassed.