10 Warning Signs Your Relationship Is In Danger

It’s a tough call, to figure out which guy is going to break your heart. Do you count by numbers (every other guy) or do you pick at random (in which case it’s every guy). Ok that’s a little unjust and alright, we agree that there are a lot of decent guys out there and not everybody will break your heart, it’s just that they seem really difficult to find. Since that leaves us with the fact that every guy can be a heartbreaker, here are a few clues that might help you decide whether or not he’s a keeper.

1. He's Just Not That Into You

He doesn’t call, keeps you waiting for his calls, only goes out with you when you push him to, spends half his time on the phone when you’re on a date… you’re getting the picture here. “When we first started going out, my boyfriend did all the work, he’d call, make plans, give me all his attention, but after the first month it seemed like I was doing all the work in our relationship. Then I found out he was interested in another girl,” says Krutika Bal, a journalism trainee. If he’s into you, you will know. Because according to Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo who wrote the bestseller He’s Just Not That Into You, “If the guy thinks you’re worth it, he will do whatever is necessary. If he doesn’t, then he just doesn’t. He’s just not that into you.” And if he isn’t into you, don’t think of it as the next phase of your relationship, it’s more likely to be the end.

2. He Is Always Negative

You love the guy, but life’s really handed him a basket of lemons. Nothing’s going right for him anymore. In fact, it hasn’t been right for a long, long time now. Not at work, not at home, and oh God! You are really getting the blow by blow account on this (whether you like it or not). “I was really serious about this guy, he’d had a bad deal as a kid because his parents were divorced and he’d been raised in a pretty conventional community and he wasn’t top of his boss’s list at work, but the more I got to know him, the more I realised that he didn’t see a single good thing about his life. Or in mine. Every time I met, I’d feel like all my energy and happiness had been leeched out of me,” shudders Priti Gupta, a copywriter. Emotional vampires spread only the bad feelings around some, in fact, can revel in making what’s wrong in your life worse. They will break your heart in the long run, because they don’t want to be happy really, but in the meantime they will make you feel pretty bad about feeling happy about your life.\

3. He Always Knows Best

He’s always the one who is much more smarter, wiser, and sharper than you are or at least he thinks so, and that’s frankly the only opinion the man really cares about. And because he thinks that way, he will never think of you as an equal, though, if you are lucky enough, he will occasionally ‘indulge’ your views or demands. “I was totally dazzled by this amazing (or so I thought) older guy who was witty, well-read, rich, respected, and he was interested in me,” recalls dentist Dr Anisha Mehta. “In our conversations I realised that he knew a hell of a lot more than me, but I wasn’t exactly a dumb schmuck either. I knew what I knew, except that he always and I mean always knew better and would always either chuckle indulgently when I expressed an opinion or challenged him. I thought I loved him so I stuck to it for almost two years, but there’s a limit to how much I could take.” The guy who knows best will never take your opinion seriously. And guys who think it’s got to be their way or the highway, can make it especially unpleasant if you clash over important decisions, thinking that they’ve got to show you who’s the boss once and for all.

4. He Often Lies To You

This is not the person who fibs that he’s stuck in traffic while he’s actually just leaving work. No, no this guy will lie to you about everything, especially if it saves him from facing any unpleasantness. “I had a boyfriend who would lie at the first hint of trouble, or a serious talk, everything from where he’d been the night before to why he’d forgotten to do something important, or not called me,” says graphic designer Shipa Sharma. “The worst thing was that he was a perfectly decent guy otherwise and so we continued being together for two years before I finally saw the light.” The light being that if he lies to you about the little things, he will definitely lie about the bigger things. That, if he’s not able to face the consequences of his actions, he’s far from being mature, and even further away from being able to deal with the bad that goes with the good in every relationship. That lying does actually cover a multitude of sins, which means there’s a multitude of sins he might be committing behind your back.

5. He Doesn't Respect You

He laughingly calls you a fat cow when he’s talking about the weight you’ve put on (even though your doctor, your friends, and everyone you know tell you you’re absolutely fine), or puts you down in front of people saying ‘don’t be stupid’ or apologises for remarks you make with comments like ‘she doesn’t know what she is talking about’. Or he makes you feel sexually undesirable whenever you try to get close to him. It’s obvious. He just doesn’t respect you. “Every time my boyfriend and I had a fight he would call me a lot of nasty names and attack the way I looked, and spoke, I would end up being so low about it, I felt miserable about being myself,” says Sangeeta *, who works in an export house. It may all seem like so many words, but disrespect is one of those insidious weapons that wear down your self-esteem without you even realising it. A lot of women don’t realise when they are being put down because we’re so used to picking on our flaws too. But you know that bit about love being blind. If he loved you, he’d like things about you rather than disliking them and pointing out all your failings.

6. You've Never Met His Pals

Which makes you his guilty little secret. Or somebody he’s not serious about at all, you might just be the flavour of the month. Or maybe he’s got to be far more serious about you before that can happen. So what if you’ve been together for two years. “I introduced this guy to all my friends and family because I was pretty serious about him. But mostly we would spend a lot of time together, as a couple because we were so into each other. Things didn’t work out as it turned out that he hadn’t been as serious about me, but it was only when we broke up that I realised I knew none of his friends,” says PR person, Ruchika Vora. If she had been watching carefully, she would have realised that not knowing his friends was a good sign that things weren’t going to work out between them. Because when you’re really serious about someone and happy you’ve found them, you want everybody to know. And friends are usually the people you tell first.

7. He Is In A Troubled Marriage

Yes, yes, he’s divorcing her, and only you really understand him, and you completely see that the entire process may take a little while. But in the meantime, are you cast in the unhappy role of other woman reduced to meeting in secret, in places where nobody will recognise you? Or maybe only meeting at home (your place, of course), because there are too many people you need to avoid. Do you spend holidays together, especially important occasions like birthdays or New Year or important festive occasions? “My boss was on his second marriage when I started going around with him. I stayed with him for five years through which he kept promising me that he was divorcing her, but she was holding things up, refusing to allow him to leave, and I bought it,” shrugs HR person Sandhya*. “Thankfully the time finally arrived when I couldn’t close my eyes to it anymore. He was never going to leave her in the first place.” If a man stays married to a woman, don’t listen to the excuses, it’s because he wants to stay married to her. He’s only cheating on her. And he’s likely to cheat on you too.

8. He's Not Willing To Commit

You want the wedding and the honeymoon and he wants only the honeymoon and the honeymoon. He skirts serious relationship questions and is completely unwilling to talk about where things are going. Heck, he doesn’t even want to make plans for six months down the line. You’ve got a problem alright. “I met someone over a year ago, and we really hit it off,” says Charu Bhutani, a content writer. “He would call me from work daily, saying that he missed me and couldn’t wait to see me again. But the closer we got, the more he started to pull away from me. Finally, I threw in the towel, realising that even though we were compatible in many other ways, he was not emotionally ready for a relationship.” If he’s not ready to commit —it doesn’t have to mean marriage, it can be as little as acknowledging the fact that you are a couple—then it means there’s only one person in the relationship, which basically means there isn’t any relationship or any future.

9. He Cheats On You

Gosh, there’s no denying that there was too much alcohol and that woman was all over him, but where’s the guarantee that such a situation will never arise again. And did we miss that thing called will power. “I was in a relationship with a guy who would have slept with anybody,” says Joyeeta*, “the fact that he wasn’t sleeping with every woman I knew was because they hadn’t agreed to sleep with him. Why did I stay with him, because he kept telling me the sex didn’t matter, it was me he truly loved. I bought it for far too long.” Cheating’s a bit like murder, it gets easier as you go along. And the man who slips up once is likely to slip up twice or thrice. No matter how many excuses we can manage, the truth is that if he cheated, it was because he wanted to. And this is a pretty good time to bring up chronic flirting with other women, whether behind your back or in front of you, it shows a lack of respect for you. Not a good line to cross.

10. You're On Tenterhooks About Him

If you’re in love with him and it is reciprocated then odds are you should be feeling smug, complacent and safe. But if your man is making you anxious, or think that you have to prove yourself, or scared that the wrong words or actions will hurt your relationship, chances are you’re not with the right guy. According to Kathryn Alice, author of Love Will Find You, being with the right person, “strengthens you, lifts you up and does not produce anxiety. When something isn’t right, your intuition tries to let you know by putting doubts in your mind as well as continual anxiety. So if a guy is giving you anxiety attacks, or a constant feeling of uneasiness, think about what’s causing it, chances are there’s a relationship breaker in there.

By Nishat Fatima