Five Relationship Termites

By Bill Cottringer

     Even the best of relationships have to be cautious of five varieties of termites eating away at their foundations. The best relationships usually involve two people taking enough time in the very beginning to build a very strong termite-proof foundation, but even then these four termites can have tremendous appetites and wreck a lot of havoc, without regular extermination inspections. When you build the relationship as you go, you have to keep an eye out for not inadvertently including these termites in your building materials, which can then become really be hard to get rid of.

      Here are the five main termites that can threaten the well-being of relationships:

 DISHONESTY

      Emotions and timing often blur the line between honesty and dishonesty. The fact is that we are all in the process of growing out of dishonesty and into honesty. When two people are not doing this at the same speed or making similar efforts, the distinction gets even blurrier and more difficult to resolve. When dishonesty is a basic part of a person’s character, the termites have already destroyed the foundation. Obviously this problem is not going to have a happy ending, but fortunately most dishonesty termites start out in fewer numbers.

      The most important dishonesty to avoid is to not go into the relationship with a hidden agenda of un-communicated expectations, wants and needs, inabilities, preferences, potential deal-breakers, core values and goals. The commitment to grow into 100% openness and honesty is the covenant that guarantees a good termite-free relationship. This takes regular acceptance and encouragement on the part of both partners wanting a relationship without termites.

MISCOMMUNICATION

      Good communication is the concrete that holds the bricks together in the foundation of a good relationship, especially when it travels to the depth of emotional intimacy. The good news is that the more courage and effort that you put into building a safe, neutral place where peak communication can occur—where judgment, negativity, control, superiority, dishonesty and insensitivity are replaced with acceptance, positivism, freedom, equality, honesty and empathy—the better the communication is to build a strong relationship which is resistive to all four termite varieties.

      The bad news is that when these things aren’t there from the very beginning, all conflicts, differences and problems become tasty food for this ravenous, insatiable termite. And it becomes very difficult to resolve serious conflicts or significant differences with the same communication style that both created it and continue to be a big part of aggravating the situation. However, the solution is rather easy: When in doubt stop assuming and take the time to clarify and really understand the miscommunication and misunderstanding, without comparing it to the answers you think you already know.

INTOLERANCE

     The safest assumption we can make is that we are all flawed human beings heavily burdened with significant past trauma, limitations, bad habits, strange foibles, peculiarities than can be annoying, different expectations and preferences, and value and interest differences that can be relationship deal-breakers. The best we can do is know ahead of time what the deal-breakers are and not even get involved in relationships where this intolerance termite will just make them worse.

      When you are madly in love, you tend to gloss over potential differences in each other like they don’t even exit. But unfortunately you have to fall slightly out of romantic love and wake up to reality, as you prepare to get on with the real business in a relationship—loving and enjoying commonalities and celebrating and tolerating differences to help each other be your best. 

EXPECTATIONS

      Perhaps the King Kong Termite that is the most destructive in eating away the foundation of any relationship is the one that is most resistive to extermination—Mr. Expectation. The hardest challenge of life is to just live and experience things and people without having pre-arranged expectations about preferred or desired outcomes. This is just an insidious termite of wrong judgment that contaminates the goods unnecessarily.

      So how do you exterminate this particularly prominent pest? Simply with close study and careful understanding. When you slow down and begin to see the connection between what you expect and what you do to get it, a light bulb will go off to let you know there really aren’t any connections, because they are all in your mind. Then when you stop dividing what you get from what you do, in half—okay or not okay—then you double the harvest!  From a strictly rational point of view, that is good enough reason to stop the silliness.

  COMPLACENCY

      Once things get “good enough” there is a natural tendency to back off the effort to make them better. This termite sneaks on the scene when you least expect it and can take a big chunk out of the foundation before anyone notices the house is crumbling. Since we are now living in a world of uncertainty, nothing can be taken for granted, especially the quality of a relationship. Relationships need constant nurturing and people need frequent affirmations and encouragement; without these things mediocrity can set in quicker than a New York second. Openness and willingness to grow and improve is not something anyone perfects; it is a road always under construction.

 So, the common sense termite prevention and extermination guidelines are:

 1.  Focus on your own self to become less dishonest and more honest.
2. Communicate the good things—freedom, equality, positivism, acceptance, honesty and empathy.
3.  Know your deal-breakers and grow your tolerance of inevitable differences.
4.   Live and let live with fewer expectations of others.
5.  Never give into the tendency to take something for granted.