5 Signs You're In A Relationship You're Not Meant To Be In

I'm sure we're all familiar with the idea of a relationship being "meant to be."

When it comes to relationships, it’s especially easy to excuse the work that needs to be done with a partner to make things work, because you suddenly you simply feel like the relationship is just not “meant to be”.

At the same time, it's important to recognize that many relationships really aren’t meant to be. We enter with good honest intentions, trusting the other person fully, and do everything we can to save it. But we’re only 50% of the relationship coin, so we don’t have full control of it going south.

In other words, whether or not your relationship is “meant to be” won't be determined by the universe defining your future, but more by how much work you decide to put into your relationship. And if you feel you have done all that you can, then it wasn’t meant to be.

If you feel that you didn’t do as much as you could, let’s move away from the word "meant," and start actively looking at signs. 

Signs don’t leave much room for excuses as long as you have clarified your vision, and are taking ownership of your ability to see them. Many times, we are not able to see signs or we minimize them due to the emotion residue a relationship can create.

So let’s review some neon signs that I believe means you’re relationship is not “meant to be." Just a note, before I start: If you’ve seen these signs in previous relationships but didn’t get out when you should have, go easy on yourself. You had different lenses then. The purpose of this post isn’t to make you feel bad, regretful, or panicked if you’re in a relationship now and seeing some of these signs. It’s just a reminder to sharpen your radar and possibly have some things to chew on and by chew on I mean communicate with your partner.

So here are the five signs you’re in a relationship you’re not “meant to be" in.

1. You don’t feel like you.

Everything you’ve liked about yourself, who you are, what makes you uniquely you, is gone or faded.

Unfortunately, this happens a lot in relationships. I coach people going through this all the time. And it happens very gradually — otherwise we would stop it right away.

Whether we or they know it or not, many of our partners try to control us and stamp it as love. Over time, this process slowly strips away at who we are or want to be. Then one day, we wake up, look in the mirror and don’t recognize ourselves anymore. This is a sign, a bad one. It means something’s wrong. The bottom has dropped out.

Now let me stop here and note that it doesn’t mean it’s 100% the other person’s fault. You may find this to be a pattern in all your relationships which means the common denominator then is you. Because it’s easy to lose ourselves in our relationships.

This usually happens due to a distorted understanding of love as self-sacrifice, rather than thinking about it in terms of healthy compromises and growing together. If you follow the logic of this mindset, you'll usually end up thinking about your upbringing and what you learned about the experience of love as a child.

The key is to be aware and work on finding yourself again. No matter what that takes. If you don’t, you’re not bringing you to the relationship. You’re bringing your conditioning.

2. You are constantly trying to prove your worth. 

It’s bad enough that we have to constantly seek our worth in the world. But if we’re also doing this in our relationship, there’s something wrong. That’s the one place where you shouldn’t have to prove your worth.

But how do you know if you’re constantly trying to prove your worth? First, start by acknowledging that there’s a difference between seeking approval and validation, which we all do to a certain extent, and seeking your worth or value.

Now, here are some signs that you are having to constantly seek your worth in a relationship.

• You are rarely heard.
• Your ideas are shot down.
• Your partner doesn’t support your dreams.
• You rarely get to talk about you.
• Your partner may listen to you but they don’t hear you.
• You feel invisible.

Now, I'll clarify by saying that it’s not your partner's job to make you feel valuable, but it is their job to create a safe space where your worth is encouraged and grown instead of ignored or even bashed. Your relationship shouldn’t make you feel invisible. It should make you feel invincible.

3. You feel like you’re witnessing a relationship instead of being in one.

Many people get to a state where they let life happen to them instead of allowing them to happen to life — engaging and truly living at their fullest, making their dent in the universe. This turns you stale and grayed out. You start to go through the motions of life rather than living in one and slowly drift. You become a witness of your life.

This can also happen in relationships. You go through the motions but you are not present. You know that you’re "taken," not single. You know the important dates and when to buy gifts. You know the routine for dinner. You know what s/he likes in bed.

But all this is information, not presence. You know the relationship but no longer engage in it. The relationship is no longer built on passion. It’s built on routines. If you believe in your heart of hearts that this is due to him or her more than you and your own stuff, it’s a big sign. Scratch that. It’s a giant a banner that says “You Guys Are Not Meant To Be."

4. You break up with you.

At some point, you ended the relationship you had with yourself. You gave up. You gave in. And you may not even know it.

Maybe you convinced yourself that this is what a relationship looks like. But unsurprisingly, the ideas you had of being with someone who pulled you out of yesterday and gave you tomorrow was just a fantasy. Media made it up. Someone who would make you feel like you want to live longer, be stronger are only characters, in books or in your head. Love on that level doesn’t exist. It’s scripted.

And it's the realization that we haven’t been getting any water or sun from the relationship has caused you to stop working on and believing in yourself. You decided to hide instead. But what you’re really doing is taking since you’re only offering a shell of yourself.

Whatever the case, you and your needs are no longer in the equation. They don’t matter so you don’t matter and the relationship you had with yourself has expired. If this is where you’re at because of your relationship, you are probably not meant to be in this relationship. At this point, it’s not about signs. It’s about whys. 

5. They wear orange pants.

Seriously.

If you're interested in learning more about what to look for when looking to find the one, click here to begin your journey toward an awesome relationship. 

Photo Credit: Stocksy

by John Kim

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