We all bring our own past experiences, points of view, and desires for our futures into our relationships, and cultivating a meaningful connection requires ongoing communication and healthy compromise. When you begin a new relationship with authenticity or are starting over in a relationship, you set honesty as an expectation for the future of the relationship.
Starting a relationship on a healthy path means discussing your expectations, boundaries, and deal breakers from the start. Being open and honest about what you will and won’t tolerate from the start can help alleviate any negative behaviors before they become entrenched and difficult to change.
What Are Relationship Deal Breakers?
Deal breakers are behaviors, values, and characteristics of a potential long-term partner that you fundamentally disagree with and are useful tools to help prevent unhealthy behaviors, unbalanced relationship roles, or potentially dangerous situations. Discussing your dating deal breakers helps you identify any deal breakers in a potential partner and can bring you closer if you and they are aligned.
Universal Relationship Deal Breakers
While some deal breakers can be flexible and allow for some compromise, others are significant red flags that cannot be ignored. These are the biggest relationship deal breakers that are grounds for an immediate breakup.
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse should never be tolerated in any relationship and is an immediate relationship deal breaker. If your partner is physically abusive, they are enforcing power, control, and other manipulative tactics to disrespect and harm you.
If you can walk away immediately, do so. If you can’t leave right away, reach out to a friend, family member, or professional for assistance. And if you can’t safely leave the relationship, contact your local domestic violence hotline for support and safety.
Verbal and Emotional Abuse
Communication is an important tool for understanding your partner. Unfortunately, it can also be used as a weapon to harm, demean, threaten, and control. If your partner uses language to criticize instead of connect, it is a big red flag. That includes:
- Insulting your character, calling you names
- Yelling, screaming, or threatening to punish or expose you
- Tries to alter the past to make them look better or using your past as an intention to hurt you
- Makes you feel that you are always in the wrong or need to make up for hurting them
- Controlling your actions, attire, routines, or contacts with friends and family
Cheating
Nontraditional lifestyles and relationship formats are more accepted these days, so it’s important to discuss your preferences for romantic and sexual arrangements from the beginning.
Whether you choose to be in a monogamous, poly, or other lifestyle, discuss your expectations, boundaries, and agreed-on allowances of how you will navigate romantic and sexual encounters within your relationships.
If your partner isn’t honoring those agreements, it’s a sign that they were not open and honest, which is a top deal breaker and cause for separation.
Substance Abuse
Addictions are historically deeply rooted maladaptive reactions to one’s journey through their life experiences, relationships, and predominantly through traumas. Substance abuse can cause enormous strain on relationships, and can even become the cause for arguments and lack of quality time. If the using partner is not ready to relinquish the hold and seek help towards recovery, the substances will always overpower and win. You do not want to be second to a mind and body-altering substance, so take this as a red flag and move on.
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What Are Personal Relationship Deal Breakers?
Personal deal breakers are characteristics and core values you witness in a partner that deviate from yours in a way that you are unable or uncomfortable to live with.
Meeting a potential romantic partner provides an opportunity to express your wants, needs, and non-negotiables for the relationship from the start. Listed below are the most common deal breakers you can bring to your new partner and discuss where each of you stands, identify where you might be willing to compromise, and decide if you need to find someone more compatible.
Kids
Children are often the top relationship deal breakers or deal makers. With child-free couples being more accepted and growing access to careers and education, more and more people can choose children rather than be expected to have them.
This new flexibility makes it paramount to discuss your choices for or against children at the beginning of a relationship so you know if your paths will align or diverge.
Their Friends
Meeting your partner’s friends allows you to get an additional glimpse into their world. If you like their friends and are comfortable around them, you will feel more confident when you meet with them for events and trust your partner with them. However, if you are unable to connect, respect, or interweave yourself with your partner’s social circles, it can feel frustrating and isolating, which could cause future conflict.
Different Saving or Spending Habits
Finances are one of the crucial pillars of our livelihood and are a common relationship deal breaker for many.
Make sure your financial habits align or complement each other by asking questions about how each manages their financial responsibilities, fun money, and even what they are saving for. Your partner may be more interested in possessions, and you may be more interested in experiences. While differences are natural, it’s important to discuss how your differing lifestyles will work with or against one another.
Different Social, Political, or Religious Beliefs
Knowing your partner’s preferences and affiliations can help you understand how they navigate the world. What are their individual religious, spiritual, or otherwise beliefs? How important or not important is it to you and them? How do your political affiliations impact you and your relationships? If you’re looking for a long-term partner, use open questioning to discover if there is compatibility because strong opposing views without flexibility in these categories could be a recipe for disaster.
Being Needy or Clingy
No matter how close the couple, we all need time and space on our own to explore our personal interests and grow as individuals. A clingy partner can vastly limit your ability to engage in activities without your partner or to find personal space. It can also add feelings of pressure, responsibility, and expectations to entertain and be the sole person for your partner. Always having a partner in need is exhausting and can become a major deal breaker in many relationships.
Lack of Aspiration
Aspirations set your path and guide you in your desired direction. Seeing our partner move toward their aspirations and goals makes them more desirable because we see them growing more confident and assured of who they are.
A partner who can’t or won’t move toward their independent aspirations or can’t tap into their uniqueness is often a relationship deal breaker, particularly when you’re looking for someone who is ambitious or a go-getter.
Lack of Trust
Trust plays a crucial role in a successful relationship. It provides respect, reliability, and confidence in each other. A healthy relationship grows when you can depend on your partner to be accessible, supportive, and present in the relationship. If you can’t trust your partner, you may find yourself resentful and angry, leading to future strife in your otherwise committed relationship.
Won’t Introduce You
Introducing you to friends and family after the first or second date is often a relationship red flag. However, not meeting friends and family is also a red flag and is often one of the big deal breakers in relationships.
Some people may be shy about bringing new partners around family and friends due to experiences with past relationships or a tense relationship in the present. But if you believe you’re in a committed, long-term, and successful relationship, you should meet your partner’s family and friends eventually. Not introducing you could indicate a larger issue with this person and you should consider moving on.
Unwilling to Compromise
We all bring our individuality and preferences into relationships but take note if your partner is stubborn, stuck in their ways, or uninterested in your viewpoint. Being with someone who can’t or won’t compromise results in a lot of rigid conflict that you will rarely feel good about.
Poor Communication
Connection is one of the pivotal advantages of being in a relationship, but if you are unable to communicate, you won’t develop a deep and meaningful connection.
If you are feeling unheard or unable to understand your partner, you will have a hard time discovering each other and planning for your future. Take notice of your behaviors and look for flexibility and compromise. If it’s not there, find someone who will match better with and for you.
Unwilling to Try New Things
We are filled with more and more access to the world, and many of us want to experience it! Couples report that a top quality they appreciate about their partner is their love for traveling and having new experiences together. If you and your partner aren’t on the same page about trying new things, you may spend a lot of time apart and experience a lack of passion. Evaluate if this is a deal breaker for you or if you don’t mind having mostly solo adventures.
Mismatched Lifestyles
While experiencing the same new things together is part of the relationship equation, mismatched lifestyle goals and aspirations are another potential deal breaker. When you can’t agree on what your life as a couple should look like, both people will likely end up unhappy.
For example, you may agree on how to save money, but one of you wants to use those savings to travel, and the other wants to buy a house. This mismatch can result in one partner or both feeling angry or resentful about not being able to live the life they want and should be considered a possible deal breaker.
Different Food Preferences
Have you ever been stuck in a cycle of looking for restaurants that not only match your dietary needs but also your partners? It can be really difficult to find a place that checks all the boxes, so make sure to discuss your eating habits with your partner to see if you match or if you’ll be endlessly scrolling. It is also important to remember that some food preferences, such as vegan, vegetarian, or carnivorous diets, can be immediate deal breakers in a relationship. Check in with your partner to see if there may be any potential sources of contention and complications when viewing the menu.
Too Much Time on Social Media
We want to feel chosen, not just an option but the one who is picked. When we notice our partner spending too much time scrolling through articles, playing mindless games, or even engaging in online arguments, we become second to the electronic. While it can be too much TV, too much Instagram, or too many video games, it’s critical to pause and spend intentional and meaningful moments with each other. Make your time together or make the break and find someone who can put the phone down for you.
You Live in Different Places
Sometimes, we need some distance, but too much can create disconnection and falling out. Long distance is not just dating someone in another state. It’s also the availability for your partner to spend time with you. Ask about your potential partner’s routines, if they travel a lot for work, spend a lot of time with family or friends, and if they can make the time to spend with you. It is especially important to take note of this when finding a partner online or through dating apps. If you know that distance is a deal breaker, find out from the beginning to save yourself from constantly comparing calendars.
You Have Trouble Living Together
You may not be anywhere close to living together, but if tempers flare when you travel or spend a significant amount of time together under the same roof, you may want to consider this a deal breaker.
But before you break up, it’s important to examine what’s causing the problems and see if there’s a way to compromise. For example, if you can’t agree on where to keep the kitchen sponge, buying a sponge holder, you both agree on, can make all the difference in the world. Likewise, if you can’t find a reasonable solution, it may be time for a new partner.
Works Too Much
While having career aspirations and goals may be important to your partner and you want to support them in pursuing them, when your significant other works all the time, the loss of quality time can create an unhealthy relationship dynamic.
We want our partner to want to spend time with us now, and working for a future that is not guaranteed can make us feel set aside. If you are looking for adventure, connection, and quality time in your long-term relationship, someone who works too much might not be it.
Different Sex Drives
Partners with mismatched sex drives may find it harder to find appropriate times to be intimate with each other and may need to work smarter to find ways to connect. Asking deliberate questions about preferences, kinks, and styles will help to attune or dissuade you from your potential mate.
Listed below are a few preference questions to ask your potential partner:
- How often do you like to have sex?
- How important is frequency and duration?
- What time of the day do you feel most intimate?
- Do you enjoy foreplay? Cuddling after?
- Do you feel comfortable communicating during?
Doesn’t Prioritize You
Feeling special and appreciated are at the top of advantages in being in a romantic relationship. But if your partner puts other needs before yours, this specific deal breaker can be a red flag. Let your partner know when and where you’re feeling less important, and work towards finding more ways to integrate with each other. If you’re unable to find a way in, you might need to make your way out of the relationship.
Unwillingness to Resolve Conflict
Your time is valuable and shouldn’t be spent constantly arguing with your partner, especially if they fight dirty. When you experience consistent rigidity and an inability to break through to your partner, you won’t be able to feel a connection and the space to bring yourself into the relationship.
Unable to Be Your Authentic Self
Being comfortable is one of the top aspects people look for when searching for a potential partner. You must be able to feel at ease around your person so that you can be your best and most authentic self. Other potential outcomes that can result from uncomfortableness around your significant other can include being in a bad mood, having bad sex, and experiencing rigidity physically, mentally, and emotionally.
You’re Making all the Sacrifices
Compromise is a part of any relationship, but that means both parties have to give something up. When you’re constantly deferring or abandoning your ambitions or goals but your partner isn’t, you’re unlikely to feel happy or satisfied about any aspect of your life.
Cleanliness
Bad breath? Poor hygiene? Can’t see the floor of their home? Cleanliness can be a hard boundary for some people in their homes, so taking a trip to a potential partner’s pad to check out and compare cleaning styles can save you a lot of time and arguments. Maintaining basic levels of cleanliness improves self-respect and good mental health, both of which are highly valued qualities that people look for in a partner.
Some Things Will Never Change
It is important to be aware that deal breakers exist on a spectrum, which means you and your partner won’t be on the same page about everything. Flexibility and compromise are ideal, but if you’re experiencing consistent rigidity, weigh your options. Can you be flexible with your own deal breakers, or are they centered around your core values and just can’t compromise? Is your partner willing to adjust, or is it time to move on?
While only you know what your deal breakers are and how flexible you can be, working with a therapist can help you get clear on what you will and won’t give up. The compassionate team and Anchor Light Couples & Family Therapy are here to help guide you on your journey and find the strength and inner peace you’re looking for. Contact us today for a free, no-obligation consultation.
