Lack of open communication generally, or communication that lacks personal content. Note that this may not be a problem for some couples with low intimacy needs, where their relationship functions well like a business partnership.

Breakdown of trust. This can be caused by numerous things, such as dishonesty, using personal information against your partner, unreliability, broken promises or agreements violating personal boundaries, or infidelity.

Violating personal boundaries, such as, disrespecting your request to not be called at work, to not have confidential information repeated to others, to not be criticized about something, or to not read your mail.

Repeated instances of critical, undermining, blaming, sarcastic, disrespectful, or manipulative comments. This is verbal abuse. You may refer to my article, "Emotional Abuse - Beneath Your Radar."

The following list of relationship problems applies to either you or your partner. They're also common characteristics of codependent relationships, and codependency may be the underlying issue.

Inflexibility or repeated unwillingness to compromise on decisions, such as social activities, chores, moving, and having children.

This purpose of this checklist is not to score your relationship or your partner, but to raise issues that you may need to address personally and talk openly about with him or her. Many of these relationship problems revolve around lack of healthy,

assertive communication - communication that is open, direct, respectful, honest, and personal. Couples get into problems when they're afraid to be honest - usually because they think the truth will upset their partner and might jeopardize the relationship.

They don't express their hurt or to ask for the love or support they want, or they do so in a way that's critical or blaming. People learn to communicate and problem-solve with others in their family growing up.

Other relationship problems are created by an imbalance of power, where one partner attempts to dominate the other through aggression, control, or emotional or verbal abuse.

One partner can control the other through neediness, demands for attention or validation, or playing the victim, with the expectation that the other person make him or her happy.

Repetitive negative relationship patterns stem from problems originating in childhood, such as disrespectful communication, lack of nurturing or free emotional expression, a controlling parent, violation of boundaries, neglect, witnessing parental conflict, mental illness, addiction, or abuse.

A variety of dysfunctional parenting styles cause shame and undermine a child's self-esteem, which continue into adulthood. Shame and low self-esteem thwart love, intimacy, and assertive communication.

They abuse or allow abuse, imagine they're being criticized when they're not, and are so afraid of losing the relationship that they smother or control their partner or withhold negative feelings and build resentments.

Individuals with shame and low self-esteem don't feel worthy of love and/or respect, and either withdraw emotionally or push their partner away directly or indirectly.

This is damaging to the relationship and the self-esteem of the other partner. It's not uncommon in relationships with an addict or narcissist.

The struggle for intimacy requires the courage to face unhealthy behavior and attitudes and be vulnerable. It entails overcoming defenses of denial, withdrawal, control, or placating to avoid a real connection.

Similarly, when he or she improves his or her self-esteem and communication skills, the relationship improves. Many times, one spouse in individual therapy makes positive changes, and the marriage changes for the better.

Without good role models, some never learned how to be assertive. Assertiveness can be learned, but takes practice. Because relationships are dynamic systems, when one partner behaves in a manner listed above, it damages the relationship.

Once you've seen an indication that your relationship is in trouble you could overreact and start to do or say some things that you don't really mean and didn't really think through.

These kinds of reactions can really hurt the relationship. The way that you respond to your relationship challenges will determine if you stay with your partner or break up

so you really want to make sure that you can handle the problems that come your way. If you're interested in keeping your relationship together then you might want to consider the following tips.

Controlling behavior, including giving unwanted advice, ordering, or withholding money for affordable expenses in order control.

If you feel that you want to get back into a relationship with your partner, this would be one of the reasons why you should continue maintaining a good non-romantic relationship with your partner.

If you need to do it indirectly, you could arrange a meeting with your partner first, such as for dinner or for a movie. When you find the right chance, talk about your feelings about your relationship and talk about any changes you might have made to yourself to amend mistakes.

This would be a good thing for you, but do not jump into things immediately. You should treat it as if it is a new relationship and start your courtship all over again.

If your partner shows interest in your relationship and in continuing the times you two had, it might be an indirect way of saying that your partner is interested in getting back together.

Both of you would have likely suffered some depression because of the break up, and forcing your partner into a relationship again could aggravate feelings and worsen things between you two.

However, before you two actually jump into a relationship again or anything else, do consider giving yourselves time to recover from the initiate pain of the break up.

Time is needed to go about doing things properly. It would be preferable to get things done immediately and not drag them on, but the human mind is not a piece of steel that can easily take countless shocks. Do give them to soften the blow and lessen the pain before doing anything.

It's easy to be that way. To find fault right and left. An old familiar story is "Our baby was a year old, the finances weren't great, I felt like I was being taken for granted, and I wanted more. More from my spouse, more from my life, more from me."

By now, your spouse wasn't going to trust the fakey nicey-nice approach -- Heaven knows you probably haven't been *nice* for a long time.

It was something he hadn't seen in a long time. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and said, "Is something going on here that I don't know about?"

That's what happened to me. Then, one night we were driving somewhere, and I cracked a joke. I laughed and laughed, admittedly more than was warranted, but he saw the laughter in my eyes.

The next kiss was for forgiveness, the next was for love, and the next... Well, you get the idea. That was almost forty years ago. The first thing you need to realize when trying to fix your relationship is that communication is essential.

I couldn't do it on my own, and I think that was his way of telling me he was there for me -- and, unless I did something a lot worse than I had -- he would be with me always.

This is usually not because the two people just didn't work together, it's usually cause of a lack of communication, or better put and in ability to communicate.

When a relationship is on the rocks what one usually does is they go to a therapist, marriage counselor, or they get a divorce or break up.