Why We Lose Good Relationships
In many cases, one disagreement makes us forget every moment of tenderness that came before. So we push others away...
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Sometimes…
we meet someone’s silence, and our mind begins to write a story.
“He didn’t speak to me today maybe he doesn’t like me anymore.”
“She forgot my birthday I guess I don’t matter.”
Without realizing it, we take one small fragment of reality a single act, a missed call, a forgotten word and we use it to define the whole.
Our brains are built for efficiency.
They don’t like holding complexity for too long. So instead of saying, “He’s tired and distracted today,” the mind jumps to, “He’s rude.”
It’s faster.
It’s simpler.
And it’s wrong.
Neuroscience calls this the negativity bias the brain’s tendency to pay more attention to potential threats or discomfort than to positive or neutral cues. This is what selective distortion is about.
It’s a survival mechanism, but it can quietly destroy connection. We remember the one time someone hurt us not the hundred times they were kind.
We obsess over the one area where we failed not the many ways we’ve grown.
A client once said to me,
“My boss walked past me in the hallway and didn’t say hello. He must hate me.”
We sat in silence. Then I asked, softly,
“Could there be another explanation?”
She paused.
Then said, “Maybe he was rushing to a meeting.”
And there it was the moment the part stopped defining the whole. Selective obstruction turns us into emotional detectives who jump to conclusions before the evidence arrives.
We assume.
We label.
We lose sight of the truth.
It shows up in friendships
when someone doesn’t respond, and we take it personally.
It shows up in parenting
when a child misbehaves, and we label them stubborn instead of struggling.
It shows up in love
when one disagreement makes us forget every moment of tenderness that came before. And sometimes, it shows up in how we treat ourselves.
You make one mistake, and suddenly you’re “a failure.”
You miss one deadline, and you say, “I can never get anything right.”
The mind loves to reduce complexity to a headline.
When we live this way, three things happen over time:
1. We stop seeing people clearly.
We trade empathy for assumption.
2. We stop seeing ourselves kindly.
We begin to define our worth by our weakest moments.
3. We start living in fear.
Because when one flaw can ruin the whole, we become afraid to show any imperfection at all.
The antidote is simple but not easy.
It’s called perspective.
When your mind says, “He didn’t text me back he doesn’t care,”
pause.
Take a breath.
And ask yourself:
What else could this mean?
What if this moment is just a part, not the whole story?
You’ll notice your body soften when you ask that question.
Because your brain loves balance it just needs permission to find it again.
Each time you challenge a distorted thought, you’re literally rewiring your brain.
The prefrontal cortex, responsible for logic and regulation, begins to calm the amygdala, which is quick to jump to emotional conclusions.
That’s why therapy works it trains the brain to zoom out before it reacts.
You’re not just changing how you think.
You’re changing the pathways your thoughts travel through. Neurons that once fired together in judgment start learning how to fire together in compassion.
Let’s try this Gentle Practice
Here’s a small daily exercise:
1. Catch it.
Notice the moment you judge someone or yourself too quickly.
2. Pause.
Don’t fight the thought. Just breathe and hold it.
3. Expand it.
Add a gentle “but also…”
• “He forgot to call, but also, he’s been showing up in other ways.”
• “I missed that goal, but also, I’m still learning and improving.”
That small phrase “but also” helps your brain open a door to a fuller truth. When we learn to see the whole, not just the part, something beautiful happens.
We begin to understand that people — including ourselves are stories in motion.
No one is all good or all bad.
No relationship is all light or all shadow.
And no mistake defines the entire journey.
Sometimes, the silence you hear isn’t rejection it’s exhaustion.
Sometimes, the distance you feel isn’t indifference it’s pain.
And sometimes, the story you’ve written about someone isn’t true at all.
We heal when we stop letting one moment define every moment.
We grow when we learn to see people and ourselves in full color.
And that, truly, is the better way