If you’ve ever been in a relationship where you had to wonder what mood your partner would be in when they got home, this one is for you.
You spend years of your life tiptoeing around the emotions of someone who is unable or unwilling to regulate them.
What should be a happy, loving time ends up being you wondering what you did wrong, how to pacify your partner, and how to get through each day with them.
Sadly, the result is that these 7 habits follow you into your next relationship, and the one after that, and so on, even when the danger is gone and there’s no longer any need.
If you want to know how to stop that from happening, my advice is to start understanding the habits you’re carrying, because only then can you begin to put them down.
7 habits you carry into future relationships when you’ve spent years walking on eggshells:
1. Every room you enter starts with a full scan.
A relationship where you have to learn to predict your partner’s mood so you have some idea of how your day or evening will be is not a real relationship.
A person can become an expert at hearing how the car pulls up and how the door closes. They can master how the keys fall onto the table in the hall, or how the suitcase lands on the floor.
Soon enough, that leaks out into being able to study other people with such fine and fast detail. You feel slightly more in control by being able to predict the mood of others before it fully descends.
So, yes, every room becomes an opportunity to scan, pick out the happy people, pinpoint those who seem on edge or annoyed, and figure out your position among them all.
Future relationships will look like more of the same, even though the risk has gone and you have found someone who can actually regulate their own emotions. The full scan remains a skill you use daily, often without even thinking about it.
2. “Sorry” falls out of your mouth before you even know what you’re apologizing for.
Over-apologizing is a fawn-type trauma response. Whether or not you’re to blame, you say sorry anyway, ultimately taking responsibility where you shouldn’t.
In doing that, you’re unconsciously telling yourself (and others), “I made a mistake,” which only serves to reinforce your guilt.
Essentially, you say sorry for the sake of it, yet still feel bad about whatever it is you’re saying sorry for, even though you have nothing to do with it.
Who wants to live like that?
Nobody! That’s who.
Yet people who’ve been used to walking on eggshells with their ex will find that this is a way to survive in that type of relationship, and they assume all future relationships need the same.
When you think about it, it’s sad that someone could just let their partner keep saying sorry, even when they know they didn’t do anything wrong either. But they do it.
They do it because it takes the blame and guilt away from them, which is normally where it should be landing.
3. Any decision you make – no matter how innocent – is overexplained.
In the context of relationships, overexplaining usually comes from not wanting to upset or disappoint somebody, or from feeling like every choice you make has to be defended.
Why would anyone need to defend a choice? Well, because that environment felt strict or unsafe.
You had a partner who was perfectly content for you to fall over yourself to explain your choices or calm a situation that was only chaotic because of their behavior.
It’s no wonder that leads to feeling like you need to walk on eggshells and justify your very existence, and why that habit is carried into future relationships you enter.
But what over-explainers often fail to see is that whatever they’re saying will never be enough, and all those words, tone, stumbling, and stuttering will be stored as weapons by manipulative people.
Hold back! Someone who respects you will respect your decisions without excessive justification required.
4. Any difficult conversation you need to have is rehearsed extensively before you have it.
I’ll admit that I’ve done this in the past. I have rehearsed conversations I know I need to have and have even rehearsed possible responses. It made me feel prepared (or so I thought) for whatever was to come, and it is often a sign that you just want to have a little bit of control.
Why?
Because at some point or another, you didn’t have that control; your ex will have made sure of that. Their unpredictability made you react to whichever version of themselves they presented with that day, so you learned to cover all possibilities.
Rehearsing conversations becomes a way of trying to claw back some of that unpredictability: “If he/she says this, I can say that.”
5. When you hear “Everything is fine,” you think “Something must be wrong.”
Fine? What is fine? Are you sure? The fact that some people assume “fine” doesn’t actually mean fine is often because, at some point, they’ve learned that when a certain word and the tone don’t align, it can only mean one thing.
What’s more, the word and the behavior of that person don’t align. I’ll show you what I mean.
You come home from work, and your partner is on the couch. He (or she) looks annoyed. They don’t indicate why, or even tell you they’re annoyed, but you see it; you feel it.
You ask what’s wrong, and they roll their eyes and clench their jaw, “Nothing. I’m fine.”
Silence stretches thereafter, and you could cut the atmosphere with a knife.
They clearly aren’t fine. You know something is wrong. So you tiptoe around them, not wanting to make it worse. Perhaps you even get an early night.
You learn that when this person says fine, more often than not, it does not mean fine.
But believe it or not, some people can be fine and say so, with no hidden meanings or agendas. And as such, a survival strategy that served you in a toxic relationship no longer serves you in a healthy one.
6. You wait for the storm… all the time.
Life isn’t about living in constant happiness, but it also shouldn’t be about living in constant dread, either. You should be able to enjoy happiness when it arrives without waiting for the contrast.
I know that feeling. I’d be a kid, sitting in the back of the car ready to go on an exciting holiday with my family, and there would always be the same person looking to create conflict. Every holiday would feel like this, and I learned over time never to look forward to them.
The same went for any joyous situation, really. Occasions, events, anything planned. Even just enjoying the day-to-day felt weird. There I was, looking out onto the horizon, always anticipating a dark cloud incoming.
It can be much the same with romantic relationships. The feeling that you’re waiting for something bad to happen comes from experiencing those bad things right as you’re smiling and feeling good.
That can be a hard thing to shake off as you move from an unhealthy relationship to a healthy one.
7. You tune into any slight change within a text.
You know, despite being a writer, I actually hate texting. I know people I’ve been messaging in the past have taken my texts the wrong way, and I’m certain I’ve done the same too.
Words can only convey so much when read, and what was meant to be friendly can be interpreted as passive-aggressive or outright rude.
Then there’s reading what’s between the lines. The length of a text, the lack of kisses at the end, a thumbs-up emoji (come on, am I the only one who thinks this is the worst emoji?!).
While we can all read too much into a message, being hypervigilant to what’s either there or not there is something you’ve probably taken to an art form if you’re someone who had to walk on eggshells in a previous relationship.
You worry. “What does this mean?” “Why do they seem off?” It’s all down to how the person who came before wanted to make you feel, instead of them just saying their thoughts out loud.
Sadly, as you move into future relationships, those are the patterns you don’t stop looking out for.
Final thoughts…
The feeling of walking on eggshells is hypervigilance personified. It’s you, as the eggshell walker, desperately craving calm and peace, but you were not the dictator of either; your ex was.
Not wanting to make a drama or rupture your ex’s mood just by breathing the wrong way can become a habit that trains your nervous system to expect nothing else.
But have you ever thought, “Maybe I don’t need to do this anymore?”
If not, now is the time.
