You're Driving Me Crazy!

We each have differing values and ways of looking at the world, and we want different things from each other. Such differences derive from our genetically influenced temperaments, our belief systems, and experiences growing up in our family of origin, explains Diane Sollee, family therapist and founder of SmartMarriages. "We think, 'My father knew how to put the toilet seat down, so why can't you?' Or 'My father never put the toilet seat down, so I'm not going to, either.'" Whatever the source, such patterns are deeply ingrained, difficult to dislodge.

Sometimes a sock on the floor is just a sock on the floor. But especially among longtime couples, little irritations may code for deeper problems. It's as if ice cubes become an iceberg, says family therapist John Van Epp. Think of ice cubes as free-floating irritants —bothersome but meaningless: You hate the way your partner puts his feet on the furniture or exaggerates. Such behaviors might drive you up the wall, but they're harmless.

But small problems coalesce into a vast, submerged force when they take on a different meaning in your mind—when you add them up as evidence of a character flaw or moral defect. You're annoyed by the fact that your significant other hates sharing food from her plate. And that she hates planning in advance. And that when you try to share important news, she gets excited and cuts you off to share something of her own. When you consider them together, a picture emerges of your partner as selfish and self-absorbed, always putting her own needs first.

"You don't really live with the partner in your home. You live with the partner in your head," explains Van Epp. Gradually, you begin looking for evidence that your partner is self-absorbed—and of course you find it. Your perceptions shift over time: The idealized partner you started out with becomes, well, less ideal.

But if you want to stay in a relationship, something needs to change. In all likelihood, it's you.

Every annoyance in a relationship is really a two-way street. Partners focus on what they're getting, not on what they're giving. But no matter how frustrating a partner's behavior, your interpretation is the greater part of it. What matters is the meaning you attach to it.

The ability to eliminate relationship irritants lies within each of us. They may sabotage good relationships or not. It all depends on how you interpret the problem.

1: "It's Deliberate"

Diane Sollee recalls growing up with a father who used to snore so loudly she could hear him mid-block. "When I asked my mom how she could stand it, she said, 'When I hear his snoring, I know he's home safe, alive and well.'"

"It's the reaction of the host, not the strength of the pathogen," says rabbi and marriage educator Edwin Friedman. Snoring isn't the problem; it's the meaning you give it. We take every irritant personally. We treat every action, deliberate or accidental, conscious or subconscious, as a personal slight—a sign the other doesn't care about us or isn't prioritizing us. When we don't get what we want, we interpret it as, "You don't love me enough." We think, "If you really cared about me, you'd stop driving me crazy with all your irritating habits."

Unfortunately, much behavior is mindless; we do many things without thinking. "It would be ideal to focus on the other person's reaction all the time," says psychologist Michael Cunningham of the University of Louisville. "But the simple fact is that people engage in automatic behaviors that are habitual or self-focused without taking the other person into account."

Cunningham studied relationship annoyances in 160 couples and found that people suppress their irritating behaviors early in the dating process but allow them to emerge once they're in a committed relationship. "People pay attention to what they have to pay attention to," he observes. "When you're dating, you're hypervigilant. Once there's a commitment, you feel entitled to relax."

Cunningham sees the resulting annoyances as "social allergens." As with physical allergens, the first exposure produces a small negative reaction, but each subsequent contact increases sensitivity. That, he says, is why those in long-standing relationships can explode over what seem like tiny infractions. The first wet towel on the bathroom floor is mildly irritating; the hundredth can unleash a hypersensitive reaction.

If your partner has a habit that he or she is not aware of but that drives you up a wall—keeping the bathroom door open, leaving bread crumbs in the butter dish, walking around in underwear—bring it up in a loving way. Maybe it simply never occurred to your partner that it bothers you.