What To Do When You Messed Up in a Relationship: 5 Ways You Can Fix It

OK, I get flooded with questions from women along the lines of: “I think I totally messed up my relationship- what do I do? How do I fix it?”

As someone who was once very sloppy and making mistakes left and right, I fully get it. I know that regrets and the self-loathing that comes with it.

Even now with my career and on our YouTube channel, I regularly share my tales of love gone wrong and sometimes I even feel regret over the way I acted in situations, but as trite as it sounds, if I didn’t make all those mistakes, I wouldn’t be here today. Literally, I made a career out of my former sloppy love life!

So let’s talk about how to deal when you’ve messed up and how to get things back on track. Keep reading.

1. Work on your self-esteem

People who high self-esteem can just be OK with their decisions and how they acted, even if it was less than ideal.

Insecure people go into a frenzy, ripping themselves apart because they already don’t feel worthy or good enough.

We all say dumb things sometimes, we all do stupid things and the important thing to realize is: most people aren’t paying as close attention to your behavior as you think they are and are more wrapped up in themselves and how they’re coming across! So really, no one cares but you.

If you feel like you’re always ragging on yourself, then it’s time to examine why. I guarantee this isn’t a logictical issue. There is something deeper going on and you wouldn’t feel any better even if you did act perfectly in every situation. It’s a psychological issue that’s really at play.

MORE: 4 Ways to Love Yourself and Be More Confident 

2. The right relationships isn’t made of glass

Here is something you need to realize- if a guy really likes you, I mean like really, it is going to take a hell of a lot to talk him out of it.

He’s not going to get turned off because you texted him too many times in a row or used too many emojis or because you want to know where the relationship is heading. If a guy loses interest because of these things, then he just wasn’t into you enough to begin with.

I was talking to a someone the other day and she was saying “If I hadn’t asked him where the relationship was going, then everything would be fine! Now I pressured him and he doesn’t want to be with me. How can I let him know that I’m fine with not being his priority, I just want him in my life!” Huh???

That’s your selling point? Pick me because I’ll accept whatever scraps you’re willing to dish my way. Seriously?

Yes, badgering a guy and pressuring him isn’t an ideal way to go about things, but when a guy likes you, then you’ll just naturally have a rhythm, you won’t have to have these talks with him.

And if it seems like he does need more time, he is committing more slowly, then he’ll understand your need to know if he’s on the same page!

3. The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there

OK, the fact is, you made certain mistakes because that’s where you were at that point in time.

Your mistakes don’t define you. Just because you acted needy doesn’t mean you are a needy person.

Just because you pushed a certain guy away doesn’t mean you’ll push them all away.

Here is the thing with regretting how you acted: You aren’t mad at the guy, you’re mad at yourself. You’re mad that you sold yourself out. But being mad isn’t going to solve anything. Take it as learning opportunity and move on.

Just remember, who you were isn’t who you are.

4. Forgive yourself

OK, you acted in a way that wasn’t great- the right people won’t hold this against you unless you did something particularly abominable.

It’s ok to forgive, to let go, to just accept what is. It happened, it’s over.

Forgiveness is a choice. You choose to stop being so hard on yourself to just accept what is- you can choose to use it as fuel for your growth.

5. Get to the root of it

If you keep making the same mistakes, simply vowing to not make them again won’t work.

This was me in college: have a bad breakup (or get ghosted etc), feel worthless, seek validation from men, act in a needy desparate fashion and scare the men away, feel worthless again and the cycle continues on loop until I address the real problem: me. 

MORE: A Guy’s Take on Neediness 

Get to the root of why you make these mistakes in relationships- why do you get so jealous or needy? Why do you get so angry and fly into a rage over things? Why do you need other people to tell you you’re worthy in order to feel worthy. 

Is in insecurity? Is it trauma? Where do you think it comes from?

Once you find the answer, you need to make a plan to solve it- therapy, self help books, meditation, pick whatever works for you. 

Learning the lesson, as a process is like… let’s say you’re writing in a journal or something about it.

You’re upset, you’re feeling the emotions and they’re very difficult…

Ask yourself, just as an exercise, “What good comes out of this feeling for me? What positive result might this feeling bring about for me?”

So let’s say the emotion was guilt … you said something that made the relationship worse.

You might say to yourself: “This guilt I feel, this regret… what good would come out of this feeling for me? Or what good might this suffering be trying to bring about?”

And you might list out:
– It keeps me from saying something like this again.
– It keeps me from losing my temper in a heated moment and saying something hurtful.
– It shows me what can happen when i say something like that because i felt a certain way.

And then ask yourself: “Do I need to ?”

It sounds simplistic but it can help a lot. It’s going in the other direction with the suffering. It goes into it to discover the lesson, which is the entire point of the suffering! Most of the time we want to distract ourselves from suffering or avoid it, but that just drags it out. It’s much better to go into suffering and extract as many lessons as you can from it.

When you bring your mind into seeing the lessons, you’ll feel better naturally. Again, you could look at this objectively/practically or spiritually, but when you show your mind an interpretation of things that have happened from a perspective that is truly best for you, you feel better.

Now the perspective that is truly best for you might not even be something you fully understand, but your subconscious or higher self or whatever you want to call it knows… simply put, when you bring yourself into alignment with a perspective that is truly best for you, you feel better. When you look at things from a perspective that isn’t, you suffer.

I hope after reading this article, you understand why confidence is so crucial to your relationship success. But there is more you need to know. Confidence is obviously a major turn-on for a man, but do you know what else it takes to get a guy to deeply commit? Do you know how guys decide if a woman has long-term potential? If not, read this next: The #1 Things Men Desire in a Woman