You draw battles into relationships due to ego and expectations. So many things can go wrong in a relationship due, very often, to the way you communicate your needs, wants and desires to each other.

There are ways to be sure that relationship battles don’t cause permanent damage. Here are seven ways to avoid relationship disasters (which will also help you take your relationship to an even better place):

1.Have Sex On The Brain?: How much do you think about sex in your relationship? Do you feel like the other person doesn’t do the things you like to do (or doesn’t do them enough)? We all get lazy sexually in our relationships at times. So how do you get the other person to do these things (or to do more of those things)? Well, you don’t look at them and tell them they are doing what you like (or aren’t doing enough of it).

Instead, when they do things you like you need to really let them know. Say things like, “Oh babe, I love the way you kiss me and touch me. It makes me feel good…” Describe the emotions you have and how you feel when they do those things. Doing this will turn the other person on and make them want to do those things to you all night long. Whenever you come from a place of abundance like that, you will always bring you more of what you need.

2.Never Nag: Nagging doesn’t work. Nagging to get the dishes washed, the garbage taken out and the dog walked doesn’t work. Instead of nagging, ask out of love. Say something like, “Hey babe, I’m running late today. Do you mind walking the dog? That would be awesome and would help me out a lot!”

Asking this way is a lot better than asking by saying something like “You know, you never walk the dog. I’m always walking the dog, and I’m running late right now and don’t have time to do it” or “Can you please empty the dishwasher for once? I said I can’t do it right now. Why are you so lazy?” Asking nicely always gets you better results.

3.Learn The Art Of Compromise: Learning how to compromise in your relationship is essential. When you go on vacation, for example, make sure you split up the things you do 50/50 between things you like to do and things your partner likes to do. That way, one of you never feels like you are being dragged around the whole trip. Neither person will feel about the other that “it’s just about you.”

The best way to have real compromise is to find out what each other really wants. In this vacation example, you could say something like “Today I’d love to do this. What would you like to do tomorrow? How about if we make today my day and tomorrow your day (or make half of each day be yours)? That way we can both do things we enjoy.” Real compromise is about coming to an arrangement that makes both parties happy.

4.Be Forgiving Of Family: When dealing with each other’s family, it can be very stressful. You may have old things to mend with your mother or brother or sister which get you tense or upset. Because of this tense feeling, many of us will pick fights with our significant other — the person who are there with us to support us on this tense visit — because we don’t want to act out with our family. So we take out our frustrations on our partner instead.

So the next time you go with your partner to visit your family, write down ahead of time the things you need to do or work through with your family while you’re there. Let your partner help you and see them as being there with you (and for you). You will avoid so many unnecessary arguments.

5.Avoid The Passive-Aggressive Approach: In relationships, one person will sometimes drag their significant other with them when they are going out to meet friends. Then that person will spend the entire night not reminiscing, but bringing up personal things about the relationship in front of the friends. Your personal life is your personal life, and your friends do not need to be privy to all of it.

The way this happens sometimes, is that one person will take passive-aggressive jabs at the other. They will start hinting to the friends about the things they would really love to have in their relationship. This is a very passive-aggressive (and ineffective) way to raise these items.

If you have any personal needs or desires about which you want your partner to know, don’t bring those things up in public and in a passive-aggressive manner. You need to bring these things up with your partner in person and face-to-face. If you want your partner to do more of something, then tell them how much you would love it. Don’t bring it up in front of friends.

6.Don’t Air Your Dirty Laundry: When you get into a fight with your partner, do not tell your family and friends every little detail about it. When you do this, you are actually hurting your relationship. The reason is that even though your family and friends only want to support you, by knowing you had conflict they will judge your relationship and your partner after that.

They will judge your partner based on things you’ve said about them while you were upset or angry. Whenever you are speaking out of anger you will speak with disdain and venom, and often not tell all sides of the story. So keep your personal life between the two of you. It could save your relationship a great deal of unnecessary strain.

7.Do Something Special: In the midst of all these “don’ts,” I also have one “do” that you should do in helping to avoid relationship disaster. Every day, I want you to do at least three special things for your partner. Make them breakfast, walk the dog for them, rub their head, light candles or whatever you know they would really appreciate. Pick things that will make them feel wonderful, needed and warm.

Tell them that you love them. Send them ‘I love you’ texts, or something like that. Understand that the more you reach out to your partner and the more you express your love to your partner, the more intimacy you will have. You also make your relationship stronger each time you do things like this.

So, look at the above list and then at your own relationship. Ask yourself in how many of the relationship-destroying behaviors you and your partner engage. Ask yourself in how many of the relationship-building behaviors you and your partner engage. Then as to any areas you’re falling short, start making changes right away.

Having a great relationship takes work, patience and a lot of understanding. Don’t just give up on one before you work on it. If you do work on it and it still doesn’t work out, then at least you know you did everything you could to not only keep it from falling apart but to make it amazing.

The people I’ve battled with the most in life are the ones who seem to also frustrate me the most. I can love someone who also frustrates the hell out of me.

The fact is, though, that nothing is perfect all the time. It seems like there are certain people out there in this world that I have battled with over and over again on the same issues.

Do you know why we battle over and over again with certain people on the same issues? It’s because the universe is really trying to teach us a lesson. It’s to help us learn a hard lesson.

It might be something that stems from incorrect programming from childhood. it might stem from the unhealthy way we’ve handled things our whole life. Regardless of its source, certain people will come into your life who are meant to guide you, to love you or to show these lessons.

Sometimes these lessons are very difficult to learn. Sometimes it takes six, eight or even ten times to learn it.

Look back at your past relationships — whether it’s your romantic relationships, friendships or work relationships — and look at some of the fights that you had over and over again. Then drop the ego and look at how you can take responsibility for those fights.

There are two people involved in every relationship. If somebody says the same things to you over and over again about something that bothers them, then you need to look deep inside and see how that behavior is affecting other people. It might be a behavior that is really not healthy for you to have as you move on in your life.

If you love or respect someone and you brought them into your life, then you brought them into your life for a reason. This is especially true in love relationships.

Some romantic partners we bring into our life to be ultimately end up being our friends. Some romantic partners we bring into our life just to teach us something so we can move forward to our next great relationship.

Do you ever sit down and write all the things you have learned? Do you ever write down all the things about you that have driven people crazy over and over again?

It is when you stop blaming and stop defending that the real life lessons are learned. It is pretty powerful to really let that totally come out and allow yourself to be open to these biggest of life’s lessons.

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Whatever it was that they did, has that ever caused you to basically mirror that behavior back to them? Then you start blaming them for being the way that you are at that moment. You start getting angry at them for making you this way.

Sometimes you just can’t handle the way someone is processing something because it is not the way you would process it. They might process things negatively. They might process things positively.

There are so many different ways that people process things. If your partner processes things differently than you do, however, it might freak you out because it will feel like the person you’re with is disconnected from you.

It doesn’t mean that they stopped loving you. They might be unable to show you love at that moment or give you the love you need at that moment, but that doesn’t mean that they ever stopped loving you.

It’s just that right at that moment they need to process something in an entirely different way than you do. They are not getting space, but they really need space.

It is so important to give someone space in this situation. I know it’s hard because they might act mean or might be irritable. You’ve got to realize, though, that if they are taking the time (and the space) they need to process something, it is because they love you and want things to work out with you.

Now, there is a distinction between needing space to process and pulling back. If someone acts like this — mean and irritable — for weeks and weeks, then it’s not processing. It’s pulling back.

When someone’s actions cause you to feel stress, pain and anguish, what do you do? Most of us tend to mirror that person’s behaviors. You give them a taste of their own medicine and you act the way they’ve been acting.

You basically give them back what they’ve been giving you, and you rehash everything. The problem is that rehashing is poison. It is not healthy at all.

It is not healthy to rehash with all the “You-did-this-No-you-did-that” kind of talk. All you’re doing is rehashing the poison.

Maybe they didn’t do things the way you wanted to do it. Maybe they didn’t process things the way you wanted.

They may not come around until a day or two later, but isn’t love about forgiving? Isn’t love about understanding each other and being able to handle each other in ways that get us outside our comfort zone?

Love is about being able to say in that moment, “That’s just Bob (or Mary), and I can see by their behavior that that this is how they handle things. They’re trying to work on it but, in the meantime, it might still happen again. Nobody’s perfect.” Think about all of this for a minute.

If you are talking to someone you trust, honor and love and they tell you that your actions cause them pain and to feel things they never wanted to feel, do you defend those actions? Would you really listen?

In life, our ego is constantly protecting us. So many of you know that you are not good at meeting the opposite sex, but yet you always let your ego protect you.

Your ego will tell you, “Don’t worry. You just need a lucky break. Things will change. Spring is coming…” or whatever excuses your ego will provide you. Your ego may tell you, “There’s a party next week and you will meet somebody there.”

What you don’t do is anything to change yourself, because change is the toughest thing for you. Change means that we have to drop our ego and allow it to subside.

Nobody can change anybody else. The only person you can change is yourself.

You get out of life exactly what you put into it. So if you are in a spiral of life where things don’t work for you — whether that means disagreements with your boss, disagreements with your partner or not meeting the people you want to meet — it’s happening because you can’t embrace change.

It’s happening because your ego will not allow you to embrace change. Your ego is basically protecting yourself from embracing any type of change. We are all flawed.

I can’t stand when somebody tells me that I did something that caused them pain. I’m always about protecting myself.

Maybe the way that I deal with things is not the way they want to deal with things, and it causes them pain. So we’re all flawed.

So the next time someone challenges you about changing, do you react full of ego or do you react in an open way? The person who defends themselves is the person who is reacting out of ego, because your ego is defending you at all times.

My ego will defend me until the day I die. If you allow your ego to defend you until the day you die, you’re going to die alone and not having grown.

We all do things that annoy the hell out of people — partners, business associates and friends. If someone that you love tells you that something in your actions causes them pain, don’t look at them and say “Well this is how I’ve always been and no one seems to be bothered by it.”

If you like or love that person, you are going to say, “You know what, maybe that is something I need to work on and change in myself. Maybe that is a habit of mine, or maybe that’s the way I deal with things.” It really may not be that healthy.

Now on today’s non-football related topic…

Let’s talk about relationships and, specifically, about being stubborn in a relationship. Let’s talk about giving in when you’re in a relationship.

When you’re in a relationship, you will have arguments. You will sometimes argue about something even when you know the other person has a valid point. Your ego wants to “win” and be right, so you’ll get into an argument instead of really thinking about what the other person was saying.

During every argument, there will come a time when someone needs to give in . . . but it seems like everyone always wants the other person to be the one to do it.
Each person will think, “I don’t want to hug them first” or “I don’t want to make the first move.”

How many nights when you’re in a relationship has your bed felt like it has an imaginary dividing line down the middle? You might accidentally touch knees or ankles in the middle of the night, and you jump because you don’t want to make the first move.

I mean, it’s crazy how many people are stubborn. I, myself, am very stubborn. I hate apologizing. I have always hated apologizing.

I have always hated making the first move. My mindset was always, “Why should I make the first move. They are the ones who brought the issue up.” The fact of the matter is that relationships tend to get very sour very quickly if both of you are being stubborn.

How many nights do you want to sleep on opposite ends of the bed? How many nights do you want to look at your lover and realize that what you’re fighting about is really ridiculous?

Saying you are sorry is really easy. Saying you are sorry and really meaning it is sometimes harder. So I think you need to really realize what your arguments are really about in your relationship, and start to see that it’s really not worth it 90% of the time.

Check out this great new in field approach video we shot last week. Its all about how to approach a group of women,