How to Stop Nitpicking in a Relationship (5 Strategies)
Do you find yourself constantly nitpicking your partner’s every flaw?
Why isn’t he more like this?
Why doesn’t she do that?
Why do they HAVE to wear that ugly blue shirt to dinner?!
You notice yourself trying to control your partner and wanting them to act, think, or be a certain way — and this creates a sense of anxiety.
You might even struggle with anxious, swirling thoughts like…
What if there’s someone better?
What if I get hurt down the road?
What if they’re not the one?
If you struggle with anxiety in your relationship, chances are a part of you worries these thoughts are true. You might believe your nitpicking is justified and that your partner truly is the cause of all your stress. If only they dressed differently, acted differently, spoke differently… all your anxiety would melt away.
But what if nitpicking isn’t as simple as it seems? What if there’s a deeper reason for these anxieties?
What if the key to stopping the cycle of nitpicking has everything to do with you and very little to do with your partner?
Last month on the blog, we explored the psychology of nitpicking, taking a deeper look at five reasons we nitpick our partners. In this article, I’m going to share about how nitpicking affected my own relationship, and then dive into some practical strategies for shifting the pattern of nitpicking in your relationship.
If you’re ready to learn how to stop nitpicking and embrace your partner for who they are, keep reading.
I Nitpicked My Partner’s Differences
When I first met my husband, I used to analyze his every move and word. I came from a very rigid religious upbringing that taught me that I cannot be with someone who does not have the same beliefs as me. Those of us who are raised this way are taught we’ll get hurt and have horrible marriages if we choose the wrong partners, which means we’ll end up disappointing God and our families. (Yikes!)
So, I would try to control my partner’s beliefs by trying to convince him to think like me, rather than allowing him to be himself. I would get triggered into anxiety when he expressed a different viewpoint, and I believed he wasn’t “good enough” for me because of it. I believed he couldn’t be “the one” if we had these differences, even though it was the healthiest relationship I had ever been in. We had other differences too — personality and interests — so, of course, my brain nitpicked at those things too.
My Internalized Beliefs
Like many of us, I had internalized fear-based beliefs about relationships that were driving my anxiety.
Differences = bad
Being with someone with different beliefs and interests = settling
Settling = the worst possible thing you could ever do
Whenever my partner did something that I deemed “wrong” (in other words, different from me), I got triggered into my fear…
What if this means we won't work out?
What if this means we’re not compatible?
So, I tried to change my partner. I tried to control him so that I didn’t have to face and challenge my own fear.
I was afraid of the unknown, afraid of getting hurt, afraid of doing the “wrong” thing. So I overanalyzed my partner as a way of gaining certainty that we would be okay.
But guess what… None of it worked.
In fact, trying to control my partner and push away my own feelings only made my fear and anxiety worse.
It wasn’t until I found a new, more courageous path forward that things really started to shift.
How to Stop Nitpicking and Accept Your Partner for Who They Are
Overcoming nitpicking is no easy feat — but it starts with yourself.
We can’t nitpick our way to love and happiness, so we have to shift our focus from the external to the internal.
When I learned to get out of my head and into my body… when I learned to face my own fears of failure and unhappiness… that’s when I discovered a deeper love.
Here are five strategies for unlearning nitpicking and embracing your partner for who they are:
Work On Embracing Uncertainty
To stop trying to change and control your partner, you have to build a relationship with uncertainty — with the messiness of the human experience. You have to make peace with the fact that all relationships require risk and uncertainty. All of life is characterized by inherent risk. There are no certainties, no guarantees, and no perfect relationships.
Embracing uncertainty isn’t easy. In fact, it’s extremely uncomfortable at first. But learning to work with the feelings of fear and discomfort in our bodies can help us gradually cultivate more resilience and capacity for coping with the inevitability of uncertainty in our lives. As a relationship coach, Certified Dance/Movement Therapist, and relationship anxiety expert, this is exactly what I help my clients do.
2. Confront Your Relationship to Perfectionism
As we talked about in our last blog on this topic, perfectionism is one of the key driving factors of chronic nitpicking in relationships. At Healing Embodied, we specialize in working with clients who struggle with perfectionism — not just in relationships, but in all areas of life.
To accept our partners for who they are, we must learn to let go of our attachment to perfectionism and embrace ourselves for who we are.
If we want to believe our partners are good enough, we have to start by believing we are good enough.
3. Release Yourself From Shame
When we nitpick the ones we love, it’s easy to end up feeling guilty and ashamed. But unlearning the habit of nitpicking requires releasing ourselves from the burden of shame. Even when it leaves you feeling bad or guilty, nitpicking doesn’t make you a bad person — it just makes you human.
We all struggle with perfectionism and projection in certain ways, but this doesn't have to hold you back from shifting your patterns.
4. Accept That Your Partner Can’t Rescue You From Discomfort
Those of us who struggle with perfectionism in relationships often get stuck in a cycle of relying on our partners to rescue us from our own discomfort.
When we’re stuck in perfectionism, we convince ourselves it’s our partner’s responsibility to rescue us from the unpleasant feelings that arise when they make a dumb joke in front of our friends or load the dishwasher “wrong.” Instead of creating space for our underlying emotions, we point the finger at our partners. You’re the one making me uncomfortable, so you’re the one who needs to fix it.
To overcome perfectionism and stop nitpicking, we have to accept that it’s not our partner’s job to save us from uncomfortable feelings.
5. Begin Healing Your Relationship to Yourself
When we struggle with things like perfectionism, nitpicking, and the fear of uncertainty and failure, these things point to a common underlying issue…
We lack a sense of security and trust in our own relationship to self.
But instead of approaching the issue head on, our brains find it easier to focus on everything else outside of us.
If my partner learns how to never trigger or annoy me, I won’t have to face my own fear of imperfection, uncertainty, failure, or discomfort. Perfect!
This lets us temporarily sidestep the work of cultivating a more resilient relationship with our own lives. But by avoiding that work, we rob ourselves of the experience of stepping into deeper love.
To truly unlearn the habit of nitpicking in a relationship, you must begin to heal the layers of fear and pain beneath your anxiety. This is what drives you to be overprotective, reactive, and guarded. Until you heal that pain, your anxiety will keep stepping in, ready to attack your partner for every imperfect human move they make.
Find Safety in Uncertainty and Difference
Unraveling the web of relationship anxiety, doubts, and nitpicking can feel overwhelming. You pick at one thread, and before you know it, you’ve unraveled more than you ever bargained for. What starts with nitpicking becomes a doorway, an invitation, into the deeper work of love, self-acceptance, and trust in this weird journey of life.
If you’re ready to be free of the anxiety that’s sabotaging your relationship so that you can wholeheartedly embrace love, apply to work with us! Our team at Healing Embodied knows exactly what you’re going through (and we’ve been there too).
We can’t wait to help you feel brave enough to move beyond anxiety and start experiencing a deeper connection with your partner and yourself.