Just like our everyday lives, our relationships are full of virtues and vices. We spend our days trying to avoid the seven deadly sins, but have you ever stopped to think that these sins may be affecting your love life more than you realized?
Here are the ways the seven deadly sins may be affecting your relationship and how to combat them. Time to get rid of the evil and make way for a whole lot of love!
Pride: You’re posting too many couple selfies of you and your boyfriend.
As cute as the Instagram pictures of you and your boyfriend are, there are only so many “Man Crush Monday” posts your friends can handle before they start to get seriously annoyed!
When you’re in a serious relationship, you don’t want to become that girl whose Instagram account turns into a shrine dedicated to her boyfriend. Although it may be hard to resist posting every adorable picture you two take followed by the caption “#luckygirl #bestboyfriend,” you may not realize that your social-media PDA is seriously getting on your friends’ nerves.
Not only that, but your boyfriend may start to get pretty annoyed with all the online love you’re showing him. There’s a very fine line between being a doting girlfriend and just plain smothering him.
If the majority of pictures you post every week have something to do with your undying love for your boyfriend, it may be time to take a step back and reassess the pictures you’ve been posting!
How to repent
Although you may be tempted to post a picture of you and your boyfriend multiple times a week just because you feel like it, it might be best to stick to only the most important of occasions: birthdays, important anniversaries, cool trips you went on together, big accomplishments—only the essentials!
When you have a purpose behind your posts other than the fact that your boyfriend is totally adorable, your friends and your boyfriend will be less inclined to secretly hate on the plethora of lovey-dovey pics filling up your Instagram.
Sloth: You’re not putting enough effort into your relationship.
You can’t always expect your significant other to text you first, plan your dates or pick the movie you guys are going to watch on date night. When you rely on one person to put in most of the effort into a relationship, not only will that person feel underappreciated, but your relationship might just get totally boring!
When you’ve been dating someone for a long time, it can be hard to keep that spark alive. If you and your boyfriend have done dinner and a movie every weekend for the past few months or you’re never the one to initiate plans, this may be a sign that you’re not putting in enough effort. It’s time to mix things up!
How to repent
While it’s easy to become complacent, especially in a long-term relationship, sometimes you need to make an effort to break away from your weekly routine instead of relying on your usual date-night rituals. Trying new things and keeping him guessing may just be the keys to spicing things up!
Try out a new activity together, like rock climbing or going on a hunt for the perfect sunset-watching spot together. It’s important for you guys to switch up your romantic activities every once in a while and put a little more effort into keeping the mystery alive!
“My boyfriend and I have been dating for over two years now, and we were starting to lose some of that initial spark,” says Hailey, a sophomore at the University of Washington. “I started leaving him little notes every time we’d hang out in his room for him to find later. I’d put them in his notebooks or his sock drawer or under his pillow. They’d always just be weird little notes, like, ‘Your laugh makes me laugh,’ or, ‘You smell really nice.’ It reminded me of all the things I loved about him and it would always be so exciting when he found a new one. It definitely helped keep things interesting.”
There are tons of great date-night activities that aren’t dinner and a movie. Think outside of the box the next time you and your boyfriend are making date-night plans!
Wrath: You’re getting mad at him for stupid, little things.
It’s only natural that we get a little angry with our boyfriends every once in a while, whether their transgressions are big or small. Nobody’s perfect, but sometimes we just can’t help but feel slightly vengeful when they forget our three-month anniversary or cancel a lunch date at the last minute.
“My girlfriend always gets mad at me when I have clothes all over the floor of my room,” says Nathan, a junior at Northwestern University. “I’ll admit, my room is a little messy, but whenever she nags me about it, I feel like she’s my mom."
When you get mad at your significant other for every little mistake he makes, he might begin to resent your nagging ways. There are only so many times you can complain to him about putting down the toilet seat before he starts to get annoyed!
How to repent
Don’t let all the small mistakes your boyfriend makes get to you; save your anger for things more worth your while!
Let go of the anger when he doesn’t put away his clothes before you come over. Those things are small and insignificant, and getting mad over them won’t do your relationship any favors. But if he forgets your birthday or commits the ultimate boyfriend sin and cheats on you, THAT’S a different story.
Envy: You’re constantly questioning him about other girls.
Being too clingy is the oldest relationship no-no in the book, and nothing is clingier than constantly questioning your guy about other girls! It’s natural to feel protective of your boyfriend or wary of girls you think may have the hots for him, but letting the green monster come out too often may just make him think you’re way too attached.
Obsessively looking through his tagged Facebook photos to make sure there are no pictures of him with other girls, stalking his favorited tweets or secretly checking his phone while he’s in the bathroom may be signs that you’ve gone a little overboard.
How to repent
This is one of those cases where you just have to have trust in your relationship. Take a step back and assess the situation: is your jealousy all in your head, or do you really have a reason to be worried? Your boyfriend is your boyfriend for a reason; you should trust him, and he should trust you!
Of course, if you’re getting some seriously weird vibes from your boyfriend, you should definitely talk things out. You’ll never know if something weird is going on unless you’re upfront and ask him about it!
Gluttony: You guys go out to eat way too much.
Going out to eat is usually every couple’s date night go-to, but you may not realize that your weekly dinner dates are putting a serious strain on his wallet.
“My girlfriend and I go out to eat all the time,” says Brandon*, a sophomore at Gonzaga University. “I always feel like it’s my responsibility to pay even though we’ve been dating for a while now. It really adds up when you think about it. I never want to turn her down when she asks to go to dinner, but I’m definitely a broke college student. I can’t afford to go out to eat all the time!”
How to repent
The next time you and your boyfriend are planning date night, skip the fancy dinner and go for something more cost-effective instead! Try making him a home-cooked meal with one of these dorm-friendly recipes. Not only will it be cheaper than going out to an expensive restaurant, but you’ll get to improve your cooking skills at the same time!
Greed: You expect him to drop everything to hang out with you… all the time.
You never want to be that clingy girlfriend who expects her boyfriend to hang out with her ALL the time. There’s always that one couple who feels the need to eat every meal together, study together, go out on the weekends together and do everything else in between together. It’s like they become one person who can’t do anything without the other person. We love our boyfriends just as much as the next girl, but sometimes we need our time to do our own thing!
“I used to date this girl who would literally want to hang out with me from the moment she woke up until the moment she went to sleep,” Nathan says. “At first I didn’t mind because I really liked her, but after a while I needed some space. Even when I was in the middle of something she’d expect me to stop what I was doing or ditch my friends to hang out with her. Needless to say, that relationship didn’t last very long.”
How to repent
While we’d love for our significant other to have all the time in the world to play with our hair, watch rom-coms with us and cuddle, we have to realize that we can’t always be their number one priority 100 percent of the time. With school, extracurriculars and friends, your boyfriend has a lot of things he needs to balance, as do you!
You shouldn’t expect him to change his plans at the drop of a hat. You don’t need to hang out with him 24/7. Give him some time to do his own thing. When you’re not together every hour of every day, you’ll appreciate the time you DO spend together a lot more.
Lust: You guys are overdoing it on the PDA.
Unless you’re a celebrity power couple (e.g. Mila and Ashton) at a basketball game, no one wants to see you making out with your boyfriend in public. After all, you don’t want to be known as THAT couple.
It may have been the norm to make out with your boyfriend up against your locker when you were in high school, but very few people would deem that sort of behavior socially acceptable in college. There are plenty of private places around campus where you can show your boyfriend some much-deserved love and affection, but it’s important to remember that the student center, dining hall and library don’t count!
How to repent
There’s a very fine line between cute, affectionate gestures and inappropriate public behavior. Holding hands or giving your significant other a quick peck on the cheek is totally acceptable to do in a public setting. Straddling your boyfriend in the middle of the library, however, is definitely crossing the line.
It may be best to take the “P” out of “PDA” and save those serious displays of affection for behind closed doors.
Relationships can be totally wonderful as long as you don’t commit any of these serious relationship sins! Be sure to avoid these, and you and your boyfriend will be one step closer to relationship Heaven.
*Name has been changed.