We all get annoyed with our partner from time to time. It’s inevitable. Sometimes it’s the little day-to-day things – their habits, quirks, or moments of forgetfulness. The laundry that they’ve tossed on the floor, not filling up the car with gas despite there being only a smidge left, leaving the carton of milk out on the counter. Or maybe it’s the repetitive habits like cracking knuckles, smacking gum, or clicking of a pen when they’re making the grocery list or working on paying the bills.

Then there are the bigger things that usually don’t happen all that often, but that really annoy us to the point of questioning our partner’s intentions. Things like double-scheduling an event on a day they knew we had other plans, or not doing a task we specifically asked them to do. We wonder how they could be so inconsiderate, instead of seeing it as an innocent mistake.

Either way, we get annoyed. But what we do with that annoyed feeling, how we deal with it, makes all the difference in the impact on your relationship in the long term. Annoyance can go unaddressed and turn into frustration and resentment, or you can tackle it head on and resolve it before those insidious emotions take root.

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