Have you ever been with someone and all you can notice is their annoying habits?

Why don't they ever put their clothes in the hamper?

Or is it really too much to ask

to get a good morning text every single morning?

These are simply a couple of the types of questions and experiences that people talk to me about on a daily basis,

which inspired me to talk about the five types of thoughts that can make or break relationships.

Welcome back to Savi Psychologist.

I'm your host Dr. Monica Johnson.

Every week on this show, I'll help you face life challenges with evidence-based approaches, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

Today we're discussing the five relationship cognitions identified by Epstein and

Bocum that influence how you experience your relationship. The first thing I'm

going to mention is selective attention. So selective attention refers to the tendency to focus on specific aspects of a partner or relationship while ignoring other ones.

For example, let's talk about Jane.

Jane notices every time her partner Tom leaves dirty dishes in the sink, but overlooks all the times he

cleans the house and cooks dinner. As a result, Jane feels frustrated and

believes that Tom is generally untidy, even though he contributes

significantly to household chores in other ways.

The second is attribution.

Attributes are the explanations that individuals create for their partner's behavior,

which can be internal, so this is blaming the partner's personality or external

blaming external circumstances. So here's an example of that using Mark and

Greg. When Mark forgets their of that it's because he doesn't care about their

...