You've been in a relationship for a little while, you're getting to know the person, and all of their flaws are starting to bubble up to the surface. Okay, big surprise, right? That the person you're with isn't perfect? I hope not. I hope you know that they're not perfect, and I hope you were expecting to see more and more of these things as they come out. First of all, don't expect people to be perfect. That just changes the expectations. They might have seemed perfect when you first met them; that was you projecting onto them an illusion of perfection, and that's normal. You know, when we meet somebody, that's part of the infatuation. As you get to know them, that's going to wear off. They're going to go from being a perfect person to being a real person. Real people have imperfections. They snore, they smell bad, they chew with their mouth open, they do all kinds of things. That's what happens when you get to know somebody. The projected image starts to fade away, and you're left with a real person.

Second thing that I would bring up when it comes to these imperfections, you have to ask yourself, okay, is this something that I kind of don't like and I wish they didn’t snore the way that they do, or is this something that is actually an issue with my values? Is this something where this person and I fundamentally feel differently about donating money, or we feel different about how we relate to our families, about how we're going to raise children if we have them? Those are fundamental differences that have to do with values. Those things might not be visible right away when you're in the relationship, and they might only come out once the illusion of perfection starts to dissipate. And you have to ask yourself, okay, is this just an imperfection in the person, or are we fundamentally different? Do we have different values? You have to listen to the values, because the values are something you want to hold on to. You don't want to let those go very easily or very quickly. You definitely don't want to sacrifice the things that are really of value to you to conform or just to please the other person.

The third thing I would say when it comes to somebody having these annoying traits is don't bottle them up. Don't keep them to yourself, don't keep them all quiet inside. Share it with the person. Even if you're not asking them to change, just go, you know what I mean? The way that you always do this or something, I'm just gonna tell you it bothers me. I'm not asking you to change. I'm telling you it bothers me because I want to let it out, and I want everything on the table. When we keep those things inside, they get bigger and bigger and bigger. They turn from a small annoying thing into something that we're angry about the person for doing. Well, when you communicate with the person and you let it out, and even if you say, hey, I know you might not be able to do something about this, I just want to let you know because we're in a relationship and I want to be able to share these things with you, and I can exhale if I can tell you what this is, it lets it out. That lets all of the bad feelings go from nice and full and getting too big to dropping way down to something that the two of you can laugh about. So, yeah, I would say it's those things: don't expect the person to stay perfect. You had a perfect illusion in the beginning; that's gonna fade with time. Make sure that it is something that is really just an annoying thing and not a values problem. If it's a values problem, you need to have serious conversations about that. Tell the person about it. Let it out. If they really love you and everything, they're going to want to know that. Even if you're not changing it, at least there are no secrets and nobody's building up any bad feelings. Those are my top three tips when it comes to dealing with annoying traits in the person you're with.