It's easy to see the many ways that relationships -- whether with friends, family members, coworkers, or significant others -- add value to our life. In a healthy relationship, both individuals give and receive love, affection, kindness, compassion, advice, and support. Both invest the time and energy to make the other feel special and acknowledged. Neither takes the other for granted or bolts at the first sign of trouble, whether in the relationship or outside of it. A toxic relationship, on the other hand, is suffused with negativity and riddled with conflict. Distrust snowballs into deep resentment. Lying, lambasting, and lashing out become par for the course. While occasional arguments are normal in a relationship and can be beneficial in the sense that both people learn to work toward achieving common ground, too much fighting can escalate to the point where (1) both individuals are at each other's throats (2) they grow so disillusioned that they stop caring altoge...

When someone shows you their true colors, never try to paint a different picture. Many of us like giving others the benefit of the doubt. We see the glass as half full. We're optimists by nature rather than cynics. We like to see the best in people even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately, having such a romantic view of human nature doesn't always pay off. Looking at someone through rose-colored glasses even when they've shown themselves to be unreliable, dishonest, manipulative, or opportunistic, can come back to bite us in a bad way. We've all been in situations where people -- friends, relatives, significant others -- have wronged us. We accept what we construe as their heartfelt apology and forgive them, steadfast in our belief that they won't do it again. Then, they do it again. And again. And again. I can't help but repeat that trite expression you've likely heard a million times by now: "Fool me once -- shame o...