I recently experienced an incident of what I call “relationship roulette.” Contrary to what I thought of as the healthy state of some relationships in my life, barely below the surface there lay hidden seeds of betrayal and abandonment—often several years in gestation and arising out of nowhere without warning.

And the underlying cause for such deterioration of relations? I discovered it may be as innocuous as a misunderstood comment during a conversation years earlier, a personal slight unacknowledged by the other party and therefore unknown to me, or an assumption made without basis in reality but manufactured into a misperception.

If any of the above pertains to one of your personal relationships I urge you to deal with the issue as it happens if you hope to preserve it. I personally try to live as scripture instructs us, “as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” However, as we cannot control others’ actions toward us, we are left to deal with the resultant fallout when our best intentions are obliterated by relational fireworks.

One method of coping is striving to live free of others’ unrealistic expectations. We are all human and capable of offense but when it happens inadvertently it is up to the aggrieved to address it with the offender or else it is unfixable. I will even go so far as to say that if I offend someone I expect them to confront me about it, or forgive me of it and move on, or notify me of our relationship’s end at the time.

Otherwise, for better or worse, I will assume all is well. What is especially galling about unanticipated relational blowups is that all the intervening touchpoints feel inauthentic in retrospect. Another coping mechanism is limiting relationships with people who appear quick to pass judgments and formulate opinions from cursory observations. As I learned the hard way, if others look for offense they are likely to find it.