Do not be rude.

You pretty much know when you're being blatantly rude, mean, or crazy around your guy. Hey, it happens. It's when you use seemingly innocent but actually harmful lines that you can cause the worst injury to your relationship. "It's precisely because they're intended to be nice, helpful, or benign that makes them so insidious," says Diana Kirschner, Ph.D., author of Love in 90 Days. "He may not consciously realize how much they bother him, but if a guy is sent these messages long enough, he'll start to shut down." To avoid unwittingly triggering that kind of resentment in him, we compiled the six shadow phrases that can create the most lasting scars. We suggest you eliminate them from your vocabulary ... like, now.

1. "You're so much better than all the other jerks I've dated."
Absolutely, it seems like you're paying him a nice compliment. But when a guy hears this, alarms start going off. "It sounds like something a girl who's had terrible luck in relationships would say," explains professional matchmaker Rachel Greenwald, author of Why He Didn't Call You Back. And since guys tend to be pretty rational, he'll figure out that the one constant in all those awful relationships was you ... so you must be the problem.

That's not all. He'll also assume that since you think everyone you've ever dated is a jerk, you will eventually think he's a jerk too, which provides very little motivation to try to build on your bond.

How do you let him know you value your relationship above all others? Simple. "Don't mention your exes," Greenwald says. "Most men don't want to be reminded of the other men in your life, even — or especially — if they were all jerks." Instead, keep the focus on the present relationship by saying something like "I've never met anyone like you before. I'm having such a wonderful time." That way, you come off as empowered.