Let’s talk about the 10 signs of a toxic relationship. Every relationship has problems, but when the core values of honor, loyalty, understanding, and mutual trust are missing, neither person can grow in the relationship. Your relationship ought to be a source of happiness, not frustration. The moment you start feeling humiliated and afraid, those are obvious signs that you’re in a toxic relationship.
Toxic relationships can take several shapes. Most of the time, the bad signs are hidden by what happens in the first few years of a relationship. You know you and your partner get drowned in the ocean of love. The love is breathtaking; everything feels fresh, and your future looks glorious. At this point, it’s very easy to overlook warning signs of emotional manipulation because it may appear tricky at this point.
However, shortly or later, the sparkles and butterflies can vanish. And it’s in that state that every toxicity and flaw in your relationship is revealed. Recognizing what makes a toxic relationship is as crucial as what makes a successful one. You need to understand the 10 signs of a toxic relationship so you can work on it and explore therapy or other options.
Here are 10 signs of a toxic relationship.
1. Surviving Around Them Is Difficult
When your relationship is healthy, you should enjoy your partner’s company and find them enjoyable to hang around with. However, if this is not the case with you, it indicates that your partner is draining you.
Watch Out For These 2 Things:
● You Treasure Your ‘Me’ Moments
Do you enjoy staying all by yourself for the weekends because of emotional fatigue? Do you feel this delighted looking forward to the day you’ll be away from your partner just because spending time with your partner drains you and leaves you wanting a recharge?
This is a big red flag!
● Your Discussions Are Draining
You should feel this positive outlook on life after a discussion with your partner. Misunderstandings can happen in any relationship, but if your talks are discouraging, draining, tense, and full of bad feelings, that’s a sign of a toxic relationship.
2. You Don’t Receive Sympathy
Sympathy is likened to a set of glasses you wear to view the world through another person’s eyes. When you possess empathy, you prefer to rejoice with your partner when they’re rejoicing and weep with them when they’re weeping. It is choosing to remind your partner that they are doing well, despite their shortcomings.
A toxic partner is solely focused on their appetites and needs. They don’t care about their partner’s interests or those around them. When you decide to open up and express your concerns to a toxic partner, you’re confronted with indifference instead of compassion and negativity instead of positivity. A toxic partner might pass your comments as unimportant and turn the entire discussion back on themselves.
3. You Feel Used And Disregarded
Imagine if you had a baby, but you didn’t nurture that baby. What do you think would happen to your baby? That baby will be in danger. Babys’ helplessness and reliance on their parents for safety are obvious.
People (grown-ups) also crave to be nurtured, just like babies. If you say you’re in a relationship, but your partner doesn’t cherish you nor tend to your essential needs, not even because you can’t do this by yourself, but because they care about you, you’re in a toxic relationship. It is possible that you’re not only being ignored but also being used.
4. You Walk On Eggshells
In a good relationship, you should feel comfortable and free to tell your partner anything. But if it gets to the level where you need to always be extra careful around them, you’re in an unhealthy relationship. For instance, you might start feeling scared about discussing certain subjects because your partner may get furious. Or you always watch your actions, so you don’t annoy your partner, etc. This right here is a huge red flag!
According to Kandee Lewis, “it is important that you pay attention to these signs. The longer they are endured, the more difficult it is to leave or reconfigure a relationship dynamic.”
Kandee is an executive director of the Positive Results Corporation (PRC), a group that functions to help identify and combat a series of abuses in relationships.
5. You Always Feel Humiliated
Does your partner humiliate you and make you feel inferior to others? That is a sign of emotional immaturity and can grow to become a toxic relationship. Emotionally immature partners must brace themselves for a heap of your hurts, failures, and imperfections. When they can’t find something bad to point out, they come up with something or try to brush you off an experience.
6. You Are Always Blamed Over Past Mistakes
That relationship is toxic if you’re in a relationship where your partner often addresses you with blame instead of sympathy. In this kind of relationship, the toxic partner employs the other partner’s past faults as a weapon to humiliate them. If you find yourself in this relationship, don’t fold your hands and endure it. Seek help as fast as possible.
7. Silence Is Often Employed As A Weapon
When your partner often uses silence on you, especially over an issue, you need to hold a dialogue to resolve it. Then chances are they are trying to assert control over you. Also, if your partner often forbids communication with you for hours or even days, they are dictating the terms of the contention and discussion. That is no more than an assertion of control.
According to Lewis, “it is typical to be upset, dissatisfied, or even mad at your partner sometimes. However, when you ignore your partner and refuse to talk with them for over an hour or two, it is toxic and abusive.”
8. You Are Always Manipulated And Isolated
If your partner attempts to separate you from your friends and family or beneficial activities just to keep you close by and restricted. They are insecure and controlling. This behavior can sometimes assume the form of love and compassion, with the guilty partner always confessing that they love you very much and want to have you all to themselves. When often repeated, it’s a way to control you and keep you from having a life outside the relationship.
9. You Feel Like You’re A Shadow Of Yourself
When you have a toxic partner, they try to manipulate and shape you to suit their agenda. It is often their policies and concerns that monopolize the relationship. This kind of partner has no iota of care for what makes you happy and comfortable.
In this relationship, you often corrupt your core values to satisfy your partner’s selfish interests. When you recognize these unhealthy habits in your relationship, establish healthy boundaries. Decline any suggestion that will cause you suffering. Ensure you maintain your ground and live by your core virtues.
10. They Drain Your Self-Esteem
A toxic partner delights in picking at you. They will always criticize you using abusive statements that strip you of your self-esteem.
Look out for statements like these:
“I hate that shoe, and don’t ask me why!”
“Trim your hair.”
“I dislike how you did it.”
“Why should I go to the meeting today? I assumed you were going to remain indoors.”
“I don’t want to go out with you.”
While this statement is not wrong in its sense, according to Jane Greer, a marriage and family therapist, “These kinds of statements drain your self-esteem, and you will begin to feel nasty about yourself and start to question your judgment.”
Last Words On 10 Signs Of A Toxic Relationship
Hopefully, we’ve helped you discover the 10 signs of a toxic relationship and what to do. The fact they show up doesn’t mean everything is over. They’re just signposts that alert you when something is going wrong. Your response to them will depend on the kind of relationship.
In marriage relationships, you and your partner should work together to resolve any problems in your relationship. In other kinds of relationships, try to make things work especially if you aren’t already feeling like a shadow of yourself. When you’ve given it your all and the relationship still seems to be deteriorating, and you’re in danger, it’s time to consider other options.
Thnx!