If These 15 Things Feel Familiar, Psychology Says Your Relationship Might Be More Emotionally Destructive Than You Realize
You need more than love to keep a relationship healthy.
Francesca Zama | Unsplash A toxic relationship contaminates your self-esteem, your happiness, and the way you see yourself and the world. A toxic person will float through life with a trail of broken hearts, broken relationships, and broken people behind them, but toxic relationships don’t necessarily end up that way because the person you fell for turned out to be a toxic one.
Relationships can start healthy, but bad feelings, bad history, or long-term unmet needs can fester, polluting the relationship and changing the people in it. It can happen easily and quickly, and it can happen to the strongest people.
If the relationship is toxic, it is highly likely that all the fights in the world won’t change anything because one or both people have emotionally moved on. Perhaps they were never really there in the first place, or not in the way you needed them to be anyway. Even worse, if your relationship is toxic, you will be more and more damaged by staying in it.
Fighting to hold on to something that is not fighting to hold on to you will ruin you. Sometimes the only thing left to do is to let go with grace and love and move on. What are the signs that I’m in a toxic relationship?
If these 15 things feel familiar, psychology says your relationship might be more emotionally destructive than you realize
1. It feels bad all the time
You fall asleep hollow and you wake up just as bad. You look at other couples doing their happy couple thing and you feel the sting. Why couldn’t that sort of love happen to you? It can, but first, you have to clear the path for it to find you.
Leaving a relationship is never easy, but staying for too long in a toxic relationship will make sure any strength, courage, and confidence in you are eroded down to nothing. Once that happens, you’re stuck.
2. You’re constantly braced for the ‘gotcha’
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Sometimes you can see it coming. Sometimes you wouldn’t see it if it was lit with stadium floodlights. Questions become traps. (‘Well, would you rather go out with your friends or stay home with me?’) Statements become traps. (‘You seemed to enjoy talking to your boss tonight.’)
The relationship is a jungle and somewhere along the way you’ve turned into a hunted thing in a skin suit. When the ‘gotcha’ comes, there’s no forgiveness, just the glory of catching you out. It’s impossible to move forward from this. Everyone makes mistakes, but yours are used as proof that you’re too uninvested, too wrong, too stupid, too something. The only thing you really are is too good to be treated like this.
3. You avoid saying what you need because there’s just no point
We all have important needs in relationships. Some of the big ones are connection, validation, appreciation, love, intimacy, and affection. When those needs are mocked or ignored, the emptiness of that unmet need will clamor like an old church bell.
If your attempts to talk about what you need end in a fight, a(nother) empty promise, accusations of neediness, insecurity, jealousy, or madness you’ll either bury the need or resent that it keeps being overlooked. Either way, it’s toxic.
Consistently avoiding expressing one's needs in a relationship, even when essential, can strongly indicate a toxic dynamic. A 2022 study confirmed that this often stems from fear of conflict or a lack of respect for one's boundaries. In a toxic relationship, you may start to lose your sense of self as you constantly try to please your partner and suppress your own needs and desires.
4. There’s no effort
Standing on a dance floor doesn’t make you a dancer, and being physically present in a relationship doesn’t mean there is an investment being made in that relationship. Doing things separately sometimes is healthy, but as with all healthy things, too much is too much.
When there is no effort to love you, spend time with you, and share the things that are important to you, the relationship stops giving and starts taking too much. There comes a point that the only way to respond to ‘Well I’m here, aren’t I?’ is, ‘Yeah. But maybe it better if you weren’t.’
5. All the work, love, and compromise come from you
Nobody can hold a relationship together when they are the only ones doing the work. It’s lonely and it’s exhausting. If you’re not able to leave the relationship, give what you need to give but don’t give any more than that.
Let go of the fantasy that you can make things better if you try hard enough, work hard enough, say enough, and do enough. Stop. Just stop. You’re enough. You always have been.
6. When ‘no’ is a dirty word
‘No’ is an important word in any relationship. Don’t strike it from your vocabulary, even in the name of love — especially not in the name of love. Healthy relationships need compromise, but they also respect the needs and wants of both people.
Communicating what you want is as important for you and the relationship as communicating what you don’t want. Find your ‘no’, give it a polish, and know where the release button is. A loving partner will respect that you’re not going to agree with everything they say or do.
If you’re only accepted when you’re saying ‘yes’, it’s probably time to say ‘no’ to the relationship. And if you’re worried about the gap you’re leaving, buy your soon-to-be ex some putty. Problem solved.
In relationships, consistently feeling 'no' is a bad word or that you can't say 'no' to your partner's demands or expectations can strongly indicate a toxic dynamic where your needs are consistently disregarded or minimized. In such relationships, a 2021 study found that boundaries are often overlooked or minimized, leading to feeling trapped or unable to assert autonomy.
7. The scorecard says "let me show you how wrong you are"
One of the glorious things about being human is that making mistakes is all part of what we do. It’s how we learn, how we grow, and how we find out the people who don’t deserve us. Even the most loving, committed partners will do hurtful, stupid things sometimes. When those things are brought up over and over, it will slowly kill even the healthiest relationship and keep the ‘guilty’ person small.
At some point, there has to be a decision to move on or move out. Having shots continually fired at you based on history is a way to control, shame, and manipulate. Healthy relationships nurture your strengths. Toxic ones focus on your weaknesses.
8. There’s a battle — and you’re on your own, again
You and your partner are a team. You need to know that whatever happens, you have each other’s backs, at least publicly. In healthy relationships, when the world starts throwing stones, the couple comes together and fortifies the wall around each other.
Toxic relationships often see one person going it alone when it comes to public put-downs. Similarly, when attempts are made from outside the relationship to divide and conquer, the couple is divided and conquered as easily as if they were never together in the first place.
9. Physical or verbal abuse, or both
These are deal-breakers. You know they are.
Verbal abuse, including insults, threats, and manipulation, is a hallmark of toxic relationships, as it can significantly impact mental health and is often used to exert power and control. According to a 2019 study, victims of verbal abuse may feel trapped in the relationship due to fear, guilt, or learned helplessness.
10. Too much passive-aggressive
Passive-aggressive behavior is an indirect attack and a cowardly move for control. The toxicity lies in stealing your capacity to respond and for issues to be dealt with directly.
The attack is subtle and often disguised as something else, such as anger disguised as indifference ‘whatever’ or ‘I’m fine; manipulation disguised as permission ‘I’ll just stay at home by myself while you go out and have fun,’ and the worst — a villain disguised as a hero, ‘You seem really tired baby. We don’t have to go out tonight. You just stay in and cook yourself some dinner and I’ll have a few drinks with Svetlana by myself hey? She’s been a mess since the cruise was postponed.’
You know the action or the behavior was designed to manipulate you or hurt you because you can feel the scrape, but it’s not obvious enough to respond to the real issue. If it’s worth getting upset about, it’s worth talking about, but passive-aggressive behavior shuts down any possibility of this.
11. Nothing gets resolved
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Every relationship will have its issues. In a toxic relationship, nothing gets worked through because any conflict ends in an argument. There is no trust that the other person will have the capacity to deal with the issue in a way that is safe and preserves the connection.
When this happens, needs get buried, and in a relationship, unmet needs will always feed resentment.
12. Whatever you’re going through, I’m going through worse
In a healthy relationship, both people need their turn at being the supported and the supporter. In a toxic relationship, even if you’re the one in need of support, the focus will always be on the other person.
‘Babe like I know you’re really sick and can’t get out of bed but it’s soooo stressful for me because now I have to go to the party by myself. Next Saturday I get to choose what we do. K? [sad emoji, balloon emoji, heart emoji, another heart emoji, lips emoji].’
According to a 2014 study, a pattern in which your partner consistently prioritizes your needs and experiences, even when you need support, can be a significant red flag. It suggests a toxic relationship dynamic in which your needs are consistently disregarded or devalued.
13. Privacy, what privacy
Unless you’ve done something to your partner that you shouldn’t have, like, you know, forgot you had one on ‘Singles Saturday’, then you deserve to be trusted. Everybody deserves some level of privacy and healthy relationships can trust that this won’t be misused.
If your partner constantly goes through your receipts, phone bills, and text messages this shows a toxic level of control. It’s demeaning. You’re an adult and don’t need constant supervision.
14. The lies, oh the lies
Lying and cheating will dissolve trust as if it was never there, to begin with. Once trust is so far gone, it’s hard to get it back. It might come back in moments or days, but it’s likely that it will always feel fragile – just waiting for the wrong move.
A relationship without trust can turn strong, healthy people into something they aren’t naturally — insecure, jealous, and suspicious. The toxicity of this lies in the slow erosion of confidence.
Sometimes all the fights in the world can’t repair trust when it’s badly broken. Know when enough is enough. It’s not your fault that the trust was broken, but it’s up to you to make sure that you’re not broken next.
15. Big decisions are for important people, and clearly, you’re not one of them
If you’re sharing your life with someone, it’s critical that you have a say in the decisions that will affect you. Your partner’s opinions and feelings will always be important, and so are yours. Your voice is an important one.
A loving partner in the context of a healthy relationship will value your thoughts and opinions, not pretend that they don’t exist or assume theirs are more important.
I think I might be in a toxic relationship. What now?
If it’s toxic, it’s changing you and it’s time to leave or put up a very big wall. Be clear about where the relationship starts and where you begin.
Keep your distance emotionally and think of it as something to be managed, rather than something to be beaten or understood. Look for the patterns and look for the triggers. Then, be mindful of what is okay and what isn’t. Above all else, know that you are strong, complete, and vital. Don’t buy into any tiny-hearted, close-minded push that would have you believe otherwise. You’re amazing.
And finally …
There are plenty of reasons you might end up in a toxic relationship, none of which have anything to do with the strength of character or courage.
Sometimes the toxicity grows and blindsides you and by the time you realize it, it’s too late – the cost of leaving might feel too high or there may be limited options.
Toxicity in any relationship doesn’t make sense. In an attempt to make it make sense, you might blame history, circumstance, or your own behavior. The truth is that none of this matters. It doesn’t matter where the toxicity comes from or the reason for it being there.
Love and happiness don’t always go together. The world would run so much smoother if they did, but it just doesn’t happen like that.
Love can be a dirty little liar sometimes. So can commitment. Staying in a relationship should never have losing yourself as one of the conditions. You’re far too important for that.
It’s important to make sacrifices in relationships but your happiness, self-esteem, and self-respect should always be on the list — always. If a relationship is built on love, it nurtures, restores, replenishes, and revives. It doesn’t diminish.
It isn’t cruel and it doesn’t ever violate a warm, open heart. Everything you need to be happy is in you. When you are with someone who suffocates those precious parts of you, be alive to the damage they are doing.
You owe them nothing, you owe yourself everything. You deserve to thrive and to feel safe, and you deserve to be happy.
If you think you may be experiencing depression or anxiety as a result of ongoing emotional abuse, you are not alone.
Domestic abuse can happen to anyone and is not a reflection of who you are or anything you've done wrong.
If you feel as though you may be in danger, there is support available 24/7/365 through the National Domestic Violence Hotline by calling 1-800-799-7233. If you’re unable to speak safely, text LOVEIS to 1-866-331-9474, or log onto thehotline.org.
Karen Young is a psychologist, Huffington Post UK contributor, and founder of Hey Sigmund.