"Is He Toxic Or Am I Just Hyper-Sensitive?"

Being in what I call a “pain cycle” is being in a love relationship where the pain of loving that person overtakes the positive aspects of the love you share.

Examples of pain cycles are relationships where you feel like you are on an emotional rollercoaster. Where you feel betrayed or your emotional and physical needs in love are not being met and you deeply suffer, as a result.

Pain cycles can even be relationships where the other person isn’t toxic in and of themselves but the situation is: he’s married, you are having casual friends with benefits situations out of fear of getting hurt. See, pain cycles are not just painful relationships; they are also painless, somewhat unfulfilling relationships that you stay involved in, in order not to seek out quality, deep connections with men where you may REALLY experience pain. It’s that FEAR OF FUTURE pain that can make these casual relationships pain cycles.

However, the types of pain cycles where your partner is toxic can be very scary, deeply damaging and downright exhausting. Here are five signs of a noxious man and some ways to spot these personality pitfalls right away:

1. He’s a CRYING CROCODILE:  Noxious men only cry crocidile tears.  They lack real empathy and compassion. They may ball their eyes out if something hurtful is done to them, but when YOU are in emotional or physical distress, they don’t seem too concerned. They may act empathic and say the right things, but you can tell that they aren’t really showing understanding. Or remorse if they’ve done you wrong.

If you think your man doesn’t seem to care much for the pain and suffering of others, including YOU, and you are seriously wondering if you should be entrusting him with making you feel safe, ask him questions like “If you found a wallet on the street, would you try to contact the owner?” Or “Do you think most people would do harmful things to others if it benefited them and if they knew they could get away with it? Would you and what would you do?” Be subtle but watch his expressions.

2. He’s a ROYAL WANNABE: A toxic man is entitled. He is the important factor in everything. It’s all about him and his needs. A lot of men act a wee bit self-important, especially successful men who love power, but a toxic man takes it to the extreme.

Does he truly listen to your needs, or take your requests into consideration? Does he charm you and sweet talk you, but never really HEAR you and SEE you?

His relationship with his family is a big sign of whether a man feels entitled or not. Does he do for his parents, and willingly so? Does he care about his sister’s problems, and share his concerns for her to you? Does he constantly whine and bitch about his family to you and TO THEM?

Watch the way he treats people in a position of service toward him: waiters, store clerks, valet guys. Does he seem to treat people like they are bottom-feeding servants instead of dignified human being who are offering a service for which one must always be respectful back?

If your man is snapping his fingers at a waiter or exploding at the manager of a restaurant over something rather trivial, listen to the way he talks to him or her, and remember, he will talk to you like that one day I guarantee it.  This brings me to my next toxic trait…

3. He’s a MINE FIELD OPERATOR: If you feel like you have to walk on eggshells all the time not to set a man off, run. Someone who needs things to go a certain way or to be treated a certain way in order not to explode is a very insecure, angry, controlling person. These men will leave you drained and exhausted.

Now sometimes we women like to exhaust ourselves over a man and worry over every action we make with him, while the man is not creating that behavior in us. We are driving ourselves nutty out of a compulsion in us to want to work hard to keep love.

The way you can tell if it's you or him draining you of energy and happiness is to notice the depth of impatience and anger in his responses when you upset him. If he doesn’t jump to blame and defend himself with hissing and barking, you are probably running YOURSELF crazy and labeling him as the culprit.

4. He’s a LETTER FROM M TO JAMES BOND: If you feel like your man will self-destruct in ___ days, weeks, months… get out of there before he blows and you get something on yourself!

Toxic men are self-destructive. They love a good martini, or 12, a fast and wild ride on a motorcycle (preferably after the martinis) and a dark, heavy storm cloud to follow them through life. They are always seeking to be miserable and will therefore look for the negativity in life in which to find a cozy corner and bleed out.

Even narcissists who appear to love themselves and put their needs first, are still self-destructive, always looking for relationships or situations that make them feel punished. Even if they are punishing you, they in turn, punish themselves with guilt over having hurt you.

If you think you have a guy like this on your hands, ask him what his favorite way to die would be. I’m not kidding. If he’s self-destructive, he won’t look at you like you’re weirdly morbid, he’ll answer and fast. Maybe even in detail!

5. He’s MAYWEATHER JR.: If your man is physically abusive, there is no excuse. Go now. You don’t need a sign to look for here. If he touches you in any way that hurts you or terrifies you into thinking that he could badly hurt you, he is physically abusing you.

If you’re involved with a noxious man who fits one or all five of these character types, please think about taking steps to untangle yourself from him.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m a firm believer in change. I believe that a woman who wants to help her relationship can step up and work on herself to make her man step up, take her lead and adjust to fit her new fabulous way of loving. However, I also believe some men are born with what Jennifer Aniston coined as “a sensitivity chip missing.”

You can’t fix a noxious lover just like you can’t save a drowning man who is committing to drowning, but you can save yourself and cut bait.

Before I sign out today, though, I want to say that it takes two to play tug-of-war!
In pain cycles, most of us either blame the other person, feeling the comfort in being a victim, or we blame ourselves, constantly worrying that we should improve ourselves to improve the connection with the one we love. Both stances are self-defeating.

No one is ever innocent of any charges in a toxic relationship (if things are bad you take proactive steps to turn things around for yourself instead of start to blame). No one person is entirely guilty either: a person cannot repeatedly wound you unless you allow him or her to and that would make you masochistic. A guess what? Every single masochist has a sadistic side that comes out just as strong at certain moments (even if it’s in the form of passive aggressive behavior.)

So don’t complain, blame, make threats to a man you think is a bad guy, just ask yourself, “Even though he isn’t acting like the man I want him to, do I trust that he loves me and is willing and able to hear me, see me and make adjustments for our love?” If the answer is no, please think about packing and starting a noxious-man detox now.