Most relationships are healthy and productive, and are a positive factor in your life. Sometimes though, due to the actions or temperament of a partner, a loving bond can turn sour and start to have a negative effect on your well-being. This is called a toxic relationship,and it can arise over a long period without you even noticing it.
How Do You Know If A Relation is Toxic?
There are several ways to identify whether or not you are in a toxic relationship, for instance:
• Your spouse makes fun of you or puts you down in front of other people;
• Although they say they love you, your partner does not act like it;
• Your partner is jealous or suspicious, spying on or checking up on you;
• Your spouse does not like you having any independence;
• You feel like you have to alter your personality and/or appearance to keep them interested in you.
Being in a relationship with a ‘toxic’ person can affect your well-being. How, then, do people end up being dependent on a toxic relationship, and why would they want to be around someone who threatens their mental or physical health?
How Do Toxic Relationships Develop?
Such toxic relationships operate in a cycle. When you first get together there is the innocent honeymoon period when everything is new and exciting. Afterwards, there may come the inevitable break-down of relations, and then the reconciliation and renewal of the relationship, then the pattern repeats.
During the first stages of a relationship you are obviously in the honeymoon period, where excitement at new love blinds you to your partner’s flaws. It is only when you have got to know each other well, and the rose-tinted glasses comes off, that you become aware of your relationship being toxic. By this point, you may be too committed to that person to walk away.
Sometimes, the reason for a person accepting a toxic relationship is that they may have grown up in a toxic environment at home. Unconsciously, they recreate the environments they experienced at home because that may be how they believe a relationship works. Other people may have a low self-esteem and believe that a toxic relationship, no matter how bad, is all they deserve. On the other hand, there are some people out there who may think that they enjoy taking care of a troubled, toxic partner in the hope that they can later ‘change their ways’.
How Do You Escape A Toxic Relationship?
However, the keys to escaping a toxic relationship and avoiding repeating one, is to understand that in every partnership you have choices. Sometimes the people most drawn to toxic relationships are those who are depressed or unhappy with themselves, and may feel that they do not have any option but to continue being with someone who is not good for them.
Once you come to realise that you have the power to make a choice about who you are with, you can start to assert yourself in the relationship. A lot of the time, the toxic person in a relationship normally will be accused by the other person as the cause of the problems; if you give in and accept the blame, it becomes much harder to pluck up courage to leave or to stand up for yourself.
There are many help and support groups out there for people or couples affected by toxic relationships. It’s important to remember that many people succeed in breaking the counterproductive cycles of toxic relationships; it is a choice you will have to make - whether to remain in the relationship or to bail out and form a more healthy relationship with someone else.
Others, however, are able to mend their bonds and modify their behaviour so that they can make their relationship a more productive one.
In most cases, broken relationships can be salvage. The offended person would need time to assess what went wrong and what he or she wants from the partnership going forward. On the other hand, it is possible for the couple to employ the service of a professional for relationship advice. Nevertheless, the key point is that both parties will have to reach a compromise.
Another option to consider in a toxic relationship is to be prepared to walk away if it cannot be salvaged. If you are not willing or able to do that, then you may never be able to face the issues which need to be addressed.
After you have accepted that you are equal in the relationship and that you deserve as much affection and caring as you give, the next stage is to assert this fact; let your partner know that you too have needs. You should do this in a way which doesn’t belittle the other person, by using simple phrases such as “I need your love”, or “please be truthful with me”, or “I need to know I’ve got your support”.
The same way in which you must accept that you should walk away if you don’t get an equal share in the relationship, your partner must also know that you will not accept the toxic situation any longer. If they are constantly under the impression that you will not leave no matter whatever, they will not have any motivation or drive to change their behaviour.
Productive and healthy relationships tend to work both ways; each partner should get back as much love, dialogue, and affection as they put in. In a toxic relationship, it is only a one-way street. If you want to change such a relationship, you do have the power to do so, however it is something that will take effort and honesty.
Learn how you can find out if you are in a Toxic relationship in just minutes with our recommended The Magic Of Making Up and Saving Your Marriage
Noskay: Author and Publisher of Many Romance and Relationship Books
