Toxic Relationship Signs: a Guide for Men

07.11.2019

It is generally accepted that toxic relationships are those in which the partner ignores your desires and needs. But in fact, this is only one of the variants of an unhealthy relationship. More often toxic behavior is not even being detected, and we live for years without noticing what exactly destroys our love. Moreover, not being able to recognize the warning signs of a toxic relationship, we bring them into a new relationship and fail again. In today's article, we've tried to focus attention on what is a toxic relationship and how you can fix them or leave to meet a woman now and start everything from scratch.

The Phenomenon of a Toxic Relationship

Let's look at relationships in general. First of all, it is a union of two equal people. And the word "equal" is not accidental here since this means that people have the same rights and absolutely equal values. No one is better, worse, or more significant. Everything that is in a healthy relationship, is distorted or absent in a toxic one. Being in them, people feel obligated, guilty. Toxic relationship symptoms make people be afraid, feel pressure, feel that they have to do what they don’t want. And all this is only a small part of a toxic relationship definition.

In toxic relationships, it’s difficult to understand where you act correctly and where not. There are no clear boundaries and rules, and a person does not understand what is happening to them and their partner. In such relationships, a person feels as if floating in muddy water, they stumble on different objects from time to time and react the way they know and feel. It is difficult to distinguish any stability in their reactions. Often people in such relationships feel confused. The same action gives a different result.

Definition of toxic relationships. Toxins are poisons, so the term "toxic relationship" speaks for itself. Toxic relationships poison life: they bring emotional pain and drain internal resources. Such relationships are not only bad as such, but they also affect our self-esteem, aspirations, and personal development. Toxic relationships make us worse but, unfortunately, they are quite common. Moreover, there are people who mistake them for normal. Some are vaccinated from childhood, while others are even romanticized and extolled. People stay in such relationships for years, and they don’t even get the idea that it could be different. Relationships can be toxic both with partners and friends as well as parents.

Domestic violence can very often develop in toxic relationships. There is an interesting mechanism: it all starts with some small phrases, criticism, and humiliations. The partner, most often a woman, does not attach any importance to this. Women often think: oh well, he’s a man, he can act aggressively, this is normal. And then he hits her, and she can even find an excuse for this, especially if she had already endured pressure and humiliation before that.

And then it turns into a constant beat: he hits her every time he doesn’t like something. A man in this situation has his own defensive reaction - substitution. Something doesn’t work out for him, and he lets his negativity out on a partner: well, she’s weak, she won’t fight back, she’s to blame for everything. Women in such situations often become constant victims.

What makes a relationship toxic? It is easy to guess that a “toxic” person is a kind of poisonous person. A person can bring joy to others only by being happy. The opposite is also true: if a person is poisonous, they inevitably poison their existence and the life of loved ones.

People who get into a toxic relationship tend to deny reality. Sometimes they justify their behavior or the behavior of their toxic partners. Sometimes they are so upset because of their relationship that they can hardly function and cope with the requirements of everyday life.

Toxic relationships can arise in personal life: between parents and children, brothers and sisters, women seeking men online, friends and acquaintances, tenants and landlords, etc. They can also occur at work: between employees and superiors as well as between colleagues.

You have probably borrowed money to a family member or a car to your colleague, looked after your friends' children while they were on vacation, and you hoped that these people would help you out in the same way at the right moment. But, unfortunately, toxic people never pay debts back: they return a broken car and do not even offer to pay for repairs; they have enough arrogance to ask to “look after the children” again and again, although they never offered to stay with yours. And this happens more than once: similar situations are repeated, taking different forms.

It hurts you, you understand that you were ignored, you are angry at the offender or, even worse, at yourself. But most importantly, you are constantly humiliated. You feel “used” or even exploited – those are the signs of a toxic relationship.

Main Signs of Toxic Relationships

The most important sign of a toxic relationship: in a relationship, you feel bad. If the relationship feels uncomfortable, then there are definitely some problems that need to be solved. Listening to yourself is important because many people consider toxic relationships to be normal.

1. Positive moments are short-lived

A toxic relationship is like a roller coaster, with excitement and intrigue, accompanied by uncertainty and anxiety. You live for ups in communication, but mostly you experience downs. At this time, you remain hopeful, waiting to receive the next portion of attention from the partner.

This may be alienation, estrangement, lack of interest of the partner or indulgent communication. A person feels insecure in relationships more often, not understanding what they did wrong. The unpredictability of intense emotions keeps a person in toxic relationships. The person in this situation is like an unlucky player who hopes that the next card will surely turn out to be winning.

How to get out of a toxic relationship? Recognizing the unpleasant reality will help you get off the roller coaster, catch your breath, and wait until the dizziness passes to continue to reflect on the problem.

2. You feel anxious when being alone

When you are with your partner, you feel literally intoxicated - you do not want anything but to be with her/him. But at the end of each date, you experience crushing anxiety. You feel self-doubt, reflect on your personality, appearance, and your actions. How to know if your relationship is toxic? Most likely you doubt the status of your relationship and become jealous of other people your toxic partner spends time with.

3. When you share your feelings, a partner blames you

From time to time you lose your temper and let your partner know that you feel insecure and anxious. You demand answers about whether your union is really important to them. But no matter what you say, how you say it, or when you say it, your partner puts the blame on you and tells you everything that you are doing wrong in a relationship. Towards the end of the conversation, you feel that you are bad, or that you did something that made the person mistreat you.

4. Are you obsessed with this relationship?

Almost everything you think about is your toxic love relationship. When you see your partner, you think about how you can become more attractive, what you can say or wear to become more desirable. A lot of your time is devoted to thinking whether the relationship is healthy and whether you will ever get what you need from your partner.

Alone with yourself, you most likely feel lonely. Perhaps you have few other deep relationships that would fill the void because you organized your life so as not to let your friends or family know about your toxic alliance. You are really afraid that your loved ones will advise you to end the relationship, and therefore, you avoid confidential communication with other people.

5. You do everything for them but not for yourself

You also have feelings, but the other person does not care about them. An equal discussion, in which your opinion is heard, taken into account and respected, is simply a utopia. Instead of recognizing your feelings, they fight with you until they say the last word.

Next to this person, you are not comfortable being yourself - you cannot honestly express your thoughts. You have to put on a mask for another to accept you. You understand that you don’t recognize yourself. And the worst part is that you don’t like the new person you have turned into. At the same time, you cannot grow and change since every time you try to improve yourself in something and develop, this person makes fun of you and expresses distrust in every possible way. Your attempts are never supported. Instead, they try to keep you in the old framework and reinforce ineffective habits, insisting that you can never change.

Could I Fix a Toxic Relationship?

If you stay in toxic relationships for long, they may have an irreversible impact on your psyche. They can make you depression-prone, destruct your self-esteem and turn you into a passive aggressor. As you live through your life with a manipulator in a toxic relationship, you get used to being constantly tormented by the feeling you did something wrong, behaving submissively and trying to suppress your emotions. Of course, this is not normal and that is why you should quit relationships like this. In most cases, this is the only way out since toxic people never change.

However, if you still believe that your beloved can change and have the hope that those toxic patterns are only a coincidence or an isolated incident, you can try to take measures considering the advice discussed below. But if you ask yourself, "How to end a toxic relationship," you might clearly realize you have a problem building love with the person you are currently with, do not suffer. There is no need to exhaust neither yourself nor the person that doesn’t even notice that they hurt you as it is their natural behavior.

A relationship is a matter of two. All the recommendations make sense only under one indispensable condition - they must be followed together. If only one plays "according to the rules," the second will again use this and try to manipulate, and in the end, everything will become even worse. Therefore, do not immediately try to apply everything to yourself if your relationship has long gone out of control.

The psychologists are sure that any attempt to change a person whose treatment hurts you is doomed to failure. Inform your partner about what you don't like. And if a person continues to poison you with their behavior, there will be two options - to protect yourself and leave the person or to accept the role of the victim and live, fantasizing that something will change someday.

Relationship Improvement Exercises

Exercise â„–1: Talk

This is not banal advice. If one of you or both has a bad relationship, first of all, discuss the experience with a partner. Important: There can be no right and wrong answers, everyone perceives the situation in their own way and has the right to it. The essence of the exercise is not to come to a consensus, but that you can hear and understand each other. If you have different points of view, this is normal, all attitudes have a right to exist. As long as we believe that the truth is only on our side, we will not be able to hear and understand the feelings of another person. But assuming the idea that the partner may also be right, we will open for ourselves a new path that will lead to a joint search for a solution. Each conflict has two sides. As soon as we accept this thought and cease to consider ourselves the ultimate truth, it becomes easier to understand the partner.

Exercise â„–2: Look At The Past

How to fix a toxic relationship? If you manage to understand your emotional reactions, it's time to go back in time. Unhealed wounds from past relationships or relationships with parents can affect the way we communicate with a loved one, react to their words and actions. Try to find a connection between current reactions and past events.

Exercise â„–3: Write Down Your Points Of View

Summarize the situation regarding the quarrel on paper. Jot step into your partner’s shoes. As soon as you do this, you will immediately see that this is precisely the point of view and not a dry and impartial description of the facts. We are all complex people, and emotional reactions are determined by past experience, expectations, and desires.

Tips on How to Keep Your Relationship Healthy

We all want to meet such a person we will never quarrel with, with whom everything will be easy and simple, relationships will develop gradually and be characterized by mutual pleasure. We may even meet our soulmate. After all, it seems that with a loved one, finally, you can be yourself and not make any more efforts. But this is when most couples do a mistake. They do not understand that the love itself is never enough, and healthy relationships require everyday work.

Keep your distance

This is the most important rule that guarantees a stable base of any union. When a man and a woman enter into a new relationship, they are like two never seen galaxies for each other. They rediscover each other and rejoice at every step taken towards. Moreover, in the end, they strive to become one inseparable whole - this is often considered the embodiment of perfect love relationships. But with every step taken towards rapprochement, ease and novelty leave the relationship. Let each other remain separate people. Do not stick to each other, do not control, and, never show possessive habits.

Take care of each other and your relationship

Every joke and irony are a manifestation of aggression. In its pure essence, this desire to hurt has been invented for fun. Therefore, the next time you want to joke with a loved one, think about why you need it. Do you really want to hurt them? So maybe it's better to end the relationship, rather than mock your partner?

Stop manipulating

Manipulation is a way to get what you want from other people without having to bear any responsibility for it. It is more difficult to ask - it is necessary to take the liberty to clearly state your desire, and even get involved in reciprocal obligations, which you so want to avoid. There is a limit to everything - not every desire is appropriate, and not every desire can be fulfilled, but we can agree on that. Take courage and learn to play openly.

Save your personal territory

Another common and destructive error is that a man and a woman in love should do everything together, sleep in the same bed, have no secrets and generally belong to each other completely. Yes, at the initial stage of the relationship, you do not want to break away from each other for a minute. Friends, work, hobbies - everything is put aside, just to be together. It may be romantic, but to squeeze each other out right away and dry is dangerous. To reduce the whole meaning of life to relationships with even the most beautiful person means to lose touch with reality.

Talk to each other

Another rule, as important and fundamental as the ability to keep a distance is to learn to talk to each other. How to fix a toxic relationship? Do not fuss, gossip, discuss business matters or watch a movie, but talk about what is really important - about yourself, about your feelings, about relationships and what is happening between you.

If we find ourselves in a toxic relationship, then we have chosen to get there. If a person behaves inappropriately, and we indulge them, support this lifestyle, then we voluntarily become an element of this puzzle.

This situation should not be confused with a situation of violence when you have no choice. When you are indoors and physically unable to go out, this is one thing. And when you can get out of some format of relationships, but don’t do it for some other reason, then this is a completely different matter.

Often these situations can be confused. Abusive relationships are also toxic, and it is really very difficult to get out of them. We are talking about open systems, a way out of which is still possible. In the case of abuse, specialized help is needed. In the case of toxic relationships, a person can handle it themselves.