Most people have a sense of what toxic relationships feel like. But it can be difficult to recognize these signs when they first appear in your life.
Often, there’s something inside you that says, “There has to be more.”
This dissatisfaction will turn into relationship conflict and power struggles, creating a toxic situation that leads to unhappiness.
Feeling uncomfortable or emotionally suspicious is a signal from your body and higher self that you are not in a loving, healthy relationship.
It is important to trust these warnings from your gut and/or heart, much more than to trust your mind/logic or sexual desires, which can guide us into toxic relationships.
Related: Give Yourself Credit — Walking Away From A Toxic Relationship Is Hard
Here are three warning signs often seen in people in toxic relationships:
- You often try to please your partner to get love
Do you notice that you are doing your best to attract your partner’s attention, acceptance, and approval? This is a common way people learn to receive love. In childhood, we learn to please others to gain this type of “reward.”
As a result, you become the “go-to guy” to get the love you want. Hold on to the core belief, “If I do this for you, you’ll love me.”
This core belief will lead you to do something for others at the expense of yourself.
In the long term, your distorted core belief leads to distortions in relationship boundaries, indicating your insecurities, low self-esteem, and fear of losing the relationship.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
Related: How To Leave A Toxic Relationship When You’re Still In Love
Fun role-playing is very common. However, it is extremely exhausting – physically and emotionally. Moreover, it is a sure way for your partner to gain control and power over you in the relationship.
It’s also a sure way to lose yourself in a relationship because you’ll soon realize that you often can’t do enough for your partner and can’t please them.
Pleasing someone not only drains you physically and emotionally, it also builds resentment within you.
To cope, you either keep your emotions in check to prevent conflict or you suddenly lash out verbally and/or physically at your partner or others, causing conflict anyway — especially internal conflict.
To compensate, you are the one who takes responsibility (owns) most if not all of the relationship problems. This reinforces your core, self-created negative belief about yourself.
Tragically, guilt or shame can consume you, filling you with remorse for how you now feel as an unloving person. The final result? You apologize for the conflict, although that’s not all you do.
This also allows your partner to move away from looking at themselves and their role in the relationship conflict and drama.
Related: 5 Low-Key Toxic Habits That Keep You Stuck In Bad Relationships
- You feel lonely in the relationship
Have you been in a relationship or are you currently in a relationship, but often find yourself feeling lonely? This is often a sign that you don’t feel part of the relationship.
Your partner is doing their job, such as working long hours or participating in recreational and/or social activities, and choosing to do these things without you, perhaps even to avoid you.
Love means inclusion, so if you experience more exclusion than inclusion from your partner, he or she doesn’t love you.
Yes, it is healthy to have some interests and activities without our partners. However, if this exclusion is the rule rather than the exception, this should be a red flag for a toxic relationship.
Related: 6 Harsh Reasons Why Smart People Stay In Toxic Relationships
- Lose yourself
Being pleasant with a selfish and exclusionary partner will likely cause you to lose yourself in the relationship.
Consciously or unconsciously, you begin to sacrifice your freedom and self-worth to keep the relationship intact.
This is almost a form of “selling your soul” or “prostituting” yourself to be in a relationship.
It’s a sign that you care more about a so-called relationship with someone outside of yourself than a healthy relationship with the person inside of you.
A love relationship should provide you with the opportunity and freedom to be yourself, not to lose yourself in the relationship.
If you notice any of the above signs occurring in your relationship, you are probably in a toxic relationship.
However, it is not about changing your partner. Your partner loves you the best way he knows how. Until they are willing to change the way they know love, they will love and interact with you the way they do now.
Your role is to love yourself enough to ask for help and resources so you can learn how to deal with a difficult relationship. Additionally, consider the advantages of not being with someone who gives you more heartache than joy.
