Toxic relationships can take a toll on our overall health, whether they’re romantic, familial, or platonic. From subtle forms of manipulation to more overt abuse, dealing with toxic behavior can have lasting effects, such as eroding your self-esteem, distorting your understanding of love, and even causing you to question your sanity.
That’s why it’s important to understand what a toxic relationship is so you can protect yourself.
What Makes a Relationship Toxic?
Any relationship can become inherently toxic if the underlying issues aren’t addressed. As humans, we’re not perfect, and even the most well-adjusted person can engage in mild toxic behavior from time to time—especially if they’re under a lot of stress or haven’t processed past trauma.
However, when someone chronically engages in toxic behaviors, they tend to cause significant damage to their relationships.
According to Shan Boodram, Bumble’s sex and relationships expert, a toxic relationship is one that doesn’t complement or serve other areas of your life.
“A healthy relationship should be additive and make you excited about other parts of your life—friends, family, your job—but when you walk away from these things that should make you feel good, that’s when you find yourself in a toxic place,” Boodram tells mindbodygreen.
She goes on to say that while every healthy relationship will have its highs and lows, you should ultimately be happier and more supported than usual.
“If you find yourself dealing with toxic behaviors more than 20% of the time, it’s time to reevaluate,” she says.
Signs of a Toxic Relationship
1.Love Dumping/Love Dumping
Love Dumping happens when one partner “gives you an inordinate amount of time, attention, and praise at the beginning of your relationship to seduce you when in reality, you don’t know each other well enough for that behavior to be real,” Boodram says.
After a while, the praise will start to wane, and that will leave you constantly trying to “please the other person to get back to the level of ‘love dumping’ you felt in the beginning,” Boodram explains.
- Cutbacks/Isolation
According to Buddram, cutbacks (or isolation) are controlling behaviors in which a partner begins to limit the time you can spend with your family and friends, removing other healthy relationships from your life “little by little until they are the only ones left, leaving you feeling dependent.”
- Lack of Support
Even when healthy conflicts arise, you should always feel supported by your partner. As your relationship grows, you should be able to understand each other’s needs and know that you need to feel supported to offer support in return. If you feel a lack here, it could be an early sign of a toxic relationship.
- Communication Issues
Open and honest communication is essential in all healthy relationships. According to licensed marriage and family therapist Silva Depanian, MA, LMT, assertive communication in particular helps allow individuals to clearly and respectfully express what’s bothering them, how they feel about it, and what they’d like to see done differently.
However, the most common communication styles are passive, passive-aggressive, or assertive—none of which allow for openness, clarity, or vulnerability in difficult situations. Avoiding problems, downplaying topics that the other person considers important, and becoming verbally or physically aggressive are all signs that a relationship is in toxic territory.
- Mutual Respect
Healthy relationships also require mutual respect from both parties. According to Debanian, when individuals in a relationship feel safe and comfortable expressing their boundaries and can follow each other’s boundary requests, the relationship is healthy.
However, if individuals in a relationship feel unsafe expressing their boundaries or their boundary requests are consistently violated despite repeated attempts to express their needs, the relationship should be evaluated for toxicity.
- Control Issues
Control issues are another sign that your dynamic may not be healthy. Sexologist Carol Quinn, Ph.D., says this can happen when one partner in the relationship makes decisions without the other’s consent—such as being overly dominant, not sharing information about spending or contracts, or crossing sexual boundaries.
- Passive Aggression
Passive-aggressive behavior is a sign that a relationship has become (or may become) toxic, and as clinical psychologist Carla Marie Manly, Ph.D., explains, it’s also a form of emotional abuse.
“A passive-aggressive relationship is one in which one or more of the participants do not communicate or act directly to get their needs met,” she says. “Instead, the passive-aggressive person covertly manipulates situations in a variety of ways to achieve their goals.”
- Codependency
Manly also points out that codependency is another pattern commonly found in toxic relationships. Codependent dynamics are those in which participants enable each other’s toxic behaviors in a variety of ways, from drug use to alcohol abuse to staying stuck in patterns that perpetuate negative behaviors and avoid self-growth.
- Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse can be difficult to recognize right away. If the abuser is very good at abusing, they may be naturally hesitant, criticize others “gently,” or generally insult them in subtle, hard-to-spot ways that make the abuser feel uncomfortable and wonder why interactions seem so difficult and painful.
There are also more obvious cases, where the abuser is very direct in offering criticism, demeaning comments, and constant verbal attacks.
- Entanglement
According to Manley, entanglement is a mutually toxic behavior that explicitly or subtly limits the ability to act as an individual. An entangling relationship offers little freedom, whether within a family unit or a romantic partnership.
In this form of toxic relationship, participants secretly fear the growth and challenge of pushing the boundaries of the relationship.
- The Need to Be Right
The need to be right occurs when a person in a relationship is more concerned with being right than anything else, including the other person’s feelings, says clinical psychologist Cynthia King, Psy.D. They care about being “right” even when it doesn’t matter that much, which goes hand in hand with assigning blame, even when it’s not necessary.
- Defensiveness
If you’re in a toxic environment, you may find that the other person struggles to take feedback. King says this can manifest as arguments when feedback is given or rejection or denial when feedback is given.
- Lack of Personal Growth
According to Dr. Lisa Lawless, partners should encourage each other to grow. “When one or both partners are unable to pursue their interests and goals, this can indicate a toxic dynamic,” she says.
- Lack of Trust
Lawless also says that jealousy and insecurity are sometimes to be expected, but when such feelings fuel a partnership and are lacking in trust, the foundation of the relationship is no longer stable.
- Persistent Negativity
While everyone has negative thoughts and expressions, a relationship can start to feel toxic when the negativity is chronic. When one person constantly focuses their energy on things that bring them sadness, anger, or anxiety, they may start to feel drained by the other person.
- Persistent Insincerity
One of the key aspects of a healthy, committed relationship is trust. If one or both people are constantly distrusting each other, the entire relationship is likely to deteriorate into dishonest statements.
- Emotional Manipulation
Manipulation is another key feature of a toxic relationship, according to therapist Steve Carlton, LCSW, CACIII. “This can take many forms, from manipulation to guilt,” he explains, adding, “They may make the victim feel bad about themselves or constantly use guilt as a way to control their partner’s behavior.”
For example, he says, a toxic person might use guilt-triggering phrases like, “If you loved me, you would…” or manipulative phrases like, “You’re being overly dramatic.”
- Triangulation
Finally, according to licensed clinical psychologist Avigail Lev, Psy.D., another sign of a toxic relationship is triangulation. “Triangulation is when your partner brings other people into the relationship, causing feelings of jealousy, insecurity, or competition,” she explains.
For example, in triangulation, a toxic person might say something like, “Your cousin told me she was mad at you and thought you were selfish.”
TheImpactOfToxicRelationships
As you can imagine, dealing with a toxic relationship and all that comes with it takes a toll. In the short term, this might simply feel like missing out on dates with good people. But it can also lead to embarrassment, according to sexologist and sensual yoga teacher Dr. Joy Berkheimer.
For example, if a toxic person seduces you with love, “you end up telling all your friends about it and maybe spreading it,” she explains, adding that this is often followed by the silent treatment for unknown reasons, sudden bouts of passive-aggressive jealousy, or outright insults about your appearance and/or intelligence that leave you speechless.
“Then [you don’t want to] share anything with anyone about that interaction anymore,” explains Birkheimer.
In the long run, the effects of dealing with a toxic relationship are even more severe. This can look like isolation from loved ones, changes in your body due to conflict or anxiety over relationship distress, emotional distress from feeling overwhelmed by a partner who keeps you in a constant cycle of breaking up and getting back together, and trauma bonding.
Trauma bonding is connecting with an abusive person who treats you poorly emotionally, physically, and/or sexually. Unconsciously, you form a strong bond with your romantic partner to deal with your trauma or abuse—and Birkheimer says that’s a recipe for disaster.
The longer you stay in a toxic relationship, the harder it is to break away from it. In these partnerships, there’s an imbalance of control and constant aggression.
HowToDealWithAToxicRelationship
The first step in dealing with any toxic relationship is recognizing the signs and being able to see them for what they are. All of the above signs are warning signs to watch out for, but if it helps, here’s a simple test to help you figure out if your relationship is toxic.
