Any relationship, be it between friends or romantic partners, requires painstaking work. But if your relationship doesn’t seem to work, what should you do? Put in more effort or go separate ways? First, you should understand whether your relationship is worth saving. If you feel happier when you are away from your partner, it’s the first sign your relationship is not healthy. Perhaps, you are in a toxic relationship. Today, it’s a quite popular term to describe people and relationships that make you doubt yourself, lower your self-confidence, and make you morally exhausted. Some relationships can be fixed, while some are doomed. Don’t understand if you date a toxic partner or live with one? Here are the indicators.
1. The ‘victim-tyrant’ pattern.
The victims often don’t even realize their position. The tyrant is the stronger partner who abuses the other, weaker, partner psychologically. Tyrant’s aim is to make the other partner feel totally worthless. Usually, it’s done in front of other people to cause more serious damage. Not always the weaker partner plays the role of a victim. The stronger partner can pretend to be a victim for the purpose of manipulation. Jealousy, emotional outbursts, mutual resentment are typical of this kind of relationship. A toxic person is the one who perpetually leaves and comes back, as well as the one who persuades that can’t live without you.
2. Living at the expense of the other.
Usually, the distribution of the feelings in a toxic relationship is the following: one partner is loving and self-sacrificing, and the other one is cold, alienated, hostile, and manipulative. In such a relationship, partners only aggravate and add to each other’s shortcomings, instead of developing their virtues.
3. Your problems are your problems.
There is no room for a dialog in a toxic relationship. If one of the partners tries to touch upon some important subjects, especially related to feelings and emotions, the other partner just changes the subject, or gives short answers and withdraws into oneself. A more caring partner always attempts to establish the connection, while a toxic partner avoids any frank conversation. This relationship model is unacceptable for independent Ukrainian girls.
4. No plans for the future.
You don’t see where this relationship is going. The uncertainty doesn’t confuse one partner, the other one hopes that everything will change for the better one day, but it doesn’t happen. When a “waiting mode” is activated, a person gets used to it and gradually loses their confidence. If your partner doesn’t give any promises and doesn’t make any plans, and you can’t even imagine yourself in another relationship because you did so much to build this one, probably you’re in a toxic relationship.
5. Constant criticism.
One of the partners regularly mocks at, ridicules, criticizes, and reproaches the other partner. If that partner has a low self-esteem, he or she may suffer from anxiety disorder. Even a confident person gradually loses faith in themselves living with a toxic partner.
6. You can’t do this, but I can.
You feel your partner lies to you but you never get clear answers even to the simplest questions. You know a little about your partner’s life and suspect that they conceal many things from you and try to control your personal space. Your partner constantly blames you and takes offense, while you have to apologize and justify yourself. Sometimes you realize that you don’t have any other interests except your partner, at the same time your devotion is underestimated.
7. You compete.
Two equal partners can build a successful relationship as long as they don’t treat each other as rivals. When they cross that line, each of their fights is aimed at finding out who is right and who is wrong, instead of finding a compromise. This is another sign of a toxic relationship.
