Am I In A Toxic Relationship? How To Identify Toxic Behavior In A Relationship And Find Support
An unhappy relationship can take many forms—in some cases, one or both people may be dealing with personal issues that make it challenging to maintain a healthy dynamic, while other times, the relationship may reach a natural conclusion due to changes or fluctuations in feelings or life circumstances. Toxic relationships, however, are those in which unhealthy patterns of disrespect, blame, or lack of trust begin to make the relationship feel emotionally unsafe.
Here, you’ll learn what a toxic relationship is and how to identify them in your life, plus how to differentiate between toxicity and abuse. You’ll also learn how to address toxic relationships in your life, and cultivate healthy connections that bring you joy and fulfillment. Whether you’re concerned you may be in a toxic friendship, romantic relationship, or family relationship, this guide is for you.
What is a toxic relationship?
How to identify toxic relationships
If you begin to notice unhealthy patterns of negativity in a relationship in your life, it may be an indication that the relationship has become toxic and needs to be addressed. Look for the following:
1. Anger and frustration
While occasional disagreements can be a normal part of even healthy relationships, constant or excessive frustration or hostility can signal a toxic dynamic. Minor issues often escalate into major conflicts, and one or both partners may struggle to manage their emotions effectively. This pattern creates constant tension, placing undue strain on the relationship.
2. Lack of respect
If you or the other person constantly feel disrespected or demeaned, it may be a sign that the relationship has become toxic. This lack of respect could take the form of belittling comments, dismissive behavior, ignored boundaries, or lack of regard for each other’s time, feelings, or opinions.
3. Fear or uncertainty
Feeling fearful or unsure about how your partner might react can signal a toxic dynamic. You may feel constantly on edge or anxious about the relationship, making it difficult to feel safe and stable. In cases where the relationship has deteriorated from toxic to abusive, fear may be more acute, such as when triggered by aggression, intimidation, or physical abuse.
4. Constant criticism
Research into romantic relationships has identified criticism as one of the key predictors of divorce, and indeed, destructive criticism is known to have damaging effects on a person’s psyche. Patterns of criticism can spark unnecessary conflict, and over time can erode goodwill between people, which can
5. Manipulation and control
Whether conscious or unconscious, the desire to manipulate or exert control over the other person’s feelings, actions, or thoughts can signal that a relationship has become untenable. One or both parties may feel stifled, resentful, or disconnected, and disagreements may arise about boundaries, autonomy, and mutual respect.
6. Lack of support
If you don’t feel supported by the other person—that is, if they consistently ignore your needs, dismiss your concerns, or fail to provide encouragement and understanding—it can indicate a toxic relationship. Whereas a healthy dynamic creates a positive feedback loop where both people support and celebrate each other, an unhealthy dynamic may leave you feeling undervalued, uncared for, and neglected.
7. Jealousy and possessiveness
While jealousy and possessiveness are most often thought of as being features of toxic romantic partnerships, these traits can also be a feature of problematic friendships, family relationships, and even professional environments. This can lead to accusatory or controlling behavior, undermining the long-term stability of the relationship.
8. Lying, dishonest behavior, or lack of trust
Researchers and relationship experts often consider trust to be foundational to a healthy relationship—without it, feelings of insecurity and doubt may lead to discord. Thus, lying and dishonesty can be considered toxic behaviors that are incompatible with the viability of any relationship—be it an intimate partnership, friendship, family bond, or professional relationship.
9. Blame and guilt
Blame can be another sign of a toxic relationship. Rather than working together to resolve conflicts, such as might occur in a healthy relationship, one partner may blame the other for issues without acknowledging any role they may have played. This could be due to a lack of self-awareness, or it could be an attempt to use guilt as a tool for control and manipulation.
10. Isolation from friends and family
Toxicity can not only affect the dynamic between you and the other person, it can also affect your relationships with others. You may feel like you have to lie about, avoid, or make excuses for the toxic person, or feel like others don’t understand them or the relationship. In situations where abuse or manipulation may be occuring, the other person might try to isolate you from friends, family, or other support systems.
11. Unresolved conflicts
Due to the nature of toxic relationships, it’s common for problems to go unaddressed, which can lead to constant tension and argument. Small issues may escalate into larger ones, and voicing normal concerns may trigger unhelpful or disproportionate responses marked by criticism, hostility, and lack of forgiveness.
12. Feeling drained and impacting mental health
Toxic relationships tend to be emotionally draining. You may feel ill-equipped to devote ample time or energy into other areas of your life, and may find yourself constantly feeling anxious, sad, or stressed by the relationship issues you’re dealing with. Rather than feel happy when you hear from them, you might feel negativity when communicating with them or anticipating an interaction.
13. Constant doubt in toxic relationships
While there could be many reasons a person might be experiencing relationship doubts, patterns of consistent doubt can often be an indication that a relationship has become unsustainable. You may begin to imagine breaking ties with someone, or feel deeply uncertain about the possibility of repairing your bond.
Abusive vs. toxic behavior
It’s not uncommon for an abusive relationship to be described as “toxic” and vice versa. However, abuse refers to a specific pattern of behavior intended to exert power and control over the other person. While toxic behaviors can be the result of poor interpersonal skills or lack of self-awareness, abuse involves deliberate attempts to hurt and manipulate the other person.
Abuse can take many forms, including physical violence, financial control, emotional manipulation or bullying, or sexual assault. There tends to be a clear victim and perpetrator, where fear and intimidation are used to maintain power and control. Abusive relationships often follow a cycle of tension, incident, reconciliation, and calm.
Whereas toxic behaviors can sometimes be addressed through communication, therapy, and mutual effort, an abusive relationship requires intervention, professional support, and often a complete separation to ensure the safety and well-being of the victim.
Find mental health support in therapy
If you’re struggling with a relationship that feels toxic, support is available. Using evidence-based techniques from approaches like interpersonal therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy, a licensed therapist can help you understand the toxic dynamics that are impacting your life, and offer practical guidance for addressing them. For romantic partners struggling with patterns of toxicity, couples counseling has been found to be beneficial for creating healthier dynamics.
With BetterHelp, you can attend weekly one-on-one sessions with a licensed counselor, plus benefit from added features and benefits like group therapy, guided journaling, educational webinars, and digital therapy worksheets. For couples, BetterHelp’s sister platform ReGain may be worth considering.
Effectiveness of online therapy in understanding how to identify a toxic relationship
Online therapy has been found to be just as effective as in-person therapy, and may be preferable for those who prefer a convenient, flexible, low-cost alternative to traditional face-to-face appointments.
Takeaway
Read more below for answers to questions commonly asked about toxic behavior in a relationship.
What are the signs of a toxic relationship?
A variety of negative characteristics and behaviors may make a relationship toxic. Some common indicators include:
- Lack of trust between you and your partner
- Constant criticism, making you feel like you’re “never good enough”
- Unequal emotional contributions — you put in almost all of the energy to fix problems
- Controlling behaviors such as surveillance, restrictions on your activities, or interference with your finances
- Toxic communication — your partner gets defensive, aggressive, or hurtful whenever you disagree or express your needs
- Negative messages about other people you care about, such as family and friends
- Behavior that you frequently feel the need to lie about or make excuses for
Sometimes, the clearest way to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy relationships may be to pay attention to your own feelings. Do you feel excited or nervous when you’re going to see your partner? After you spend time together, do you feel happy and relaxed or sad, tense, and fatigued? If your relationship seems to be mostly a source of worry and unhappiness, it could be toxic.
Can you fix a toxic relationship?
The ultimate decision about whether a relationship is too dysfunctional to salvage is up to the individuals involved. There are many variables in romantic relationships, and there may not be a universal metric for when they’re “unfixable”.
Some toxic behaviors can be successfully addressed if both parties are willing to acknowledge that there’s a problem, commit to working on it together, and approach the process with mutual empathy and understanding.
This may be significantly less likely in an abusive relationship, though. When one partner exerts a significant amount of power over the other, they may not be willing to relinquish control. Many trained couples therapists believe that trying to change these dynamics could provoke violence from the controlling partner.
In some scenarios, though, there’s evidence that relationship therapy can substantially reduce toxic or even abusive behavior. If your partner expresses a genuine willingness to change their approach to your relationship, improvement might be possible.
How do you stop toxic behavior in a relationship?
Setting firm boundaries is often the key to putting a stop to toxic actions and attitudes within a relationship. If you make it clear to your partner that you won’t tolerate bad behavior, they may be willing to change — assuming that they truly value your connection. Setting healthy relationship boundaries may also include prioritizing some time for your own hobbies, interests, and self-care.
This approach may only work if you’re firm in your boundaries. That might require a willingness to distance yourself or end the relationship if your partner doesn’t respect your wishes. You may find this easier if you take some time to identify your core principles, enabling you to recognize when your relationship conflicts with those values.
If you believe that you’re displaying toxic behavior in your relationship, you may need to make changes including:
- Communicating your needs and feelings without being aggressive, demanding, or self-pitying
- Learning to compromise instead of expecting to decide everything in the relationship
- Monitoring your behavior and recognizing your emotional triggers
- Taking responsibility for your feelings instead of blaming your partner
- Making space for your partner’s independence
Overcoming toxic habits may not be easy. It’s often helpful to work with a trained relationship therapist who can help you identify destructive patterns and suggest better ways of coping.
What is gaslighting in a relationship?
Gaslighting is generally understood as a manipulative form of emotional abuse. It involves a persistent effort to undermine another person’s confidence in their opinions, judgments, and perceptions so that they’ll accept or ignore negative behavior.
This is a frequent tactic in unhealthy relationships that involve unequal power dynamics. Gaslighting can include many specific tactics that induce self-doubt in the other person, including:
- Minimizing one’s actions
- Lying and maintaining the lie after being caught
- Contradicting the other person’s memories
- Giving multiple versions of events without acknowledging contradictions between them
- Frequently describing the other person as irrational, overly emotional, or mentally ill
When should you leave a relationship?
There’s no simple formula that can tell you when to end a relationship. However, you may want to think about moving on if you notice that it’s causing you more distress than happiness, especially if your partner is unwilling to change.
The presence of domestic violence is often a clear sign that a relationship is toxic and unsafe. It can be difficult to predict whether physical violence will escalate, but it’s often inadvisable to remain in a relationship where you don’t feel safe and respected. Emotional, financial, and verbal abuse can also be very damaging — for many people, they’re clear indicators that a relationship is no longer healthy.
If you’re experiencing relationship abuse and feel like you can’t break free, you may want to contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline, either online or at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). You’ll be put in touch with a domestic violence advocate who can offer advice and resources to help you reach a place of safety.
How do toxic relationships start?
Toxic relationships often begin with what feels like an amazing connection. Abusive or manipulative people may come across as devoted partners during the early stages. This is often called “idealization” or “love bombing”, and it can involve:
- Over-the-top expressions of affection
- Unrealistic, flattering praise
- Lavish gifts
- Spontaneous romantic trips or activities
- Extremely frequent communication
- Unsolicited promises or commitments
These early behaviors can make the receiving partner feel valued and loved. They also tend to build a sense of intimacy quickly, creating an attachment to the new partner before they’ve had time to get to know them very well.
At the same time, these actions may subtly begin to establish an uneven power dynamic in the relationship. They can create a pattern in which one partner makes all of the decisions and expects the other person to simply go along. The partner receiving this excessive attention often feels overwhelmed, and they may develop a sense of obligation to the initiating partner.
Why do toxic couples stay together?
Toxic relationships may seem like healthy relationships at first, creating an emotional bond that can make people reluctant to separate even when things have taken a negative turn. One or both partners may also believe it’s possible to fix things and return to their earlier happiness.
In other cases, couples may exhibit codependency, in which their unhealthy relationship styles reinforce each other. For instance, a person who grew up in a home where love was linked with control may feel “safer” with a domineering partner. People in codependent relationships don’t always recognize them as toxic.
Some people may also remain in unhealthy relationships because they are afraid to leave. An abuser might employ tactics that make their partner feel unable to live independently, such as cutting them off from social support systems, restricting their finances, or threatening physical harm.
What are toxic people like?
Psychologists don’t have a formal definition of a “toxic personality”. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that unhealthy interpersonal behaviors may be linked to a group of personality traits commonly called the Dark Triad:
- Machiavellianism. This characteristic refers to manipulative tendencies, as well as a predisposition toward amoral self-interest.
- Psychopathy. Psychopathy involves impulsivity, lack of remorse or empathy, indifference to other people’s feelings, and a low tolerance for boredom.
- Narcissism. This term refers to a combination of egotism, pride, self-centeredness, and an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or capabilities.
Some researchers have proposed revising the model to a Dark Tetrad that includes a fourth personality trait: - Sadism. This refers to a tendency to enjoy seeing or causing suffering in others.
Do toxic people know they're toxic?
Some people who display toxic behaviors may be aware that their actions are wrong, but continue their behavior due to perceived benefits such as control, or pleasure. Others may not view their behavior as immoral or unusual — they may believe that domineering or manipulative behavior is normal in relationships.
Research suggests that people high in Dark Triad personality traits may not have a strong sense of who they are as people. This type of individual may be less likely to think of themself as a “good person” or a “toxic person”, or as any particular kind of person at all. Instead, they may simply pursue things that make them feel good from moment to moment.
What is the psychology of a toxic person?
Someone with a strongly Machiavellian personality may be skilled at manipulation but feel very little empathy in response to the emotions and desires of others. These individuals also tend to be motivated mainly by self-interest and lack strong ideals.
A person high in psychopathy will also likely lack empathy, and they may have a strong dislike for boredom or inaction. This type of person often feels few strong emotions, and they may take impulsive, risky actions to generate a sense of excitement. They’re often unconcerned about the possible consequences of their behavior.
High levels of narcissism may cause a person to regard themselves as more important or valuable than others. They might also feel a strong motivation to appear impressive, important, or talented to other people.
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