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Friday, 26 April 2019

Warning signs you are in a bad relationship




No relationship is perfect, but if there are a number of alarming flaws in your partnership, you're better off addressing them head on then ignoring them. It's one thing if your partner bugs you once in awhile, but it's another if you constantly find yourself in morally ambiguous situations.

Creating healthy relationships starts by picking the right person. Even on a first date, you can find out a lot about a person’s character, if you listen carefully. While it’s tempting to let yourself fall into the excitement of a new relationship, it’s important to protect yourself when starting new relationships. You can do this by “interviewing” a potential partner before deciding to fully commit.

Part of the dating process is to identify potential “red flags” can help you avoid getting involved in an unhealthy relationship. These “red flags” are specific behaviors that lead to potential problems down the road. People show up exactly as they are from day one. All the signs are there, you just need to pay attention!

Marriage & family therapist and author Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT says, “Healthy relationships nourish and support us. A toxic relationship, on the other hand, is like poison to us — instead of lifting us up, it makes us feel worse. When it ends, we might experience post-traumatic stress or a lessening of self-esteem and trust in ourselves and others.”

"You should never brush away red flags in a relationship because red flags do not go away," says celebrity renowned relationship expert Audrey Hope says "They don’t fade with time and instead only grow brighter, getting so big that it could be too late to handle by then."
“A Poisonous relationship can alter our perception. You can spend many years thinking you’re worthless.  But you’re not worthless.  You’re underappreciated.”  – Steve Maraboli
When you’re in a bad relationship, you’re probably ignoring all the signs – it’s what we do as humans to protect ourselves. If you’re in a toxic relationship, you may notice these signs that point towards a bad relationship that you don’t want to admit.

YOUR PARTNER DOESN’T VALUE YOU

The pattern of your interactions is clearly skewed; your partner tends to criticize, ridicule, scorn, discredit, and belittle you, either privately or in front of friends and family. Your partner disagrees with your likes and dislikes, your taste, your ideas, attitude, life outlook. Your partner often comments on your mental ability and critical thinking, by commenting “are you stupid? How can you say this?” Even worse, after verbally attacking you and disparaging you in public, your partner tells you smiling “I was just joking!” You feel that no matter what you say or do, your partner doesn’t value you.


LACK OF TRUST

When a person has difficulty being honest with himself or herself, it may be hard for them to be honest with you. Some of this behavior may not be calculated and malicious but simply a learned way or habit of coping. However, being out-and-out lied to is a no-brainer. A person who holds himself or herself unaccountable for their actions lacks integrity and lacks respect for their partner. You may feel, and rightly so, that there are a lot of “missing pieces,” so much that you don’t know or that is purposely hidden from you.

The hallmark of a toxic marriage or relationship is that there is no more joy, no more positive emotions.

You feel that everything is hard and negative. It’s as if a wide grey cloud covers your mind and soul. Your partner may claim they love you, but the words are meaningless, as their actions show the exact opposite. In fact, you don’t just feel a host of negative emotions, you feel drained, as if you have no more emotional energy to carry on, thus you give up on yourself and your expectations.


YOUR PARTNER IS JEALOUS OF YOU

Despite the fact that your partner talks badly about you, devalues you, criticizes, discredits and undervalues you s/he is jealous of you. Your partner doesn’t like it when you are happy, successful, friendly, self-confident, popular, or anything that makes you feel good. Your partner undermines you, and gets mad when you are on the phone, when you make plans to see your friends, when you do stuff that’s good for you. Furthermore, your partner doesn’t like any of your friends and has something vitriolic to say about you and your choices.


A DARK or SECRETIVE PAST

Behaviors that are suspect, illegal activities, and addictive behaviors that haven’t been resolved and continue into your relationship are obvious red flags. But you shouldn't ignore or excuse anything that strikes you as strange or makes you feel uncomfortable. (Of course, if a person has done the necessary corrective work and continues doing so for their own good and for the good of the relationship, that is a different story.)

THE RELATIONSHIP IS BUILT ON THE NEED TO FEEL NEEDED

Often we enter into a relationship strongly identified with our needs. The need may be that you, my partner, must do certain things for me to make me feel secure and satisfied, or that you allow me, your partner, to feel needed by fulfilling your needs. If this dynamic is the focal point of a relationship, however, there may be little room for real growth, individually or as a couple.

IS IT A PARTNER or IS IT A PARASITE

Being with each other is nice but being clingy is when you should wake up and smell the coffee. If you feel that your partner is everywhere, all the time, it may be time to gently step back. Again, they may have deep-rooted issues with possessiveness and space but it's for their therapist to resolve, not you.

YOU ARE NOT HAPPY , AND YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING TO CHANGE THE RELATIONSHIP

All marriages and relationships have ups and downs, that’s the natural course of things. All couples face issues and have struggles that they need to solve together. there is no 100% happiness 100% of the time- that’s unrealistic. When you realize that you have lost your natural ability to smile, when you feel unhappy, devasted, or drained and dead inside, then you know that something is seriously wrong in your relationship. When it seems that trying to work around this issue and attempting to change the situation doesn’t make any difference, then you know that you have a real issue- you are in a toxic relationship and you need to get out of it.



NON -RESOLUTION OF PAST RELATIONSHIPS

These include not just intimate relationships but those with family members and friends. If a person is unable to evaluate why past relationships haven’t worked out, or consistently blames the other party for all of the problems, you can bet with a great deal of confidence that the same thing could happen with your relationship.

TRYING TO DRIVE A WEDGE BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS/FAMILY

If your partner is always complaining about your friends and family or doesn't like you hanging out with them, then you should really examine your relationship. Often these are tricks and manipulations used by people to have complete control over your life and that can never be a good thing.



AROUND YOUR PARTNER YOU ARE NOT YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

If you feel that you need to think, feel, and act in a certain way when you are with your partner in order not to cause problems, if you feel that you are not free to be your true self around them and you always walk on egg shells, that’s a sign that you are in a toxic relationship. When the decisive factor in your behavior is how your partner will react and when you try to avoid friction and fights, then you are stuck in a toxic relationship.

DIFFERENCE IN CORE VALUES


We are not talking about being a dog person or a cat person (although if you feel strongly about having a pet, you should sort this one out!), we are talking about basic values and goals in life. Whether you want kids, whether you are religious, what are your long term goals, how materialistic you are and many more - these are things you should mutually agree on and respect if you want a successful relationship!

IF THEY MAKE YOU FEEL BAD ABOUT YOURSELF

Well, this one's a no-brainer. No one, and we mean no one, has the right to make you feel bad about yourself. If your partner makes you feel bad about your choices (eating, dressing, jobs etc), it may be time to let go of the partner rather than the life you built after so much hard work!

YOUR PARTNER IS ALWAYS JUDGING YOU

Does your partner constantly make negative comments about your weight, appearance, personal characteristics, overall personality, style, behavior, or ability to do things? Does your partner see you through belittling lenses, thinking they are superior and you are inferior? Do you feel that you are always being tested for something that you don’t even know what it is? This is a cardinal sign of toxic relationships.

YOUR PARTNER HAS STARTED AN EMOTIONAL WAR

When your partner focuses more on trying to control you, threatens you, doesn’t allow you the freedom to be yourself, doesn’t support you, creates drama and tension, constantly criticizes you and undermines you- they don’t show you love. Your partner doesn’t invest in your relationship or you as a person.



REFUSING TO TALK ABOUT FUTURE

If you want a serious relationship, chances are that you would want to talk about the future. From deciding cities to live in to life goals - it's important to sort out priorities before you take the big step. However, if they refuse to talk about the future, it may just be you who is in it for the long run!

YOUR PARTNER IS CHRONICALLY ANGRY

If you live in a relationship where anger prevails, then there’s not much room for positivity. If your partner is irritable, grumpy, bad-tempered, snaps, yells, and has angry outbursts most of the time, that’s a sign your relationship is toxic. Although these may be characteristics of depression or other psychiatric conditions, left without treatment they can lead to much disruption and sorrow in the relationship. You probably live in the edge, you are stressed, pressured, and always on the lookout as to what’s going to be the next excuse for yet another scene.

IF ALL YOU HAVE IN COMMON IS AN APPETITE FOR SEX


While it's a great thing to have, it shouldn't be the only thing you have in common with your partner. No common interests mean the flame will be put out sooner or later!

FEELING INSECURE IN THE RELATIONSHIP

You may often feel that you don’t know where you stand in a relationship. Rather than moving forward, building on shared experiences that should be strengthening your connection, you feel uncomfortable, uncertain, or anxious about where the it's heading.

You may seek reassurances from your partner, but somehow these are only momentary and fleeting. As a result, you may be working double duty to keep the relationship on track while your partner contributes little.

ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR

Finally, and of course, any form of abuse, from the seemingly mild to the overtly obvious—verbal, emotional, psychological, and certainly physical—is not just a red flag but a huge banner telling you to get out immediately and never look back.

YOUR PARTNER DOESN’T SEE ANYTHING WRONG

People in toxic relationships tend to have polarized views concerning reality. One person is upset and realizes that the relationship is dysfunctional, while the other disagrees and doesn’t see any problem. When the couple differs so fundamentally in their views of their shared reality, it’s hard or even impossible to start a dialogue about what’s going on, pinpointing the problems and setting out to fix them. If you try to bring up a discussion about your relationship, your partner changes the subject, outright refuses to talk, or bluntly blames the whole thing on you, making you feel foolish for even considering this possibility of trying to fix things.


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