People often portray love as a romantic state full of joy and happiness. What is not noticed is the toxic relationship between pain and wounds. Is it possible to think of love without pain? Pangs of longing and nostalgia? Or the scars of hurt, misunderstanding, and lack of care? Love is trust and spontaneous self-disclosure, and this trust includes revealing your weaknesses to the other, being yourself, your character, and your spontaneity, and sharing your fears, hopes, obsessions, and aspirations with the other.
Therefore, love will be a happy story only if we are blessed with a partner and a husband or wife who carry the qualities of goodness, goodness, and sincerity, but can you imagine what would happen if the person you fell in love with or married to was a fundamentally flawed person, emotionally manipulative, this close, and had all this information about you, your fears, and your weaknesses?
Hence, in this article, for us to be more aware of toxic relationships, we answer the question: How can we be mindful of signs that healthy love turns harmful? How do I recover psychologically from a toxic relationship? This article will help you learn about all this.
What you should know about toxic relationships
A toxic relationship leaves a wound in us that is not easy to heal. Our judgment of things, our appreciation of things, of ourselves, and our confidence have been shaken. This appears in our cruelty to ourselves and our feelings of pain, anger, humiliation, or betrayal. So, breaking up with a toxic relationship is more complex than a normal one, perhaps because we have slowly developed harmful behaviors and need time to replace them with healthy ones.
There are too many hurtful words and misunderstandings
Attempts to dialogue and communicate between the two parties often become quarrels or misunderstandings; the tone changes to hostility, and hurtful words that are difficult to overcome quickly may be said.
The presence of some form of violence or aggression
According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 women, or about 736 million, are exposed to physical or sexual violence by their partner or non-partner sexual violence. This number has remained essentially unchanged over the past decade (5). This violence begins early: 1 in 4 young women who experience violence are between 15 and 24 years old.
Constant control of your opinions and preferences
One of the parties tries to impose its control, view, and desires on the other in all aspects of life and restrict him by manipulating or coercion, not to mention suspicion, excessive jealousy, and a lack of trust in him.
This behavior may take the form of chronic, moody, and explosive anger, in which the toxic person rages against the other person as a form of control.
Exaggerated concern about the other’s reaction
One of the parties continues to worry about the reaction of the toxic party, which is characterized by volatility and exaggerated and irrational reactions and is afraid of provoking his anger.
The toxic partner will not worry about how his words will affect the person he loves. Respect, compassion, and affection will be absent from the relationship.
Underestimating your spontaneous attempts and sayings
The toxic person monitors the spontaneous actions and words of others and makes them a source of criticism, ridicule, or blame. He confirms his opinion about anything the other does, belittling him, so the latter gradually doubts his values or himself.
Feeling drained and emotionally exhausted
Like Kane’s example with Sabrina, being with the toxic party will be stressful, and you will feel more comfortable in the distance even if you still have strong feelings for them.
Centering the other’s conversations around himself
The toxic party will not worry about the impact of his words on the person he loves. He will lose respect, compassion, and affection from the relationship and make decisions without considering the other party, ignoring the other’s needs, or not revealing them.
Cheating, deception, and frequent lying
A toxic person constantly lies and deceives, making false promises of change and even betrayal.
Feeling marginal and low self-esteem
Healthy relationships support independence; they do not put us in a sad relationship with happy spouses; we do not lose ourselves in them or change for the worse; and those close to us do not warn us about them.
Why are toxic people attracted to us?
We may continue to engage in toxic relationships as a result of our excessive impulses and ignore red flags. If they appear to us, psychologist and relationship expert Sylvia Congost notes, Additionally, we may have doubts about the relationship’s health. But we think we can fix it or not imagine life without the other party, even if we do not like many of his actions.
Moreover, experts list other reasons, such as feelings of unworthiness and lack of security (as in the previous two examples), low self-esteem, or suffering from a difficult period such as a tragedy or sudden loss.
Why is leaving a toxic relationship so painful?
The writer and psychiatrist Madeleine Fougere confirms: What recent research has proven is that being aware of harmful alternatives strengthens the possibility of staying in the relationship and that the more we invest morally in any relationship and the more time we spend in it, the more we persevere in working on it and disregarding the fact that it did not work. That close connection and love drive any self-awareness, facts, or logic. It makes emotion the primary control in decision-making.
Additionally, people stay in relationships like this out of necessity, such as financial or life dependency, a lack of healthy communication, and isolation from safe circles. However, if you notice any of these symptoms recurring in your relationships, it may be because you tend to be emotionally dependent. Moreover, the lack of self-awareness sometimes makes us unaware of our negative impact on others or aware of healthy ways to communicate.