Everyone wants their relationship to become the happily ever after they dreamt about for so long. And although falling in love with your partner might have felt effortless, maintaining that relationship isn’t. Keep an eye out for these toxic relationship patterns unhappy couples fall into and learn a few simple tips that’ll make the dynamics way healthier.
1. Dismissing your partner’s feelings
If your partner tells you they’re worried about something, do you ever dismiss their anxiety? It’s one thing to encourage them to do something new that makes them uncomfortable, like setting a boundary. It’s another thing to consistently invalidate their feelings about different parts of their life. Research shows invalidation causes depressive feelings that intensify as the dismissal continues, resulting in greater unhappiness in the relationship.
2. Putting off uncomfortable conversations
Everyone deals with uncomfortable conversations in their relationships. Maybe it relates to temporary things like budgeting stress or deeper issues like unaddressed emotional wounds. Either way, if you or your partner put off these conversations or avoid them by staying busy, the uneasy dynamic you’re feeling will continue.
3. Assuming your partner’s intentions
When you’ve been with someone for a long time, you get to know them better than anyone else. You might think you’re safe to assume their intentions about things, especially if you’re often proven correct. Unfortunately, that habit can turn toxic. It prevents you from starting conversations and actively listening to your partner’s true intentions. You might instead assume they’re judging you, they like someone else more, or they’re pulling away from you due to a lack of love.
4. Making your partner feel bad about spending time with friends
Everyone deserves to have a friend group outside of their romantic relationship. However, insecure partners might make their significant others feel bad about spending time with their friends and create toxic tension. Comments like, “I hope you had fun without me,” or, “You know, I hate spending time without you,” might make the person on the receiving end isolate themselves within the controlling relationship.
5. Pushing your partner away
Mental health experts estimate that nearly half the population could qualify as introverted. You might be one of them if you need alone time to recharge your social battery. That’s healthy to do in a romantic relationship too, but not if it’s because your partner is pushing you away. They might avoid talking to you or being in the same room as you to procrastinate hard conversations or make you feel responsible for their moods.
6. Feeling like you have no privacy
Everyone has a right to privacy. It’s an essential way to cultivate your identity and take ample rest, and it even helps you value your time with your partner more. People in toxic dynamics might feel like they have no privacy because their partner opens their mail, reads their emails, demands to see their texts, or doesn’t allow locked doors in the house. The common form of control erodes the victim’s sense of self, ruining the relationship and the person’s identity.
7. Believing nothing will get done unless you do it
You might constantly have to keep up with all the housework yourself because otherwise, it wouldn’t get done. Do you feel resentful that your partner never thinks to do some chores for you or just help out a little? If so, you might feel exploited, and that’s a big red flag in any relationship.
8. Your partner discourages you from self-exploration
People like to think that you stop growing into your identity after your teenage years end, but life is a long journey. You should always feel free to explore new interests and hobbies. If your partner holds you back because they say don’t want you to pay more attention to something apart from them, it’s not healthy for your personal growth. It’s also a clear sign your partner focuses more on their own needs than yours.
9. Questioning who you are outside of your relationship
People always deserve to feel like an individual person in their relationship, even if they’ve been with their partner for decades. You might lose your sense of self if your world consists only of your partner’s needs and wants. Bringing this concern and desire for self-growth up with your partner should result in their encouragement for you to try new things. A toxic partner might try locking you into a routine that focuses more on them due to their insecurities.
10. Breaking up and becoming partners again and again
It’s easy to think that breaking up and getting back together again is a common part of finding your forever partner, but constantly doing so means something isn’t working. You might make the assumption that if you get back together, your partner will get better and things will finally be different. Unless you attend couples counseling, this might be a sign that your relationship isn’t supposed to last.
11. Your partner makes frequent jokes at your expense, even though you’re uncomfortable
Playful teasing can be hilarious between couples who enjoy it equally, but it can also drive people apart. Sometimes, teasing turns into nitpicking, and that comes from a mean-spirited place in your partner’s heart. If you tell your partner they’re hurting your feelings, do they respectfully stop and apologize? If they tell you to take a joke or relax and dismiss your pain, that’s another toxic relationship pattern unhappy couples fall into.
12. You worry about what mood your partner will be in when they get home
It’s never fun to feel like you’re walking on eggshells with anyone. If that person is your romantic partner, it’s even worse. You should feel happy and relaxed around them, not anxious about saying something that could set them off.
13. You never take your partner home because your family dislikes them
Abusive people eventually isolate their victims. It’s harder to leave an unhealthy relationship if you’ll be alone afterward, without any support from friends and family who disagree with your choice of a partner. Never taking your partner home to your family because they dislike your partner so much could mean you’re heading down the same path of isolation.
14. Your partner compares you to other people
Your partner doesn’t have to flirt with other people to deteriorate your relationship. They can also make subtle or obvious comments comparing you to others. Maybe they mention how your body looks so different from another person’s while you’re getting groceries. Or that you’d be so much cooler if you could just attain a certain skill. Anything that feels demeaning isn’t something that would exist in a healthy relationship.
15. You end every disagreement in a yelling match
Everyone disagrees with their partner occasionally. Even the happiest couples won’t always see eye-to-eye. When that happens, they talk through their disagreements calmly and avoid petty insults or pointed fingers.
Toxic relationships rarely disagree without exploding into screaming matches. There’s so much tension before the argument that any extra negative emotion sets one or both people off. When someone yells at you frequently, it can lock the body into fight or flight mode, resulting in near-constant anxiety. No one deserves to live with the stress of unhealthy relationship dynamics like these.
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