9 Signs you may be in an Unhealthy Relationship

How do you know if you are in a healthy relationship or a toxic one? A healthy relationship makes you feel good about yourself and the connection you have. Yet there is no perfect relationship. Especially after the exciting honeymoon stage, you start to see the imperfection in each other. Truth be told, the unhealthy moments could exist in any relationship. However, a toxic relationship is a different story. That is, such unhealthy moments consume the majority of the relationship. What are those unhealthy relationship signs and how can you spot them?

Common Unhealthy Relationship Signs

Unhealthy relationship signs can form from early on in a relationship. For others, they can start appearing over time. It is common that you don’t see when your relationship becomes toxic or abusive. Understandably you don’t want to deal with relationship issues in the first place. It can be heartbreaking to fight with or fall out of love with someone you have given your heart to. Nevertheless, a clear warning sign is your mental health and physical wellbeing may have already suffered. That is, pain and even destruction are intertwined with your love.

If you suspect you or your friend may be in an unhealthy relationship, here are some typical signs and examples.

1. Jealousy

We all get jealous from time o time. Not only is jealousy harmful to a relationship but also to your own self-esteem. Researchers say that, often, the true intentions of someone’s jealousy may be hidden within them. For example, someone may be jealous of a person approaching their partner. This jealousy can stem from their possessiveness, but might also be due to their own sense of inner inferiority and doubt. Studies suggest looking deeper into yourself and the reason for you jealousy.

As a matter of fact, if you or your partner are very jealous this could show that low self-esteem is present. People with higher self-esteem, especially relational self-esteem RSE, have greater life satisfaction, meaning in life, and happiness. Those with low confidence in their relationships will struggle in many ways. In like manner, if you don’t have personal self-esteem, it will affect who you are as a person and partner.

Some Signs of Jealousy 

• Getting upset when your partner talks to or is friendly with someone you view as a threat
• Feeling inferior when your partner mentions their ex
• Making your partner feel guilty for hanging out with their friends 
• Being angry when someone else looks at your partner in public

Jealousy is usually coupled with lack of trust in a relationship.

2. Lack of Trust

In addition to jealousy, lack of trust plagues many relationships. Studies show that romantic relationships can be very beneficial to the well-being during adolescence and emerging adulthood. One of the main factors that play into these beneficial relationships is secure attachment. Maintaining secure attachment in a relationship means that their is trust and stability felt by each partner. 

Many people look at trust as the foundation of any healthy relationship. If there is no trust, how can there be any sense of security or calmness? Without these feelings, you will constantly be worrying about where your partner is, who they are with, and if they are being unfaithful.

Signs of Lack of Trust:

• Constantly looking through your partner’s phone or computer
• Snooping through their belongings
• Tracking their location constantly through apps 
• Texting and calling to see where they are all the time
• Feeling like they are lying to you when there is no tangible sign of deceit

3. Constant Arguing and Fighting

In the same fashion as the other signs, constant arguing and fighting is detrimental to a relationship. Couples will disagree and butt heads from time to time. Having these disagreements are normal and can be done in a healthy way. Good communication skills are the key to this all.

However, when one or both of the partners struggle communicating properly, it is a huge issue. In place of healthy conversations and respected boundaries, people with bad communication skills will yell, not listen, and refuse to consider their partner’s side of the scenario. Constant arguing takes the fun out of each interaction with your partner. Fighting a lot in a relationship should not be normalized, especially when it is in the first few months of dating. If you bypass the honeymoon phase overall because of arguing, there is a problem.

Ultimately, arguing stems from not seeing eye-to-eye and disagreeing on the issues at hand. Constant arguing may be a sign that you are not compatible with your partner. Your values, communication styles, and trust don’t seem to match up.

Signs of Arguing too Much

• You argue with your partner more than you have fun with them
• You cry often and feel hopeless about issues getting better in your relationship
• Seeing eye-to-eye is rare
• You both are proud of yourselves when you don’t fight for a day

4. Losing the Spark 

Some couples don’t necessarily fight or argue all the time, but they just slowly fade out of love. Two people can love each other and care for their partner’s wellbeing but, ultimately, not be IN love. Loving someone and being in love with someone are two different things.

Loving someone means you care for them and support them in their happiness/success. Being in love with someone means that you feel a sense of attraction, deep intimate connection, and overall sense of belonging with another person.

Some couples have been together a while. They once had passion and fire but their flame has slowly dimmed over time. In light of this dim, they feel less attracted to one another, don’t go on dates/put value in doing things together, and are bored.

Signs of Loss of Spark

• Not feeling as attracted to your partner
• Losing the butterflies you once felt in your stomach
• Not going on dates anymore or having fun together
• Having less sex, passion, or intimacy
• Convincing yourself you feel the same way you once did

5. Cheating and Betrayal

Cheating is a major sign of an unhealthy relationship. When someone brings infidelity into a relationship, it can destroy the entire foundation that has been built. Not to mention, cheating exposes your partner to things they may not even be aware of like STIs and other issues.

Cheating is determined by the boundaries of your relationship. What is considered cheating? There are many different ideas of what cheating is. If you are in a monogamous relationship, cheating may be looked at as any connection formed with another person, emotional or physical. 

If you are in a polyamorous relationship, cheating may have a different definition. Some people in polyamorous relationships might consider cheating as crossing boundaries that are set  between them and their partner. For example, a polyamorous couple might open to having physical intimacy with others but not emotional.

6. Abuse

Abuse is never OK. If a partner is being abusive, there is no justification of it. Abuse causes someone to be cruel, violent, or harmful to another person.  The implications of emotional abuse are equally important as physical. Both are harmful to the survivor’s overall wellbeing.

By the same token, sexual abuse can be found in relationships, as well. Some people falsely believe that people in relationships cannot be sexually assaulted. Consent needs to be given always! Just because someone is in a relationship, it does not mean they are have your consent 100% of the time. Consent needs to always be asked for and honored.

Signs of Abuse

• Calling you names or picking you apart
• Making you feel small or insecure
• Taking you away from your friends
• Pressuring you to have sex
• Harming you physically (pushing, shoving, hitting. etc.)

7. Manipulation

Manipulation can be subtle especially when the manipulator is passive-aggressive. Typical signs of manipulation in a relationship could be when your partner

Crosses boundaries constantly.

That is, they don’t take “No” for an answer. Even if you tell them what makes you feel uncomfortable, they would disregard it. 

Plays the victim in a relationship.

They may use tears to make you feel guilty. or simply tell you “I can’t believe you’d hurt me like this.” 

Emotionally blackmails you.

In other words, they may try to influence your feelings. In particular, they would make you feel scared, obligated, or simply terrible for your own decisions. By convincing you to do things you don’t feel comfortable doing, they can better control you.

Gaslights you.

Gaslighting is when they twist reality to make you second-guess yourself. In an abusive relationship, the gaslighter may do something abusive and then deny it. They may say things like “you are just too sensitive”, or “are you crazy? you need to check your sanity”.

Love bombs you.

Love bombing is when a relationship coms on too strong too fast, or too good to be true. That is to say, the foundation of a relationship is not there, and yet they are trying to make you feel you are destined to be together in a committed relationship. 

Tests you constantly.

They usually try to make you prove yourself. A typical example would be “if you truly loved me, you’d have sex with me now”.

8. Toxic Communication

In a toxic relationship, communication could be filled with sarcasm, criticism, or overt hostility. You may even start avoiding talking to each other. The typical four horsemen summarizes what toxic communication looks like.

Criticism

Criticism is much like a personal attack of your character. It is not about the thing you did, but about who you are as a person. For instance, critical statements may look like “you never think of me”, “you are always so selfish”.

Contempt

Basically contempt is to use sarcasm, ridicule, name calling, eye rolling, or other disrespectful ways to make you feel worthless. A typical example is, “you moron! you can’t even get this done right. what is your head for? for height only?” 

Defensiveness

Typically defensiveness is a response to criticism. You may find excuses and play the innocent victim to make your partner back off. By doing so, you may not want to take responsibilities. For example, “how could you think it’s all my fault? What about you? Why not do it yourself?”

Stonewalling

Stonewalling happens when you withdraw, shut down, or stop responding to your partner. It is usually a response to contempt; however, the consequences of stonewalling could be to turn the relationship further cold and detached. 

9. Controlling Behaviors

If you often have to deal with issues like “my way or high way”, you are probably facing a controlling partner. Controlling behaviors are not always overtly aggressive. Sometimes they manifest in a teasing, joking, belittling, or manipulating way. Typical controlling behaviors may include:

• Require absolute disclosure of information
• Spy on you and being paranoid about what you say or do
• Unwilling to hear your point of view
• Belittle you and making you feel unworthy
• Isolate you from your friends and family
• Threaten to leave you, take away privileges, and even harm themself

How to Fix an Unhealthy Relationship

If you are in a toxic relationship, you have options to learn how to either fix or get out of the unhealthy relationship. 

Seek therapy to fix an unhealthy relationship

One way to help your relationship can be through couple’s counseling. If you and your partner decide that you want to strengthen your bond and fix your problems, a therapist can help. A therapist can help you work on your inner/relational self-esteem, jealousy issues, and trust problems. This aid can lead to less arguing and better communication skills. In addition, a therapist can help you get your spark back and work on furthering your romantic/intimate bond.

Further, therapy can help you with personal issues affecting your relationship like anger management issues, self-esteem problems, and attachment styles. Mind Connections wants to support you! Our therapists can help you with any relationship/personal issue you are facing!

Generally, our couples therapists would evaluate your relationship issues, and use evidence-based couples therapy approaches to help you, such as,

• The Gottman Method
• Emotionally Focused Therapy
• Relational Life Therapy
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Solution Focused Therapy

Get help to leave or end an unhealthy relationship

If you are in an abusive situation or have unhealthy relationship signs that are threatening, please seek support. Here are some links provided by the NCADV:

• The National Domestic Violence Hotline
  1-800-799-7233 (SAFE)
  www.ndvh.org
• National Dating Abuse Helpline
  1-866-331-9474
  www.loveisrespect.org
• National Sexual Assault Hotline
  1-800-656-4673 (HOPE)
  www.rainn.org
• New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence

           1-866-604-5350

Always remember that there is hope. You deserve to be treated with nothing but love and respect ALWAYS!

Content Creator, Victoria Gallo; Reviewed by Dr. June Cao

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