A toxic relationship will take away your happiness, save yourself!
Everyone loves being in happy, loving, and nurturing relationships. Who wouldn’t? Imagine being in a romantic partnership with someone you love more than anyone else in the world. You get to spend as much time with one another as you want. You get to be physically intimate with each other. And you are always learning and growing as individuals alongside each other. You get to spend your entire lives together, and despite all the hardships, you always think that your love is going to be strong enough to face anything that gets thrown your way.
However, there is no discarding the fact that there just some relationships that fail to hit the mark. These are the ones that leave the people who are in them a lot worse off than they were before they got together. In these kinds of relationships, happiness, joy, and fulfilment can be hard to find. It can be a struggle to actually sustain these relationships because of how dysfunctional they are. And the worst part, these relationships can take a heavy toll on peoples’ mental health.
In an ideal relationship, the parties involved are always going to be able to count on one another. There is always going to be a level of trust and reliability there for the other to deliver. It’s like an equal exchange. Both parties are trying to prop the other up the best way that they can. This is always the ideal kind of partnership; one akin to a well-oiled machine made up of various parts that are working together toward a single goal. However, there are also the kinds of relationships that don’t function so well. There is a substantial imbalance that is present and it can cause some trouble. This imbalance stems from one person’s overindulgence and neediness in the relationship; it stems from one person’s codependence and so the partner has to end up overcompensating in some shape or form. If you find that you are the one who is always overcompensating in the relationship, you have to be careful that the gravity of your situation isn’t taking its mental toll on you. You don’t want to have this relationship burning you out physically and emotionally. You don’t want to develop any resentment or ill feelings towards your partner because of this imbalance.
But then again, the signs are there. And you need to make a change if you genuinely still care about yourself and your relationship. So how do you know when things are getting a little too toxic and destructive? Well, there are a few things that you can keep an eye out for.
1. You always feel tired in the relationship.
You feel exhausted because you are always the one who is putting in the work in the relationship. You are the one who is investing all of the efforts into keeping this relationship afloat. You are also the one who is having to compensate for your partner’s lack of effort.
2. You aren’t excited at the thought of spending time with each other.
You dread whatever alone time you can share together because you’re not sure if your system is going to be able to handle it. It’s as if anytime you’re together, your partner is always needing something from you and you can never catch a break.
3. You are anxious about the next time they will ask for your help.
You are always worried about whatever thing your partner will ask you to do next. You don’t know if you have the time or the energy to sustain this kind of relationship and your anxieties start to build up over time.
4. You enjoy your alone time more than your time spent in one another’s company.
Not only do you dread the thought of spending time with one another, you actually find more joy and fulfilment in being alone. You are a lot happier when you are buy yourself. Which begs to ask the question, why are you even n a relationship with someone who makes you unhappy in the first place?
5. You always feel like you need some time to refresh yourself after you are together.
As previously mentioned, any time that you spend with each other takes some kind of toll on you, whether mentally or emotionally. That’s why you always feel like you need to take a break and recharge on your own whenever the stress gets to you.
6. You never feel content as far as your needs in the relationship are concerned.
You are always the one who is having to meet the needs of your partner, but your needs are never being met. You find this unfair and you are discontented with the state of things. You feel like you need to change things up if you want to be happy in this relationship.
7. You are constantly thinking about just walking away from everything.
And maybe you should really just end things. Perhaps you aren’t strong enough to be able to bear the burden of two people in a relationship. Maybe you need to be with someone who shares the load with you every once in a while.
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Have you been in a toxic relationship? Talk to me in the comments below!