The Biggest Red Flag that You’re Falling into a Toxic Relationship

Every relationship will face challenges. Regardless of how much two people love each other.

There’s no way around this because the honeymoon phase doesn’t last forever. Love needs support, communication, the right expectations, and clear boundaries.

Avoiding the things it needs isn’t the best idea…

Sure, it feels nice to put things off, but it will cost you.

When you are avoiding problems, you’re not avoiding problems — you’re creating new ones.

I can’t think of a more toxic pattern. But there is hope. Toxic love doesn’t have to go on forever, nor does it have to ruin a relationship.

Given the choice, there are very few people who would choose to not be loved over being loved.

However, fear clouds our judgment.

I lived with my fiancé during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our regular “date night” activities pretty much came to a halt. We often found ourselves spending our time at home.

The pandemic made our jobs harder — as a result, my stress levels increased. I coped by isolating myself in our spare bedroom. And she was happy to sit and watch Netflix by herself.

She’d suggest ideas but I’d rebuff them; however, she spent a lot of time away from home.

Eventually, I became numb to the loneliness, and we continued to withdraw from each other. Something had to change, but avoidance was the easier, more comfortable option.

I thought, if I stay silent maybe the issue will resolve itself.

The opposite happened. Resentment grew and the emotional distance increased.

Avoidance was the worst thing we could have done because it became a bigger issue that warranted therapy.

In short, the avoidance of one thing grew into MORE problems.

The breakup happened.
Now one of us had to move out — a huge mess in itself.
Both of us were now on our own financially.
The physical closeness faded away.
There was now the issue of processing grief.
Being single now brought a host of issues to deal with.

You can remedy a toxic dynamic like this. But it won’t be an overnight fix.

Six months ago, this kind of situation happened again. My “girlfriend” at the time was rather aloof, distant, and avoidant.

Frequently, she’d say, “I want to move to a bigger city and go back to school.”

I lost track of how many times I heard this, so I asked her, “So where does that leave us? I want a relationship with you.”

Sure, I could’ve avoided the conversation, but this would have created more problems. In the long run, the conversation we had didn’t change much, but it brought temporary peace.

I can’t call myself a “tough-talk guru,” but here’s what I did. I borrowed some wisdom from a book titled, Crucial Conversations. It sounds cheesy, but I “started with my heart,” as the book says.

There’s a simple goal. Get both people on the same page without playing the blame game or the “keeping score” game.

The truth is we dodge tough talks because we’re afraid that it will escalate, or it’ll turn into a blame fest. All I did was focus on finding common ground between us.

It was nerve-wracking, but I focused on “I” statements — to prevent hurt feelings.

A confrontational statement would look like this, “You’re always talking about how you want to move away and go back to school! What gives?”

And finally, in every tough talk, agree to end the conversation by addressing the specific way to resolve the conversation. We came to a resolution on where this “relationship” stood.

It wasn’t a permanent solution, but I would never want to go back to avoiding crucial conversations.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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