Toxic relationships and what to do about them.

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

They say that you really grow up when you have broken or walked away from certain relationships. I did not understand that. I used to think if you are really mature and grown up you will know how to make all the relationships work. But that was foolish. You can’t do that. Neither can you fix every relationship and nor is it your job. Your job or responsibility is to take care of yourself first and foremost.

We are the sum of 5 people we hang out most with. So if people you are spending most time with feel toxic, then there is no way for you to grow, be happy or live a meaningful and fulfilling life.

Disclaimer: I not talking about if you are in abusive relationships like domestic violence or sexual abuse etc. For those situations there is a lot more complexity than what I cover here and I would recommend to please seek professional help.

Let’s talk about 3 things

1. What is a toxic relationship and how do you identify them

2. Why (the hell do we stay in those toxic relationship

3. What can we do about it and how to take care of ourselves

video for the blog

What are toxic relationships and how do you identify those?

The definition of toxic is something poisonous, or something very harmful or bad. A poison that will cause you to become very ill.

Similarly toxic relationships are harmful, bad or unhealthy and make us emotionally sick and sometimes physically and mentally sick too. Any relationship can become toxic. These could be friendships, romantic relationships, marriages , even at work with colleagues, roommates, family, extended family etc.

Some of the indicators of a toxic relationship are:

• Every time you interact with them, there is something wrong with their life and there is no room for you and your suffering in the relationship since their suffering trumps yours. Their needs trump yours. Their desires trump yours. Their opinion trumps yours. It feels suffocating since there is no room for you.
• They can make you constantly doubt yourself since you don’t get any healthy reflection back from them.
• You are always guilt trapped. Either “it’s your fault” (oppressor) or “what will they do without you” (savior).
• They suck so much time and energy that nothing is left for yourself and for the other healthy relationships in your life
• You always have to watch what you say or do as their reactions are unpredictable and hence they create this unsafe, untrusting environment. When you are with them, you can’t be yourself as you have no idea when they will trip up.

How do we identify if we are in a toxic relationship?

Short answer: pay attention to how you feel.

• Before interacting with the person, do you feel obligated rather than excited? You are saying to yourself “Damn I have to meet or talk to that person”, “they will suck life out of me”, or “I am not excited to meet them for dinner” etc.
• During the interaction, do you feel vigilant and protective of yourself? You don’t feel psychologically safe, cared for or supported. You can’t be your authentic self. You have to put on a facade or mask or certain image to protect yourself. You have to watch your words. Being with them feels like walking on eggshells.
• After the interaction, do you feel deflated and exhausted instead of energized and fulfilled? It’s like you just escaped a car crash or came out from an exam.

Important note: the other person may not know they are creating this unhealthy or toxic environment. It may not be intentional. But that does not matter, as the end result is still a toxic relationship.

Toxic relationships are the slow poison, it’s like death by thousand cuts. It may not be ever “bad enough” for you to walk away but you will die in the process of staying alive with them (metaphorically). So the question is why do so many of us stay in them? I have certainly done that many times. It took me years before I walked out of my marriage or walked away from friendships that sucked the life out of me.

Why do we stay in toxic relationships?

In a nutshell: our identity and worthiness somehow has gotten entangled with the relationship. We think if we can’t make this work then something is wrong with us (worthiness) and we don’t know who we will be if we are not a parent, child, spouse, partner, friend (identity).

Let’s unpack the reasons for staying:.

• Unaware: More often than not, we are not consciously aware of the toxicity. We are probably experiencing the symptoms of exhaustion but we have not identified that this relationship is actually unhealthy or even toxic.
• Explain and normalize: Other times when we are aware of it, then we still stay because we tell ourselves “it’s not that bad”. Somehow we have explained away the situation such that it makes sense now and is normalized.
• Duty/loyalty: We feel a sense of duty or loyalty towards the person. This could be especially true with ex-es or family members. Hence we feel compelled to stay.
• Fear of loss/loneliness: We would rather be in this crappy relationship then deal with the loss of relationship or loneliness. I would rather hangout with you and get bullied than be by myself. I would rather be in this relationship than deal with loss and hard work of healing.
• It feels evil: Idea of Walking away makes you feel either weak or evil/bad. Traditionally we have been taught that perseverance is a good thing. Also in movies we have generally seen that the person who walks away is the evil/bad person. Since we are neither evil/bad nor lacking perseverance, we will stay. This gets doubly harder if we consider that the other person is “not so bad”, as it makes us feel even more evil in comparison if we walk away.

OR even more surprisingly we actually get something out of it, a small reward. Yes. We do, even though we do not realize it.

• Feel nice/caring: Opposite of “it feels evil” is the validation that we are indeed nice/caring people. We worry that if we walk away then we are no longer the caring and nice person. Besides what other people will think of me, it’s more what will I think of myself. So staying in a relationship makes me feel like I am a nice, caring person.
• Feel needed: Their constant need of us and us fixing their problem, gives us a feeling that we are needed. This is a very strong reason to stay because feeling needed is a very basic human need. Fixing them and their problems also gives us a sense of purpose. This is common with partners of alcoholics for example. In other words co-dependence.
• Feel alive: All the drama they bring to our life including our own misery gives us a feeling of alive or some kind of adrenaline rush. Without this drama we would have to face our own issues or may face depression and grief. So this relationship becomes the distraction or the staying busy phenomenon.

Let’s say you are sitting in the sun and getting sun-burnt. Is it the sun’s fault? Or is it your responsibility to move away and go in shade? Similarly It is our responsibility towards ourselves to walk away from what does not serve us in our lives. So let’s talk about what we can do.

What can we do to deal with toxic relationships?

• Get aware: Knowing there is a problem is half of the solution. Pay attention to how you feel before you meet the person, how you feel during an interaction and how you feel after. If you don’t feel any desire before, you feel vigilance and inauthentic during, and exhausted after, you are in a toxic relationship. Good healthy relationships leave us fulfilled and energized emotionally.
• Get support: Once you have identified you are in a toxic relationship get support (a good friend, a family member, a counselor or a coach). You will need support as you try to course correct or walk away. Relationships are the most important and hence the hardest things to deal with in our lives. You can’t do it alone and you were not meant to either. So get support.
• Understand your reasons: You have to have an honest conversation with yourself on why you are staying in this relationship. This has to be a curious conversation not a judgmental one. Also ask yourself what is the impact of staying in this relationship on your life. You can rope in a counselor, coach or friend to talk to you and reflect on this with you. Remember all the reasons we talked about why you might be staying in it and check if any of those match yours.
• Understand your faults: It never is one side’s fault. So before you play victim, understand how you are either contributing to the toxicity, or enabling it. E.g. are you always saying yes to them and then feeling resentful, or are you not sharing how you feel and then blaming them for hurting you. Question to ask yourself is “if you let go of the idea that it’s their fault, what would you have to deal with or feel?’’.
• Crucial conversation: Once you get aware of toxicity, you understand your reasons for staying, you can decide on how much you want to save this relationship. And you can start by trying to have open and hard conversations with the other person.
  — Practice these conversations with a friend or in your mind. Write it down to get clarity. Otherwise it will become a blame game and you might also get manipulated.
  — If you don’t feel safe doing it alone then have some support. For e.g. you can goto counselor together with your partner, or you can have a friend intervene.
  — Point is you tell them clearly “without blaming” that you are being impacted with their behavior. And this is causing you pain. You would like to see if they can get more mindful of their actions or words.
  — They might be surprised (if they are completely unaware and if this is unintentional) and then may get defensive or offensive. This is like a dance, this is hard. You have threatened their sense of identity and possibly the relationship. The way they retaliate can speak a lot about if this relationship is worth saving or not.
  — Ask for some small commitment of change from them and you also make a commitment to a small change.
  — Rinse and repeat: Crucial Conversation ->commitment ->action
• Walk away: If you have a wound and you keep scratching it, it never heals. That is the same with toxic relationships. If the relationship does not improve and you keep staying in it you will sustain the triggers, patterns and most importantly do not heal. Question to ask yourself is “What am I waiting for?” or “Am I willing to be in a relationship with this person my whole life or next xx years and am I willing to do the hard work to make this relationship work?”. If the answer is “No”, and you have the luxury of walking away, do it (remember: We don’t owe our life to anyone). For e.g. if you can change jobs or dept at work, if you can find a new roommate, break a friendship, end a relationship or marriage do it, to completely end all interaction with the person. There is no “friend zone” here. You have to end all interaction. This may sound really harsh or even childish, but actually this is part of growing up. Once you detach your identity and worthiness from that person, you actually can walk away. If you walk away, you will have to go through a grieving period for the loss of the relationship and part of your identity. Expect, allow and make room for grief, anger and eventual healing.
• Draw boundaries: We don’t always have the luxury of completely walking away. e.g. if you are on a work contract or visa and cannot change employers, or if you have a shared custody of a child and have to keep interacting with the person, or you can’t always walk away completely from your family. This is where you draw boundaries to protect yourself, on what kind of interaction is allowed and keep asserting and standing up for yourself and making room for your needs and how you want to engage. Chances are either the person will improve or they themselves will leave you alone if their needs are not getting met.
• Self-Compassion: Last but not the least, any of the above steps are not possible if you don’t feel worthy of love and if you can’t be kind to yourself. So you have to remind yourself that — you are worthy of love, you are loved and you will find love.

These are no linear steps. They are more an iterative model. You keep making progress on all fronts — awareness, hard conversations, boundaries, support over and over again.

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