Predicting Toxic Relationship Behaviors

Relationships are complicated and messy. When embarking on new friendships or romantic relationships, all you want is to prevent yourself getting involved with a toxic personality. You might have trouble predicting the behavior of someone new because you have little information to go on. It doesn't help that social media confuses things--it provides more info, but people just behave differently on social media than in real life!

How do people get away from this cycle? The first step is recognizing that toxic behaviors exist in relationships - even healthy ones - which means understanding why these behaviors arise.

In relationships, toxic behaviors can take many forms. They can be intentional or unintentional, and they can have short-term or long-term consequences for the relationships involved.

Unintentional toxic relationships happen when you don't mean to hurt someone else's feelings but, nevertheless, your words and actions do just that. This happens because people tend to rely on stereotypes when interacting with others--we feel like we know something about them based on past experience or what we've been told by others. When you're interacting with someone new, however, it's best not to make assumptions and instead focus on discovering more about the person so you can understand his/her true personality.

Intentional relationships are those where one partner want to harm or control the other. In these relationships, toxic behaviors are designed to get the partner into a position where he/she is more dependent and submissive. Sometimes this can be done in a subtle way--for example, by giving advice that's really intended to limit what the person does. Other times it's more overt: for instance, abuse relationships involve psychological as well as physical methods of controlling another person, such as threatening you with violence or threats to your safety if you leave them! Of course, there are also relationships like these that happen between people who aren't romantically involved but instead are co-workers or family members.

What Are Toxic Relationships?

A toxic relationship is one where the relationships between two people become damaging to either party over time, even if both parties are healthy and working towards their best interest in a mutual way.

These relationships tend to form between two unequal individuals, where one person has more power than the other (which can be due to physical size or strength, sexual prowess, social status/popularity, or any other unbalanced quality). The relationships usually start out great; they're fun and exciting and have the potential for a lot of good things - but only because that's all there is at first. The relationships are easy when nothing has happened yet!

Recognizing Toxic Behavior

Unfortunately, toxic relationships often follow a set path until they're over: they usually start out great and go downhill from there, with the signs getting worse instead of better as time goes on. However, you can also get an idea of how toxic relationships will play out by looking at relationships where less damage is done to either party before things go sour (at least based on your own experience).

For example, relationships where one person neglects their partner or acts passive-aggressively towards them are almost always going to be unhealthy relationships; even if no breakup occurs. On the other hand, relationships where both people are very communicative about their feelings and what's bothering each of them tend to be relationships that have a better chance at surviving until the end, because both partners are more likely to try and fix things before they become too overwhelming.

As someone in an unhealthy relationship, it's easy to feel confused about why your partner is acting like this towards you - after all, you're being nice! You can't really get mad at them for how they treat you when they've given you no ulterior motive to think otherwise. However, relationships aren't all sunshine and rainbows (just ask any parent), so learning what toxic relationships look like in their early stages will help you pick up on issues so that they can be fixed before they snowball into something worse.

The Problem with Being Nice

Those relationships that are the most successful also tend to be the ones where both people in them have a selfless attitude towards each other - they want the best for their partners and try not to let their own needs get in the way of that. This is why relationships where one person constantly puts their partner's needs first can be so rewarding, such as those relationships where one person stays home full-time with kids while the other maintains a career outside of the home. However, this kind of relationship rarely works between adults who work or go to school outside of the home, because there simply aren't enough hours in a day for anyone (even superwoman) to live up to being "yes men" 24/7.

The problem with relationships where one person sacrifices their own needs for a partner is that it puts that person at a much greater risk of being taken advantage of when the relationship goes sour. No matter how selfless you are, if your partner isn't doing their part in the relationship - whether that's putting in any effort or not - there will always be resentment on your end about them taking more than they give and relationships are never healthy when resentment festers. Unfortunately, this resentment can wear away until you're too angry to see things objectively anymore, which means relationships can end before anyone realizes what's happening.

A Word of Warning

If it were possible to identify relationships that will end up being toxic consistently, relationships would be a lot simpler to navigate. Relationships wouldn't last long if they were doomed from the start. However, the "I wish I'd broken it off sooner" lines you hear people say after ending relationships can make it seem as though relationship toxicity was obvious in hindsight. This isn't usually true for two reasons: 1) relationships are made of two individuals and relationships are complicated (even if one person is 100% at fault). 2) relationships aren't static unless both partners agree to change nothing about themselves or the way their relationship progresses.

In short, even relationships that start out healthy can go bad over time; there's no such thing as a perfect relationship because everyone has flaws! The key is to recognize relationships that will end up being toxic sooner than later and make changes before you find yourself in a situation where you feel too trapped to leave.

If you've found yourself asking "what does it mean when your boyfriend/girlfriend is distant" or wondering what signs your significant other isn't over an ex, this article might help! Besides relationships between romantic partners, relationships with friends and family members can be just as damaging if they're not healthy relationships. Toxic relationships are difficult to escape from because the damage is usually done without realizing it's happening. If someone has been hiding their resentment towards you for months or years, only dumping on you when they get angry at something unrelated, it's going to take them longer to realize what's wrong and why they're unhappy.