How To Find Out If You Are In A Poisonous Relationship - And How To Overcome It

There are always clues to the state of a relationship, you only have to look for them. Sometimes they may be painful to countenance and hence are ignored.

This clue may be embarrassing for your friends, family and colleagues but sometimes they may not even be aware it is happening. It may be an insidious creeping situation that becomes accepted as normal; sometimes laughed off. Think carefully about the way that your partner reacts to your suggestions, views, ideas and comments; in fact any aspect of you partnership. Does your partner belittle you in front of friends, family and colleagues with a direct verbal putdown? Or even worse make some thinly veiled nasty comment about you to those present.

Another clue is expression of their love for you in throwaway words, not backed up by meaningful consistent actions. Or their actions maybe in direct opposition of their verbal declaration of love for you.

Do you find that your partner is overly controlling your life? This may as simple as reading your emails or helpfully opening your mail ready for you in the morning. Opening a letter can be a deeply psychological invasion of your privacy even though it may not seem as such by design or intent on the other person’s part. Lingering when you thought they were going out or even worse turning up unexpected to the extent of being embarrassing. Phone calls just to check you are OK or unnecessary text messages that demand an answer, my slowly erode your freedom. The demand for a text messages when you arrive somewhere may seem innocuous but is another nail in the control board. As with all these things they may be acceptable but be careful they are not being used against you, however caring the partner may seem.

An easy trap to fall into is to change yourself to please them. A partnership should comprise two people acting as themselves naturally for the common good and this accepted by the other. Some modification is permissible but and a change may benefit you both, but not at the expense of one partner feeling uncomfortable with their assumed change.

Poisonous people will make you feel ill by draining you of the very life-force on which wellness depends. The draining may be subtle and long term but will eventually get to you. Do you find you are suffering excessively from ailments which you would normally shrug off such as a common cold, then beware. The mind exerts a powerful grip over the workings of the body.

All processes of nature undergo a cycle for example; birth, life and death. In a poisonous relationship there will be a cycle. A joyous period where love blinds you to the motives, deficiencies and true nature of your partner. Then comes the first falling out, natural you may think as every couple have their differences don’t they? There follows a reconciliation session where you may be so overjoyed all is back on track that you may never notice you have conceded some small points. The rot has now set in and the cycle will begin again. Each time you have conceded more of your very being and control over you is becoming absolute.

Given a few cycles you will have been sucked into the poisonous or toxic web, whatever it suits to call it, and you begin to realise the true situation. At this point it is becoming difficult or may be impossible to extract your self especially if some life changing commitments have been made either voluntary or involuntary. In most poisonous relationships you will have been made to feel as if the whole situation is your fault and you must appease the other party. Showering them with excessive physical gifts is useless as they will toss them aside with distain often in front of others just to make a point of their control of the situation. Once you accept that the situation is “all your fault” then it becomes very difficult to walk away as there will be unfinished business on your side.

One reason that many poisonous partners perpetuate the relationship is that they grew up in a poisonous family. The same pattern may be repeating as they replicate their childhood without knowledge of what they are really doing to their partner. Strangely this pattern may persist over generations. The most dangerous aspect here is that they will not know any better, possibly believing they do not deserve to be happy in a masochistic way and deriving some perverse joy, whilst denying the situation. Others enjoy taking care of people little knowing they are poisoning them to relationship death.

You may be suffering from a death wish syndrome, your esteem at rock bottom and depression casting a black veil over your whole existence. Nothing matters anymore and all events and things in your life are prejudiced. Driving away from a particularly harrowing encounter with your partner it may seem easy choice to twitch the steering wheel towards an inviting stream of fast oncoming traffic and launch yourself into oblivion

Ok that’s the situation I don’t think we need to labour more painful aspects of it. How do you extract yourself from it?

As with any large action it must be broken down into small steps, that way you can cope with it on a day to day basis - or even hour by hour - without being overwhelmed at the beginning and giving up. There may seem no way back to happiness but you must not give up!

You must realise that you have choices and start standing up to your partner who may be exerting a form of bullying over you. It is a well known fact that that bullies will back off if only you can summon the courage to confront them physically and psychologically. The fear of pain is often much greater than the pain.

For some couples it can be helpful to seek outside help at this point, who can logically control the argument and play a form of devils advocate if they are sufficiently skilled. The help should come from an individual or group well versed in the matter as a helpful but unskilled outsider can do immense harm to the situation.

Once you have realised that a poisonous relationship works in cycles you may be able to break out of them or redefine them by working with a therapy group. There should be such a group within your area. They will have seen it all before so your situation should not be embarrassing to you. The first thing you need to decide is if the relationship does not improve that you will be willing to walk away. If you can’t do this you will be forever hampered and not be able to heal the situation. Remember you are not alone others have been through the same and left good accounts of their path. The internet and books are a good source of advice, but beware of those who offer advice without the necessary life qualifications.

Most relationships are reversible, it may take some time and space, but both partners must buy into the deal and show commitment. However if you feel that things will never be the same even after a seeming successful reconciliation you should consider walking away and finding a new partner. Don’t be too hasty though as some counselling may take you down before boosting you up, like in the armed forces where the non-commissioned officer breaks his men down before honing them up into efficient units. If you do decide to walk away give your search for a new partner some appropriate time, but not too long as dwelling on what may have been or what happened may consume you.

When you have identified and broken free from the self inflicted dependency that is at the basis of a poisonous relationship, you can begin to flex your new found powers to dictate what you need from the relationship. Don’t force your partner, subtly ask for their support, love and opinion. And now the coup de grace that finally kills the poisonous component of the relationship; the other person must know indirectly that you are prepared to walk away at a moments notice. They may not think they care if you walk away but it will be a useful point in your favour. If they think you are committed to appeasing them in all their old ways and will stick with them whatever they hand out, the relationship is dead in the water. Remember your partner may be well versed in unconsciously destroying the relationship so don’t take anything for granted.

You hold the power for change but you must assert it through to the successful conclusion.