Relationships Signs That You're In an Unhealthy Relationship

Relationships often grow, change, shift, and sometimes fall apart over time. A relationship might be mostly healthy when things are going well, but the addition of stressors can create strain. People may respond by falling back on unhealthy coping mechanisms or by engaging in behaviours that are ultimately harmful to the health of their relationships.

Unhealthy relationships are often characterized by:

• Betrayal

• Blame

• Bullying

• Control

• Disrespect

• Dishonesty

• Drama

• Emotional abuse

• Fear

• Financial dishonesty or abuse

• Gaslighting

• Guilt

• Hostility

• Intimidation

• Isolation

• Jealousy

• Loneliness

• Negativity

• Physical abuse

• Poor communication

• Ridicule

• Stress

• Unhappiness

• Verbal abuse

In an unhealthy relationship, you might feel like you always have to walk on eggshells around the other person. Or you might feel like you always have to hide what you think or feel. You might even feel like you have to give up the things that you want in order to keep the other person happy.

Another sign of an unhealthy relationship is the feeling that things are imbalanced. One-sided relationships are those in which one person invests more effort, energy, and emotion in maintaining the relationship. Such relationships can be unhealthy and often leave the person who is doing all the work feeling unsupported, isolated, and drained.

Sometimes unhealthy behaviours can emerge during times of extreme stress. In other cases, persistent patterns of unhealthy behaviours may worsen over time or emerge during different stages of a relationship.

In some cases, these issues can be addressed using self-help strategies or with the help of mental health professional. But if your relationship is affected by abuse, whether it is physical, verbal, or sexual, your primary concern should be to ensure your safety.

How to Change an Unhealthy Relationship

The social connection and support that relationships provide are essential for both physical and emotional health. Studies have found that healthy relationships can affect your life in positive ways, including lowering your risk of dying and protecting you from loneliness and isolation.4

Because good relationships are so essential for your well-being, it is essential to take steps to protect yourself from those that have the potential to damage your health. If you believe that you are in an unhealthy relationship, it is important to take steps to fix the problem.

Change is possible if both people are committed to addressing the problems and are open to making a change.

Decide if the Relationship Is Fixable

The first step is to decide whether or not the unhealthy relationship can be repaired. To heal the damage and move forward in a way that is healthy for both people involved, it is necessary to make sure that both parties are willing to participate in making the relationship work. When one person is unwilling to change their unhealthy behaviour, the relationship is likely not savable.

Maintain Interdependence

Healthy relationships encourage interdependence instead of codependence. Interdependent people understand the benefits of being able to turn to their partner when they need support, and they recognize the value and importance of supporting their partner. At the same time, they can maintain their sense of self outside of their partner and their relationship with one another.

When both people in a relationship strive for interdependence, they can strike a balance where they can offer emotional intimacy and support their partner's needs while not becoming dependent on the other person.

Build a Healthy Connection

Building a healthy connection with the other person is a key step toward overcoming an unhealthy relationship. Once you've recognized the unhealthy or toxic patterns that have been detrimental to your relationship, it is important to work together to overcome them and build a healthier, more supportive connection, you can do this by taking the following steps.

1. Work together to recognize and avoid unhealthy patterns within your relationship. The first step toward building a healthy emotional connection is recognizing the problematic patterns that have been an issue for you both or any destructive behaviour that has led you to this point of disconnection.

2. List the emotional needs that are important to you. You cannot expect your partner to fulfil emotional needs that you do not make clear to them, so it is essential to communicate these emotional goals for your relationship for there to be real emotional understanding and emotional connection between you both.

3. Offer emotional support to your partner. In order for an emotional connection to be established between you and the other person, both of you should be willing to offer emotional support in a positive manner that is free from guilt or manipulation.

4. Listen actively when your partner speaks. Verbal communication is an important part of emotional connection, so make sure you are supportive and foster these connections through meaningful conversation that demonstrates emotional interest, understanding, and support.

5. Avoid emotional manipulation. It is important not to use the emotional connection as a way of manipulating the other person into doing something they do not want to do, this will only damage your relationship further and reduce the emotional connection between you both.

Other strategies that can help:

• Maintain healthy boundaries

• Have personal goals and continue pursuing them

• Avoid minimizing yourself to please other people

• Focus on being your authentic self

• Spend time learning about what you like and what's important to you

• Expect others to treat you with respect and show respect for them

• Maintain your relationships with other people outside of the relationship

There are things that you can do on your own to strengthen your relationship. Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool for change and can help us understand why we feel and behave the way we do and support us to develop new ways of thinking. Cognitive Hypnotherapy can be beneficial for clients who want to release negative or limiting beliefs by identifying the triggers that started. We do this using one or more of a variety of techniques that are tailored to your specific issue and best suited to help eliminate stress triggers The integration of hypnotherapy is more effective than using NLP alone. The self-awareness that the integrative approach offers renders it a highly successful way to quickly eliminate negative thoughts, emotions and limiting beliefs allowing you to generate a more positive future, improve self-image and increase determination.