How to Identify the Toxic Relationships in Your Life

How do you identify a toxic relationship? Here is a list of ways to tell if something might possibly be wrong in your personal relationship with your significant other. Just answer these questions truthfully.
• Does your significant other verbally abuse you?
• Does your significant other say he/she loves you but act the other way?
• Does your significant other keep you from your friends or family?
• Is your significant other jealous of your children?
• Has your significant other ever opened your mail? Read your email? Listened in on your phone calls?
• Does your significant other follow you when you are out without him/her?
• Does your significant other censor your friends?
• Does your significant other call you to check up on you?
• Does your significant other show up at your work site unexpectedly to check on you?
• Does your significant other want you to be totally dependent on him/her?
• Does your significant other often tell you how obligated you are to him/her?
• Does your significant other often brush aside your knowledge and opinion and denigrate it?
• Has your significant other filled your life with him/herself so much that you are afraid you cannot live without him/her?
• Does your significant other always make all of the decisions in your lives?
• Do you always change things your significant other doesn’t like about you?
• Do your family and friends dislike your significant other?
• Are you afraid to say what you think because you might upset your significant other?
• Do you think that everything that is wrong in your relationship is YOUR fault?
• Is your significant other extremely jealous?
• Are you happy in your relationship?
This list is important and can help you to understand whether or not you should reconsider the relationship you are currently in. The problem is that toxic relationships are not just between significant others. Toxic relationships can be found in all areas of your life. Some of them are more difficult to spot than other ones. Some of these relationships can even be in your closest family members. These relationships are even harder to detect and get out of than between a man and a woman. How do you recognize them and how do you get out of them? What can you do if you realize that your family or friends and you are in a toxic relationship that is detrimental to your mental and physical health and well being?
• Is there a family member who makes you uncomfortable with sexually charged remarks in front of others?
• Is there a family member who always does his/her best to make you feel inferior in all instances?
• Is there a family member who always acts as if nothing you plan is important and changes the plans without consulting you?
• Is there a family member who constantly tells lies about you or makes unkind remarks about you to others?
• Is there a family member who thinks he/she has the right to tell you what to do?
• Is there a family member who thinks he/she can control you?
• Is there a family member who makes inappropriate advances toward you in public so that you cannot confront him/her?
• Is there a family member who is keeping something from you that is important and refuses to tell you what it is?
• Has any family member ever lied to someone important in your life so that it would put you at a disadvantage?
• Has a member of your family ever verbally abused you?
• Has a member of your family ever sexually abused you?
The above are only a few of the ways you might know whether or not you are in a toxic relationship with a family member. If there is a senior member of your family who believes he/she can control your actions because she/he knows something about your past, your parents or a loved one then that person is toxic to your health. Being in constant contact with a family member who makes you feel that you are not important to your own family is something that needs to change. You will need to limit your contact with this person as much as possible. If it is a constant problem, then you will need to completely cut this person out of your life. If it is not possible for you to explain to other people in your family why you are doing this, you may have to step away from your family and let them go.
Toxic relationships between significant others is easier than dealing with a family based toxic relationship. A person who has physically or mentally hurt or deceived you can be eliminated from your life without the pangs of regret that being connected by blood may cause. These relationships can be more easily identified. Your family and friends often counsel you that these people are “bad” for you or detrimental to your business. When the toxicity is within your family you are at a disadvantage from the very beginning. No one will want to believe that a family member would abuse you either verbally or sexually. No one will want to believe that a family member would purposely try to destroy your reputation or your personal life. Therefore, people will think there is something wrong with you and, in order to maintain your sanity and not have to continue within the toxic relationship you may find that you have to cut yourself off from your entire family. It is a difficult decision to make. Will you continue to live under the strain of being belittled at any given time or will you finally take things into your own hands and move away from the toxicity in your life?
The decision is all up to you. You only need to recognize the toxic relationships in your life and remove them with precision.