Toxic love: 10 characteristics of impossible partnerships

An unsustainable couple model based on dependency and emotional or physical domination.

Relationships are not always easy and, in fact, conflicts are commonplace; they can arise at any time and over the smallest details.

Each partner in the relationship has his or her own ideas and way of understanding the world and life, and it is not always easy to understand the other's position. However, with love and the mastery of a number of social skills, as well as a good dose of resilience and negotiation skills, the relationship can be successful.

Sometimes, however, being in a relationship can be a living hell, because toxic love makes it impossible to get things right.. Toxic relationships have the characteristic that at least one member of the relationship has totally inappropriate behaviors and attitudes. If you want to know more about this type of relationship, you can read this article: "23 signs that you have a 'toxic relationship' as a couple".

Today we will talk about this love that causes so much suffering and we will delve into each of its characteristics.

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Types of love: toxic love

Not all love is the same. We can find authentic loves, which are pure and noble, those that are difficult to find. Authentic love is a love that is based on trust, respect and freedom. There are also other types of love, such as passionate love, characterized by great physical attraction but little commitment.

However, there are also loves that are stormy, if they can be called love, in which jealousy, lack of freedom, excessive control predominate. This type of love is toxic love, a love that, in most cases, lives on dependence and illusion without anything, lives on dependence and illusion without anything to support it..

The fact is that love is certainly a complex subject, which is why many theorists have tried to approach and understand it, not always with consensus. One of the theorists best known for his contributions to the understanding of this phenomenon is Sternberg. This author is famous for his classification of the different types of love. His Triangular Theory of Love proposes that there are three elements that interact with each other to form one type of love or another. These elements are: intimacy, passion and commitment. For example, the love that is made up of all three elements is consummate love.

• You can learn more about his theory in the following article: "Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love".

Characteristics of toxic love

But, what are the characteristics of toxic love? What makes a love cause suffering? You can find the answers to these questions in the following lines:

1. Limited social life

Toxic love is characterized by the fact that the person leaves aside all his or her friendships and and focuses purely and exclusively on the relationship.. This may seem like an act of love, but in reality it is a loss of autonomy.

The person stops frequenting the places he or she used to frequent, leaves aside his or her interests, neglects old friends and, in short, ceases to be himself or herself and loses his or her own essence. This can overwhelm the partner and, in addition, makes the person unattractive.

2. Need for love approval

The lover who gives pure love fights for his personal development and does not expect anything from his partner, because he is content with his life. Toxic love, on the other hand, is characterized because the individual seeks security, stability and comfort in the relationship. This is due to a great fear of being alone and a great insecurity.. They are individuals with low self-confidence in themselves.

In highly dysfunctional love relationships, the need for affectionate treatment can lead people to become slaves to behaviors that harm them. The establishment of relationship dynamics in which power is wielded by only one power is wielded by only one partner, for example, is as common as it is commonfor example, is as common as it is harmful, and it is not always easy to detect. In fact, if others draw attention to the symptoms of this problem, the person suffering from it usually denies everything abruptly, sometimes angrily.

For this reason, professional counseling is usually valuable not only for the intervention, but also for the accompaniment in the hard process of recognizing the problem.

3. Emotional dependence

This insecurity makes the person feel a great emotional dependence, as his happiness depends on other individuals. his or her happiness depends on other individuals or organizations.. This becomes a problematic situation and causes addiction to the partner even though things between the two partners are not going well.

• If you identify with this point and want to overcome this situation, I invite you to read this article: "12 tips to overcome emotional dependence".

4. Obsession with the relationship

All these factors make the person become obsessed with the relationship, in such a way that does not let the partner breathe.. Neither does he/she carry out healthy behaviors that help maintain the stability of the relationship. For example, he/she does not negotiate or respect the other. This makes it impossible for the couple or marriage to move forward.

5. It is irrational and unrealistic

Unlike what could happen in a mature and authentic love, rational and realistic love, that is to say, in which the person is aware of what he/she is living and not only feels but also thinks, toxic love is a purely irrational love in the most negative sense of the word, because it lives on illusion and unrealistic expectations. For a love to work it must be mature.

6. Concern for change

In authentic love, the individual is happy when things are going well for his or her partner and wants to see him or her grow and develop. He or she is not afraid of change, because as a person he or she also fights for his or her personal interests, without forgetting, of course, those of the relationship. This is not the case with toxic love, because the sufferer wants everything to be under his or her control.. He does not care about the other person's happiness, only his own.

7. Possessive

A healthy love is based on trust between the two partners, it is based on freedom of choice. However, toxic love is the opposite, because it is possessive. The individual needs to be in control of the partner at all times and know what he/she is doing and and know what he/she is doing and where he/she is going.

7. It is manipulative

In toxic love, unfortunately, emotional blackmail and manipulation are common. This happens because the person is selfish, does not respect the other and acts according to his interests.

Their way of acting is to blame, intimidate and provoke fear in their partner. It does not have to be physicalIt is enough to use expressions such as: "if you leave me, you don't love me". In this way, the other partner feels guilty for what is happening.

8. Trying to change the other person

When one partner tries to change the other to an excessive degreethen we are talking about toxic love. If the love is authentic and mature, the individual loves his or her partner as he or she is. On the other hand, if it is toxic, it will incite him/her to change something, for example, his/her physical appearance.

9. Blames the other

Healthy relationships are based on negotiation. People take their share of the blame when a problem occurs and are empathetic enough to understand others. In toxic relationships one partner always tries to blame the other partner.. There is no room for negotiation, because the toxic lover always believes he/she is right.

10. Makes you suffer

Love should not make you suffer, because when this happens it is not authentic love. If the love is true, the relationship is symmetricOne day one partner gives and the next day the other partner gives. Obviously there can be misunderstandings and arguments, but they are solved in a mature way. The question is simple: Does this love make you suffer? If the answer is yes, then it is a toxic love.