10 Critical Signs Of An Unhealthy Relationship

A healthy relationship is every couple’s fairytale storyline. After all, all of us want our love lives to be filled with bliss and happiness. Have you been asking yourself what the signs of an unhealthy relationship are? Sometimes, these signs aren’t always as evident as you think.

More importantly, even if we see the signs, we don’t want to admit to ourselves that we’re not just in the wrong relationship, but we’re in an unhealthy one as well.

This doesn’t automatically mean your relationship is over, but it will take a lot of effort and communication to turn things around. A romantic relationship always begins healthy. It starts off with infatuation, passion, and exciting sleepless nights. Love just feels so perfect, and your partner feels like the soulmate you’ve been yearning for.

And if things ever go wrong in love, it’s only because of a straightforward issue the lack of communication and understanding.

A relationship becomes unhealthy over time because you both fail to see things from each others’ perspective.

# Dishonesty and secrecy

Provided that you can’t be a hundred percent honest all the time with your partner, you shouldn’t be hiding the important issues from them either. Dishonesty and secrecy are non-negotiables in a healthy relationship.

So the minute one of you starts hiding important things from the other, this is one of the signs of an unhealthy relationship. Whatever it may be, talk about it, and you’ll see how close both of you can get.

# Affairs

Affairs can come in different forms, be it sexual or emotional. But what matters is that it can affect your relationship with your lover. When you invest your partner’s share of love towards someone else, it’s obvious that your partner will feel neglected and hurt.

It also means the person who had or is having the affair clearly knows there’s something wrong with the structure of your relationship. So if there’s an affair, it’s one of the signs of an unhealthy relationship.

# Desires and expectations

Do you have secret expectations from your partner, something you haven’t told them about? Or do you have aspirations that you wish your partner could help you achieve? Expectations in love are good, but only when they are communicated and realistic.

If you continue to have high and unrealistic expectations from your partner and worse, if you feel entitled to get them, that’s no longer healthy. Realize that your partner is human, and expecting your partner to fulfill your dreams for you is flawed and honestly, unfair to them as well.

# Lack of respect

The moment there’s a lack of respect or worse, no respect at all, your relationship will inevitably be unhealthy. In a happy relationship, both partners need to respect each other. They make promises to each other and keep them, and they avoid speaking ill of each other’s shortcomings just to feel better about themselves.

Also, you need to respect one another’s opinions and thoughts because otherwise, it’s never going to work. Respect, along with trust, is the core foundation of any healthy relationship.

# Sex is the driving force

Ah, yes. Sex. It’s an essential factor in a relationship, but you should never use this to distract yourselves from a fight or from discussing any important issues. Are you and your partner together only because both of you are smitten by each other sexually? Is glorious passion between the sheets the only reason why both of you are together?

If sex is the answer to fixing everything, be it spending an evening together, making up after a fight, or even displaying affection, that’s just unhealthy. Sex might work as an adequate distraction, but it’ll eventually lead to both of you realizing sex isn’t the solution to everything.

# Unhealthy jealousy

Sometimes, there may be a few things about your partner that you envy, like their high-paying job or the number of friends they have. Envy isn’t always bad, but if it turns into jealousy and you secretly plot ways to isolate your partner from their friends or ask them to find a new job, it’s a sign of unhealthy jealousy in love.

In a healthy relationship, there should be unconditional support from both ends. If you’re always trying to rise above them because you envy them, that’s one of the signs of an unhealthy relationship.

# Insecurity

Insecurities are expected at the start of a new relationship where both partners are still learning about each other, their exes, and their cute friends and crushes. But in an unhealthy romance, insecurity prevails all the time, even when the relationship flies past the infatuation stage.

If one of you is constantly insecure, no matter how much you reassure one another, this is unhealthy. Eventually, that insecurity will be projected in other forms such as ego, jealousy, or anger.

# Competition

When you feel powerless or small in a relationship and feel like you don’t have a significant role to play, your love life could turn into a power struggle to prove you’re the boss. In unhealthy relationships, a partner secretly wishes and hopes that their lover will often fail so they can feel like the more “powerful” partner in the relationship.

So if you often feel like you have to compete with your partner to prove your value or authority in the relationship, this is clearly one of the signs of an unhealthy relationship. There is no room for competition in a thriving relationship, ever.

# Testing games

One of the most common signs of unhealthy relationships is the testing games these couples play. Every now and then, they intentionally ask their partner to do something, knowing full well that they’d forget all about it or make a mistake, just to catch their partner at a weak moment and say, “I knew you’d forget!” or “I told you so!”

It’s as if you’re setting them to fail, just to prove some kind of point. Why? Again, be supportive, remember?

# Lack of emotional intimacy

Emotional intimacy is very vital in a relationship, sometimes even more so than physical intimacy. Without it, you never feel understood, acknowledged, and especially loved in a relationship.

For love to succeed, your partner has to be your closest friend, and you need to feel comfortable discussing anything at all, be it money issues, sexual fantasies, or even kinky games in bed. This is why they say that your soulmate is also your best friend and life partner, all wrapped up in one person.

So if there’s a lack of emotional intimacy, it’s one of the signs of an unhealthy relationship. Emotional intimacy takes time to grow, but if one of you stops building the intimacy because of the fear of awkwardness, there will always be hidden secrets that’ll prevent both of you from getting closer.