Your Top Toxic Traits in Relationships - 7 Red Flag Behaviors

04/10/23 • 48 min

RealPositiveGirl - Weekly Encouragement & Mental Health

Show Notes:
I definitely was the dependent one in relationships. That was my biggest toxic trait. Sometimes it still is.

I was a people pleaser, so it was easy to lose my identity to become whatever was needed in the relationship.

And that’s the best way to end a relationship really quick, be taken advantage of (if the person knows what they are doing), and get further away from understanding who you are & what you are worth and capable of.

Background & Review:

Toxic traits are considered negative behaviors that can be harmful to one or both of the partners in a relationship.
This can escalate to really unhealthy and unstable relationships that cause more damage for 1 or both partners.
There are a number of toxic traits that can be engaged in and today we are going to chat about the ones I find most important.
If you start to notice yourself or your partner exhibiting toxic traits, you need to take the extra step of getting help with this. Whether you speak with someone you trust, speak with a therapist or counselor, set personal boundaries, or end the relationship, you gotta do something. And sometimes you will end up doing all of these things.

List of Toxic Traits:

Possessiveness
1. Partner tries to control who the other spends time with
2. Jealous with outside people interactions
Lack of Communication
1. Tension & resentment are created with no communication
2. When conversations are shut down because they don’t wanna talk with no follow up time
3. Refusal to communicate what’s going on, feelings, concerns, ect.
Blaming
1. Partner refuses to take responsibility for their actions
2. Blames everything that goes wrong on their partner
Verbal or Physical Abuse
1. Used for control or intimidation
Disrespect
1. Disregarding feelings, belittling them, making them feel inferior.
Dependent
1. When someone struggles with their own mental health, they can cling to their partner for emotional and / or financial support. This is unbalanced.
2. This is overwhelming & exhausting for the partner.
3. Inability for them to function without their partner, leading to anxiety or desperation.
4. Lack of autonomy happens when someone loses their independence & is too reliant on their partner. They lose their send of identity.
Emotional Manipulation
1. Gaslighting
  1. Trying to get your partner to think they are crazy and doubt their own thoughts, experiences & feelings. And to push them to feel like they are thinking outside of reality.
2. Guilt-tripping
  1. Pouring on the guilt when something doesn’t go their way or trying to make the other feel bad for standing up for themselves.
3. Love bombing
  1. Pouring on the love and appreciation in an attempt to get the other to do what they want and feel so overwhelmed with the attention and gestures that they are caught off guard to comply with whatever requests come up.

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Show Notes:
I definitely was the dependent one in relationships. That was my biggest toxic trait. Sometimes it still is.

I was a people pleaser, so it was easy to lose my identity to become whatever was needed in the relationship.

Background & Review:

Toxic traits are considered negative behaviors that can be harmful to one or both of the partners in a relationship.
This can escalate to really unhealthy and unstable relationships that cause more damage for 1 or both partners.
There are a number of toxic traits that can be engaged in and today we are going to chat about the ones I find most important.
If you start to notice yourself or your partner exhibiting toxic traits, you need to take the extra step of getting help with this. Whether you speak with someone you trust, speak with a therapist or counselor, set personal boundaries, or end the relationship, you gotta do something. And sometimes you will end up doing all of these things.

List of Toxic Traits:

Possessiveness
1. Partner tries to control who the other spends time with
2. Jealous with outside people interactions
Lack of Communication
1. Tension & resentment are created with no communication
2. When conversations are shut down because they don’t wanna talk with no follow up time
3. Refusal to communicate what’s going on, feelings, concerns, ect.
Blaming
1. Partner refuses to take responsibility for their actions
2. Blames everything that goes wrong on their partner
Verbal or Physical Abuse
1. Used for control or intimidation
Disrespect
1. Disregarding feelings, belittling them, making them feel inferior.
Dependent
1. When someone struggles with their own mental health, they can cling to their partner for emotional and / or financial support. This is unbalanced.
2. This is overwhelming & exhausting for the partner.
3. Inability for them to function without their partner, leading to anxiety or desperation.
4. Lack of autonomy happens when someone loses their independence & is too reliant on their partner. They lose their send of identity.
Emotional Manipulation
1. Gaslighting
  1. Trying to get your partner to think they are crazy and doubt their own thoughts, experiences & feelings. And to push them to feel like they are thinking outside of reality.
2. Guilt-tripping
  1. Pouring on the guilt when something doesn’t go their way or trying to make the other feel bad for standing up for themselves.
3. Love bombing
  1. Pouring on the love and appreciation in an attempt to get the other to do what they want and feel so overwhelmed with the attention and gestures that they are caught off guard to comply with whatever requests come up.

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Previous Episode

How to Set Personal Boundaries & Why It's Important - Emotional Wellbeing

Show Notes:
It’s important that you know how important personal boundaries are & how integral it is for every single person in the entire world to have & enforce personal boundaries. And I think we really lack the second part of that statement. We can have all the intentions in the world and set boundaries in our minds & share those with others, but if we never enforce said boundaries, it’s all for nothing. But we will get into that a bit later.

There are 2 things I want to accomplish in today’s episode:

Why having personal boundaries is REALLY important
How you can start setting personal boundaries for yourself, even if you’ve never done it in the past.

When we set personal boundaries, we are creating limits for ourselves with others AND with ourselves that help us feel safe & achieve enough balance for us to live our lives in our best way. Having personal boundaries benefits our mindset, our emotions & our physical wellbeing.

Let me share with you a few specific reasons why personal boundaries are so important:

Keeps Self-Respect in Tact
Keeps Relationships Healthy
Reduces Stress & Anxiety
Increases Self-Awareness

Now, getting into setting personal boundaries for yourself, it’s not always easy. Especially if you have never done it before. But it’s worth the effort & an important part of increasing personal growth, fostering healthy relationships and even engaging in self-care.

Here are 5 Tips on How to Set Personal Boundaries for Yourself:

Figure Out What YOU Need & What’s Important to You
1. Think about what your values are & what you hold in the highest regard
2. Prioritize what is most important to you in life and consider boundaries in these areas first.
3. Do you have any limits?
Determine Where/When You’ll Need Boundaries
1. Consider past experiences when you felt uncomfortable & whether having personal boundaries enforced would have helped.
2. This could be with anyone & be anywhere.
Choose Your Personal Boundaries
1. Be specific on what your boundaries are
2. It will help to determine what you are and aren’t willing to tolerate from others & even yourself.
Communicate & Enforce Your Boundaries
1. You gotta tell people that you have boundaries if you expect them to respect them.
2. Make sure you use ‘I’ statements when you share & don’t blame or criticize others for why you have your boundaries. Own your boundaries.
3. Practice saying, “No,” to people that try to overstep your boundaries. You have the HUMAN RIGHT to say, “No,” if you are uncomfortable.
Don’t Give In
1. You gotta stay consistent in enforcing your boundaries.
2. Be firm & know that you are WORTHY of being respected and having your boundaries respected.
3. You’ll get better at enforcing your boundaries the more you do it

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Next Episode

The Journey of Personal Growth - 8 Steps for Self Improvement

You can spend time seeking out all the growth tips you want, but if you don’t take the time to personalize the knowledge you find, you won’t feel like you’re winning. You won’t feel like you’re getting better and you won’t feel like it’s the right fit for you.

The idea of looking at personal growth as a journey is a more realistic way to approach growth, as opposed to viewing it as a tall mountain you have to climb. Calling it a journey also implies that there isn’t necessarily a finish line you need to feel anxious to hit. It’s a continual walk down a path that is changing over time and presenting different challenges for growth depending on the season of life you’re in. It’s kinda nice, right?

And you can easily be on multiple growth journeys simultaneously towards different outcomes for different things. One could be physical health, another could be emotional growth, another could be spiritual or even getting that dream career.

The basic points you want to hit when you’re on a journey toward personal growth is to become more observant of what’s going on in the world around you & how that affects you and how you live your life. You also want to be honest about everything that isn’t working, anything that needs to change & any help you might need. Finally, you need to commit to whatever changes and shifts you intend to make. Nothing changes if you don’t follow through with the actions associated with creating change. To be successful in your personal growth journey, you gotta focus on these things being prevalent and take the journey seriously.
Let’s get into the list of steps I want to share with you that I believe best represent the journey you go on to achieve personal growth:

Self-Reflect & Self-Awareness
Goal Setting
Move Forward With Action Toward Your Goals
Don’t Cower From Challenges & Struggles
Lean On Those That Support You
Embrace Change & Be Flexible
Take Care of Yourself On the Regular
Keep Learning to Increase Growth

I absolutely appreciate you SO MUCH for listening, downloading & sharing the show! It means the WORLD to me! Thank you!!

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RealPositiveGirl - Weekly Encouragement & Mental Health - Your Top Toxic Traits in Relationships - 7 Red Flag Behaviors

Transcript

00:00:03.660

This is the Real Positive Girl podcast and I am your host Sabrina. And I'm here chatting with you about your emotions, your mental health struggles, how to take those first few steps towards becoming more vulnerable, more honest, and increasing your self-awareness, which is like one of the top keys right next to communication for everything that we should be working on on the regular to become our best selves. And I talk about these things two times a week. New episod