What Actually Is a Toxic Relationship and Am I in One?

But when you’re actually in that situation yourself, it can be impossible to recognise the signs, even when your loved ones sit you down and point them out.

So today, I’m delving into the psychological framework underpinning this toxicity, outlining the red flags, and offering an alternative path you can take to cultivate healing, and a healthier love. Learn to spot the consistent but subtle patterns beyond apparently isolated incidents, even if it means confronting uncomfortable truths about your partner, or yourself.

Defining a toxic relationship

One or both individuals behave in ways that are emotionally, psychologically, or even physically damaging to their partner.

A toxic relationship is more than the occasional heated disagreement; it’s characterised by a consistent pattern of negativity and disrespect that breeds distrust and misery.

Even more simply, you can conceptualise a toxic relationship thus: it makes you feel worse about yourself, rather than supported and uplifted.

What causes this toxicity?

Attachment trauma

Our earliest experiences with caregivers shape our attachment style, the ways we relate to others in close relationships later in life, be they platonic, familial or romantic. If someone’s early bonds are inconsistent, neglectful or abusive, they may well develop an insecure attachment style. This renders them more susceptible to toxic dynamics, either because they seek out partners who reinforce familiar but unhealthy patterns, or because they themselves behave toxically toward others as a result of unresolved trauma.

Coregulation vs dysregulation

In a healthy relationship, partners ‘coregulate’ one another’s emotions by providing comfort and stability. On the flipside, a toxic relationship is marked by dysregulation, whereby one or both partners trigger each other’s fight-or-flight response, leading to cycles of intense arguments, emotional shutdown, or constant anxiety.

Codependency and enmeshment

Someone is codependent when their sense of self is excessively tied up in their partner’s. They derive their self-worth from sacrificing their own needs to meet those of their partner, even to their own detriment. Enmeshment, meanwhile, is an extreme lack of boundaries, to the point that the partners’ identities blur into each other’s. This becomes toxic when neither partner can healthily deindividuate themselves, which may in turn foster resentment and make it impossible for either partner to grow authentically as their own person.

Narcissistic abuse and gaslighting

Narcissistic abuse is a systematic pattern of emotional manipulation, control, and devaluation. Gaslighting is a form of this, whereby the abuser subtly (or even overtly) twists their partner’s perception of reality, denies events having taken place, or invalidates their partner’s feelings. All these behaviours make the victim question their memory, their judgement, even their sanity. They lose faith in their own faculties, which makes it harder to escape the cycle of abuse.

Control and power imbalance

Many toxic relationships have a clear power imbalance, as one partner seeks to dominate or exert authority over the other, whether through outright demands, emotional manipulation, financial control, or more subtle intimidation. This stifles their partner’s autonomy and produces a dynamic of fear and submission.

Is it me or just the dynamic I’ve found myself in?

It’s vital to understand that toxicity often resides in the dynamic between two partners, not always solely in one ‘toxic partner’.

Of course some individuals display deeply pathological traits like narcissism, but often it’s the confluence of two individuals’ attachment wounds or unhealed traumas that begets a dance of mutual destruction. In these cases, both contribute to the ill health of the relationship, even if one remains the primary aggressor.

Why is it important to know this? Because the realisation may well help you heal—it shifts the focus from blame to breaking the cycle, enabling you to reclaim agency and examine your capacity for action, rather than leaving you with futile hope of your partner ever changing.

Know the signs: am I in a toxic relationship?

• Constant emotional drain: You’re exhausted after interacting with your partner, anxious, depressed, on edge.
• Reduced self-esteem: You feel increasingly worthless and insecure.
• Isolation: Your partner pulls you away from loved ones, hobbies, interests, seemingly anything that brings you joy.
• Physical symptoms: You’re suffering from headaches, digestive issues, insomnia.
• Continual justification: You find yourself having to make excuses for your partner’s behaviour toward others—or indeed toward yourself—all the time.
• Fear: You have a perennial knot of fear in your stomach when anticipating any interaction with your partner.
• Repeated broken promises: Your partner always says they’ll change, but those changes never materialise. Worse, you cling to the belief that, one day, this miraculous character transformation will actually manifest, but this only mires you in forever-unfulfilled hope.
• Loss of identity: You no longer recognise who you are beyond the bounds of your relationship. Your interests, desires and aspirations seem to have faded and you can’t recall when that even happened.

How to leave and how to heal

Acknowledge and validate

The first step is simple—not easy, but simple: admit the truth to yourself. Accept that your feelings are real, and that they’re legitimate. This is especially vital if your partner has been gaslighting you.

Seek support

Reach out to family and friends, or a therapist. Professional help may be the right route if you feel you need a more structured approach to understanding your hurt, rebuilding your self-esteem, and developing healthy coping mechanisms.

Establish boundaries

If you’re still in the relationship, begin by setting small but firm boundaries. If you’ve left, implement a no-contact rule—this will help you break the trauma bond and forge the necessary space for healing.

Reconstruct your identity

Reconnect with friends, pastimes and activities that used to make you smile. Rediscover who you are outside this toxic dynamic you’ve found yourself caught up in. If you need a jolt of passion and excitement to get going again, explore a whole new interest, something you’d considered for years but perhaps your partner was never keen for you to try.

Process trauma

Therapy, particularly a trauma-informed therapy like CBT, EMDR or somatic experiencing, may help you reregulate your nervous system, and empower you to look upon your emotional scars without flinching, with a renewed rush of self-love and empathy.

Revisit your relationship skills

Get to know the various attachment styles, and become conversant with different communication techniques and the art of boundary setting. This equips you to choose and build healthier relationships moving forward.

 

How your matchmaker can help

The idea of dating again after a toxic relationship can feel understandably daunting. There’s often a fear of falling back into the same negative patterns, even with someone new. There’s anxiety that you won’t be able to trust again. There may be a deep need to recalibrate your judgement. This is precisely where a matchmaker can provide invaluable support.

At Maclynn, we understand the nuances of healing from a toxic dynamic—none is ever quite the same, despite the common themes across all toxic relationships. We’re far more than an introductions agency—we’re relationship experts in our own right.

Empathetic assessment
We’ll take a deep dive into your relationship history, helping you identify and understand your own role and susceptibility.

Coaching on boundaries and red flags
Gain the tools to recognise early warning signs and confidently set boundaries, protecting your rediscovered self-worth.

Curated dates
Connect with genuinely stable and emotionally available singles, who have been vetted for their integrity, values, and readiness for a secure and long-lasting partnership.

Ongoing support
Work through any post-date feelings with your trusted confidante, receiving guidance and encouragement as you navigate new connections and learn to love again—to love another, but to love yourself, too.

Move beyond the pain of a toxic relationship, and find something organic and wholesome, grounded in care, humour and respect. Your past need not dictate your future.

With Maclynn’s compassionate, psychology-led approach to matchmaking, meet discerning, attractive, highly eligible individuals seeking something truly special and fulfilling—just as you are. Put your trust in one of our expert team—we’ve already helped thousands of successful clients escape the negative cycle of a toxic relationship and find love once more.

We can help you, too. Get in touch today, and together let’s find you someone more compatible, more loving, more real than you’d ever thought possible.