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Toxic
Relationships?
What is it,
and Could You be in One?
No important, ongoing
relationship is totally without friction. In all good families,
marriages and friendships, some degree of conflict, disagreement and
disappointment is the rule. One of the hallmarks of emotional maturity
is to be willing and able to really stick with important others during
difficult times. However, it’s fair to say that some relationships are
toxic. Regardless of attempts to work through problems, the friction
and conflict are so severe that one or more people in the relationship
continue to be hurt. Such a relationship leaves at least one person
stranded in an emotional desert.
The awareness that a relationship may, in fact, be destructive
can be obscured by blinders of hopefulness and denial. Most people do
not want to see or believe that their parents, spouse, children or
friends are harmful to them. This kind of denial may last a lifetime, or
it may give way to an increasingly clear but painful awareness that the
relationship is not healthy. Partial denial, combined with partial
awareness – “Oh my God... I can’t believe this!” – is not
uncommon. The initial awareness is sometimes followed by the desperate
attempt to fix things or to slip back into denial.
When there is no fix, and the reality can no longer be denied, a
second source of despair can set in: loss.
It is both a loss of the other person as a meaningful source of love or
support, and the loss of an ideal. The ideal may be a highly valued
belief or hope that parents can be loving, that a spouse can be
faithful, or that a friend can be trusted. The dawning reality of an
unhealthy relationship can puncture our ideals and hurt like hell.
Concerned friends may offer “supportive” statements, such as
“Well, he wasn’t good for you. It’s better that you’re no longer
in that relationship.” These observations may be true
“objectively,” but that doesn’t neutralize the pain of lost hope.
Painful relationships develop for many reasons. Sadly, there are
times when people hurt people out of meanness; they intentionally use,
abuse and damage the other person. At the same time, many harmful, toxic
interactions have nothing to do with the desire to cause pain. The
troubles may be largely due to a person’s own emotional woundedness,
stressful lifestyle, mental illness or addiction to alcohol.
Toxic relationships need not imply that the people involved are
bad. Rather than a matter of people being good, bad, right or wrong,
it’s more often a lack of fit. One person’s style simply doesn’t
mesh with the other. Or maybe there was a good fit or “good
chemistry” at some point, but with time, the people have grown and
changed. The relationship isn’t the same. This is not a crime. It’s
just one aspect of human nature, and blaming has no helpful role, but it
can be toxic all the same.
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Adapted from
Survivors: Stories and Strategies
to Heal the Hurt, by Dr. John Preston. Available at online and local
bookstores or directly from Impact Publishers, PO Box 6016, Atascadero,
CA 93423, www.bibliotherapy.com
or phone 1-800-246-7228.
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