Red Flags To Watch Out For In A Relationship

When a relationship is doing more harm to you than good, it's time to quit it. Here are signs to help you determine when a relationship is doing more harm to you than good.

ABUSE

Be it physical or emotional abuse, any type of abuse is a glaring sign that you should quit the relationship. Please don't be lenient with abuse or make excuses for it; simply let go and move on because abuse is one of the clearest ways to communicate a lack of care, love and respect for someone. Abuse does not go hand in hand with love, if anything they are polar opposites.

Although, one thing to note here is that emotional abuse is more relative than physical abuse. For instance, there is arguably a degree of emotional abuse in every relationship. When you try to control your partner or influence them emotionally to act or behave in a certain way, by ignoring them (ignoring their calls, messages etc), refusing to talk to them (the silent treatment), being provocative with the other sex (trying to make them jealous) and so on, to a degree that's emotional abuse. These are all elements of emotional abuse that are born from the very fair fact that we are human. But when emotional abuse becomes dangerous, is when you begin to lose your confidence and live in fear of what your partner is going to do to you next emotionally.

LIES

If anyone you are in a relationship with, be it a romantic relationship or a friendship, constantly lies to you or finds it difficult to tell you the truth, it communicates a lack of trust and a lack of respect for you. If you can't trust the person(s) you are in a relationship with, things remain unsettled. Such lack of trust can lead to paranoia (an intense feeling of anxiety, fear and unrest) for you, which is very unhealthy. Without trust, there is no point remaining in the relationship and continuing to torture yourself emotionally.

THEY NEVER ADMIT THEIR FAULTS

This is one thing most people ignore as a red flag in a relationship, probably because they don't understand just how important it is.

When someone finds it difficult to admit they are wrong, the next thing they do is pass the blame. Now when you are constantly at the receiving end of the blame, even if you are fine with constantly saying you are sorry, you allow what is called a "cognitive dissonance" to be formed in your mind. This means that as you continuously act in a way that contradicts your beliefs, eventually your beliefs will change to align with your actions. In other words, after a while you will begin to believe you are the one who is always wrong and start to doubt your ability to perceive what's right and wrong. Eventually, it ends up affecting your ability to make decisions and be assertive as individual, and you end up constantly feeling confused, having lost confidence in yourself and abilities. It's truly a terrible place to be, so please don't let any relationship take you there.

CONSTANT FEELING OF BEING OVERWHELMED

When you constantly feel overwhelmed by your relationship, almost like you can't get a break; when you look back and can't remember any significantly joyful memory in your relationship, you should acknowledge that it is abnormal.

As much as a relationship can at times bring you sadness, it should also bring you joy. If all you can remember when you think back on you relationship, is a long thick dark tiring stretch of fights, pain and sadness, with little or no joy, that's not appropriate. Relationships may not generally be very easy but they should not suck the life out of you, leaving you miserable and unhappy.