How to Know If You’re in the Wrong Relationship
Everyone deserves to be in a loving, healthy relationship where they feel supported, empowered and safe. But how do you know if you’re in the wrong relationship?
Relationships can be confusing, especially when it comes to deciding if something is worth staying in or walking away from. It can be difficult to determine when something is not right, when to draw the line, and if it’s time to move on.
In this episode of The Date with Confidence Podcast, we’ll be looking at 5 common signs you could be in the wrong relationship and what to do when you’re doubting whether to stay and make it work or pack your bag and move on.
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Your Gut is Telling You Something is Off
Now if you’re listening to this episode, it’s probably because you feel uncertain about your relationship. Perhaps you have a strong gut feeling that something’s off or there’s a little voice of doubt in your mind questioning a few things.
It could be that you’ve been in this relationship for years and something seems to have changed recently or maybe you’ve just started dating someone new and a few months in, you’re having doubts.
Whatever your personal situation, your gut instinct is never wrong. But instead of taking that feeling and immediately thinking you need to end the relationship, tune into it and try to understand what it’s telling you.
Is it clearly communicating you need to end things or has something happened that needs work from both parties and a commitment to make a change moving forward?
Understanding the Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship
If you struggle to connect with your gut instinct and find it hard to understand what it’s trying to tell you, here are 5 common signs of an unhealthy relationship:
You don’t feel safe voicing your opinion or needs
You don’t have a life outside of your partner
You and/or your partner experience extreme jealousy
You live in constant fear that your partner will cheat on you or leave you
You don’t trust your partner and check up on their every move
Before we look at these in more detail, I just want to preface this by saying that if you recognise yourself or your relationship in this list, don’t beat yourself up. Feeling ashamed about where you are isn’t going to get you anywhere. Simply acknowledge that you relate to that point, get curious about why it could be and make a commitment to yourself - not your partner - to work on healing it.
And so you don’t feel called out, know that I’ve been in each of these boats throughout each of my relationships.
You don’t feel safe voicing your opinion or needs
Typically in a relationship, you spend a lot of time with your partner. After a while you may move in together and then you’re spending every day with them. Not all day every day but you’re seeing them every day in some capacity. So it’s important you feel safe to voice your opinions without fear of being judged or criticised and you also need to feel safe communicating your needs without worrying about what their reaction may be.
Of course, there’ll be times where conflict arises. This is natural in any relationship but you should be able to handle the conflict in a kind, loving, safe way. If that isn’t possible, consider speaking to a therapist or counsellor who can help you both resolve any issues.
Many of us aren’t taught how to handle conflict with kindness and we’ll often copy the patterns our parents followed so just know that if you’re not currently handling conflict in a healthy way, it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to break up. It’s something that can be worked on.
You don’t have a life outside of your partner
When you first enter a relationship with someone new, it’s natural to step into a bubble of love or lust. During those early days, everything is fresh and new and exciting and it’s normal to want to spend as much time as possible with your new love interest.
But as the relationship blossoms, it’s important to still maintain a life outside of your partner. If every part of your life revolves around them and what they want to do, you run the risk of alienating yourself, losing valued friendships and relying on your partner to make you happy.
The healthiest relationships are ones where you both have a life outside of your relationship and then you come together as a partnership to share aspects of your life too.
You and/or your partner experience extreme jealousy
In my opinion, a little jealousy is healthy. It shows how much you care for the other person. However, jealousy to the point where you don’t like your partner talking to someone of the opposite sex - or the same sex if you’re in a same sex relationship - where you don’t like other people looking at them, where you feel the need to question all their friendships or control what they wear so they don’t get hit on by someone else, is next level unhealthy.
The jealousy is there for a reason and is often down to you not feeling good enough or having the fear that they’ll leave you. Extreme jealousy is something that can be worked through but first, you need to be aware that you’re experiencing that jealousy and accept that it’s something you need support with.
You live in constant fear that your partner will cheat on you or leave you
Speaking from my own experience, living in the constant fear that your partner will cheat or leave you is such an unhealthy space to be. You use up so much headspace worrying about what could happen in the future that you forget to enjoy the present moment.
Your thoughts also impact your body so if you’re running away with these negative stories that may not even happen, you could create feelings of anxiety which can impact your everyday life.
I recently listened to possibly one of the best podcast episodes ever. Alex Cooper interviewed Shay Mitchell on the Call Her Daddy podcast and one of the moments that stood out for me was how Shay explained that she doesn’t worry about her partner cheating. What she had to say blew my mind.
I’d highly recommend listening to that episode - I’ll leave it in the show notes - but here is it in a nutshell: Shay says - and I’m paraphrasing he - “If he cheated on me then our story ends but I’ll be ok. If you can take him from me, he’s yours. I wasted so many sleepless nights for what? Does it change how he acted? He’s gonna do what he’s gonna do. If it happens, you deal but I’m not gonna worry about it before it happens. And I hope you’re happy, genuinely because when you truly love someone, you want them to live their happiest life. And if that’s not with me, I don’t want to force that.”
That was about a 8 minute conversation paraphrased but this is such a good energy to live in. Why worry? You cannot control the actions of other people but you can control how you handle the actions of other people. I know it’s easier said than done not to worry but it’s definitely a practice you can work on building.
You don’t trust your partner and check up on their every move
This leads on from the previous point. Spending time each day checking your partner’s phone, scrolling through their social media trying to find ‘evidence’ or ‘proof’ of something your brain is telling you exists, isn’t healthy at all.
Could it be that these fearful feelings have been carried forward from past experiences? Or has your current partner given you a reason not to trust them? Either way, trust is the foundation of a healthy relationship and if you don’t have that, do you really want that to be the relationship you stay in?
Now, of course, there are other signs of an unhealthy relationship but these are probably the 5 most common.
You’ve realised your relationship is unhealthy, now what?
The good news is, these are all things that can be worked through if you’re both willing to communicate. Understand that it could be a difficult, uncomfortable process but if you truly love someone and you really want to make it work with them, it’s worth the temporary pain. Going to individual and couples therapy can dramatically improve your relationship both with your partner and with yourself.
If you’ve realised your relationship is unhealthy and perhaps you’re doubting whether it is right for you anymore, here’s your 5 step action plan to help you decide what to do next:
Step 1: Tune into yourself, your intuition, look at your values and understand what’s more important to you - do you want to put the work in to attempt to heal the relationship or is it time to walk away?
Step 2: Trust your instincts and listen to your gut. When we recognise our relationship isn’t what it was or what we want it to be, our heart can often be speaking the loudest. When you love someone, the thought of letting them go can be heartbreaking but you have to do what’s best for you. Your gut knows what you want to do, you need to have the courage to listen to it.
Let me ask you a question: If you were in this exact same position one year from now, how would you feel?
Step 3: Seek guidance from people you can trust. Whether you share your concerns with friends or family or you seek professional support, talking things through with someone can help you make up your mind. Just be mindful that the people you love may be quick to criticise or talk badly about your partner because they love you and want what’s best for you. This isn’t always helpful, especially if you decide to stay with them. So just be mindful who you seek guidance from.
Step 4: Make a tough decision knowing that whatever you decide is the exact right thing to do at this moment in time. Don’t worry about the future or stress about looking back and thinking it was wrong. Whatever you decide right now is right for the present moment.
Step 5: Trust that everything is working out for you, even if you can’t see it now. Whatever path you’re on right now is exactly where you should be. And you don’t have to understand why right now, but I guarantee at some point in your life you’ll look back on this moment and realise why everything had to look the way it does.
Everyone deserves to be in a loving, healthy relationship where they feel supported, empowered and safe. If you’ve been listening to this and realised that actually, you no longer want to be in your relationship, you can listen to the next episode on How to Break Up with Someone in the Kindest Way.
And make sure you check the show notes for helpful resources on bouncing back from breakups, healing from heartbreak and rebuilding your self confidence.
You’ll also find links to the other episodes in this season so if you need help overcoming a breakup, getting over the guilt of ending a relationship or you want to feel confident after a breakup, you can head straight there now.
