By Peterson Micheni | Counselling Psychologist | Pragma Counsellors
Signs You Are in a Toxic Relationship!!
She called him “complicated.”
Her friends called him controlling. Her mother hadn’t spoken to her in eight months because of him. She had stopped going to the gym, stopped seeing her best friend, and stopped laughing the way she used to. But every time I gently pointed any of this out across my therapy room table, she had an explanation ready.
“He’s just stressed from work.” “He doesn’t mean it when he says those things.” “You don’t know him the way I do.”
I’ve heard those exact sentences or something frighteningly close to them from more clients than I can count. And every single time, my heart breaks a little. Not because these people are weak or foolish. But because toxic relationships are specifically designed to feel normal from the inside.
This article is for anyone who has ever typed “am I in a toxic relationship” into a search bar at midnight. You came here for a reason. Let’s be honest about what that reason might be.
Table of Contents
- What Actually Makes a Relationship Toxic
- 10 Signs You Are in a Toxic Relationship
- Why You Keep Making Excuses — The Psychology Behind It
- The Real Talk: What Makes Toxic Relationships So Hard to Leave
- What to Do If You Recognise Yourself in This Article
- Books That Helped My Clients More Than Anything Else
- FAQ
What Actually Makes a Relationship Toxic {#what-is-toxic}
Before I give you the signs, I want to clear something up because most people get this wrong.
A toxic relationship is not simply a relationship where two people argue. Every relationship has conflict. Healthy couples argue. They disagree. They sometimes say things they regret. That is normal human behaviour.
A toxic relationship is one where a consistent pattern of behaviour leaves one or both people feeling worse about themselves over time. Where you feel smaller, more anxious, more confused, and less like yourself the longer the relationship continues. Research defines relationship toxicity as patterns of interaction that damage a partner’s psychological wellbeing, self-worth, and sense of reality and the key word there is patterns. Not a bad day. Not one argument. Patterns.
I want to be honest about something else: toxic relationships are not always with romantic partners. I have worked with clients trapped in toxic friendships, toxic family dynamics, and toxic working relationships. The signs I am about to share apply across all of them. If you are struggling with anxiety that you cannot explain, it is worth asking whether a relationship in your life is the source.
10 Signs You Are in a Toxic Relationship {#signs}
1. You Feel Anxious Around Them — Not Excited
There is a difference between butterflies and dread. Healthy relationships produce excitement, warmth, and safety. Toxic ones produce low-level anxiety that you have probably started to confuse with love.
You check your phone constantly when they are not around not because you miss them, but because you are waiting for something to go wrong. You rehearse conversations before you have them. You walk on eggshells around their moods. When their name appears on your screen, your stomach tightens before you even read the message.
I had a client I’ll call her Sarah who told me she felt more relaxed at her most stressful workday than she did during a quiet evening at home with her partner. That sentence told me everything I needed to know. When a person becomes a source of chronic stress rather than safe haven, you are in toxic territory.
2. You Are Always the One Apologising
Think about your last five arguments. Who apologised? Who backed down? Who ended up explaining themselves until the other person was satisfied?
In a healthy relationship, both people take accountability. In a toxic relationship, one person carries all the guilt while the other carries none. Over time this creates a deeply unequal dynamic where one partner is constantly questioning themselves “was it my fault? Did I overreact? Maybe I am too sensitive?” while the other partner never has to reflect on their own behaviour at all.
The clinical term for this is DARVO — Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. It is a pattern where the person causing harm turns the situation around so that they become the victim. It is extraordinarily effective at making the actual injured party feel like the problem. If you are always the one saying sorry, ask yourself honestly: does the other person ever genuinely apologise to you?
3. Your Self-Esteem Has Quietly Shrunk
This is the sign I find most heartbreaking in my practice because it happens so slowly that clients rarely notice it in themselves. Other people notice it first.
You used to feel confident. You had opinions, ideas, a strong sense of who you were. Somewhere along the line that confidence began to erode. You second-guess yourself constantly. You apologise for having needs. You have stopped sharing your opinions because it is easier than dealing with the response. You feel like you need the other person’s approval to feel okay about yourself.
Toxic relationships attack self-esteem like rust attacks metal slowly, invisibly, and structurally. By the time you notice the damage, it feels like it was always there. It was not. This connects directly to how childhood trauma affects adults when our self-worth is already fragile, toxic partners find the cracks far more easily.
4. They Minimise Your Feelings Constantly
You tell them something hurt you. They tell you that you are overreacting. You try to explain how a comment made you feel. They tell you that you are too sensitive. You bring up a concern. They make you feel foolish for having it.
Over time you stop bringing things up at all. You learn to manage your feelings alone because sharing them only makes you feel worse. This is called emotional invalidation and it is one of the most consistent features of toxic relationships. Healthy relationships require both people to be able to say “you matter, your feelings matter, and I want to understand.”
When one person’s feelings are consistently treated as an inconvenience or an overreaction, the message they receive whether it is intended or not is: you are too much. Nobody should feel too much in the relationship they choose to be in.
5. You Have Started Lying to the People Who Love You
You minimise how bad things are when your friends ask. You make excuses for their behaviour to your family. You change the subject when conversations get too close to the truth. You have told so many small cover stories that keeping track of them has become exhausting.
I always pay close attention to this sign because isolation is one of the most reliable predictors of a relationship becoming dangerous over time. Research consistently shows that abusive relationships whether emotionally or physically almost always involve the gradual isolation of the victim from their support network. It does not always happen through dramatic demands. More often it happens through a slow accumulation of incidents that make it easier to stop confiding in people than to deal with the consequences.
If you are lying to the people who love you to protect someone who is hurting you, that is not loyalty. That is a warning sign.
6. There Is a Cycle of Explosion and Honeymoon
Things get bad. Really bad. Then suddenly things are wonderful they are the person you fell in love with, attentive and apologetic and loving. You feel relieved. You think things have changed. Then slowly, inevitably, the tension starts building again. And eventually it explodes again.
This is called the cycle of abuse tension building, incident, reconciliation, calm and it is one of the reasons toxic and abusive relationships are so difficult to leave. The honeymoon phase is real. The love feels real. The relief feels real. But it is a cycle, not a change. The explosion always comes back around.
Understanding why couples stay in struggling relationships is important here because the pull back is not weakness. It is psychology.
7. They Cross Your Boundaries — Then Make You Feel Wrong for Having Them
You say you need space. They show up anyway. You ask them not to check your phone. They check it and tell you that if you had nothing to hide, you would not care. You tell them a particular topic is painful. They bring it up in arguments.
Healthy relationships involve two people who respect each other’s limits even when they do not fully understand them. Toxic ones involve a person who consistently treats your boundaries as obstacles to their access and who makes you feel controlling, paranoid, or unreasonable for having them.
I have found that this sign often goes hand in hand with gaslighting where your perception of your own experience is consistently undermined until you no longer trust yourself to judge what is appropriate. If you find yourself constantly questioning your own standards, that doubt was likely put there deliberately.
8. You Feel Worse About Yourself Than When the Relationship Began
This is my simple test, and I ask it to every client who comes to me in a relationship they are not sure about. Think back to who you were when this relationship started. Now look at who you are today. Are you more confident or less? More connected to the people you love or more isolated? More yourself or less?
Healthy relationships are growth environments. They make you feel more capable, more loved, and more like the best version of yourself over time. Toxic relationships do the opposite. They contract you. They make you smaller. They make you dependent on one person’s approval while cutting you off from everyone else’s.
If you are dealing with grief over who you used to be the confident, connected, joyful person you remember being before this relationship that grief is telling you something important.
9. The Relationship Is Based on Fear Not Choice
Ask yourself honestly: if there were zero consequences no conflict, no guilt, no financial entanglement, no fear of their reaction would you still choose to be in this relationship tomorrow?
Many people in toxic relationships stay not out of love but out of fear. Fear of their partner’s reaction if they try to leave. Fear of being alone. Fear of what they might do. Fear of not being believed. Fear that nobody else will want them a belief the toxic partner has often carefully cultivated over time.
Love is a choice made freely. When staying feels like the only safe option rather than the wanted one, the relationship has stopped being a relationship and become a trap.
10. Your Friends and Family Have Expressed Concern
I am going to say something that might be uncomfortable: the people on the outside often see it before the people on the inside do. If multiple people in your life people who love you and have nothing to gain from lying have expressed concern about your relationship, please take that seriously.
I am not saying the people around you are always right. But when your mother, your best friend, and your work colleague are all saying the same thing independently of each other, that is not a coincidence. That is a pattern of observation from people who remember who you were before.
Why You Keep Making Excuses — The Psychology Behind It {#excuses}
This is the part most articles skip. They list the signs and then wonder why people do not simply leave. But understanding why you make excuses is just as important as recognising the signs. And I promise you it is not because you are stupid or weak.
Trauma bonding is real. When a relationship cycles between pain and relief between cruelty and affection the brain forms a powerful attachment that actually mimics the neurological experience of addiction. The relief of the honeymoon phase is not just emotionally significant. It is chemically significant. Breaking a trauma bond feels like withdrawal because neurologically, it is.
Your self-worth has been deliberately lowered. Toxic partners do not usually start by being cruel. They start by making you fall in love with them. They invest in building a connection that feels profound and unique. Then, gradually, they begin the process of making you feel like you are lucky to have them not the other way around. By the time the behaviour is clearly wrong, you have already been convinced you do not deserve better.
The sunk cost fallacy. The longer you have been in a relationship, the harder it becomes to acknowledge it was a mistake. You think: I have given five years of my life to this. I cannot walk away now. But staying in a relationship that is hurting you does not get back the time you have already lost. It only costs you more.
Fear of being alone. Many clients tell me that the thought of leaving feels more terrifying than the thought of staying. Toxic relationships often deliberately isolate their partners so that leaving feels like stepping off a cliff into nothing. But nothing is almost always better than what they are staying in and I say that after five years of working with people on both sides of that decision.
The Real Talk: What Makes Toxic Relationships So Hard to Leave {#real-talk}
Let me be completely honest about something the inspirational quotes on Pinterest will not tell you.
Leaving a toxic relationship is genuinely hard. Sometimes it is dangerous. Telling someone to “just leave” is like telling someone with a broken leg to “just walk.” The injury is real. The obstacles are real.
The most dangerous time in many toxic or abusive relationships is the moment of leaving this is when escalation of controlling behaviour is most likely. If you feel physically unsafe, please do not leave without a plan and without support. Contact a domestic violence helpline, speak to a counsellor, and tell at least one trusted person what you are planning.
I am also going to say something about therapy that I wish more people heard: couples counselling is not appropriate for every relationship. If there is emotional abuse, coercive control, or physical violence in your relationship, couples therapy can actually make things worse it gives the abusive partner new information about your vulnerabilities and new language to weaponise. Individual therapy first. Always.
If you recognise signs of depression that have developed during this relationship the withdrawal, the loss of joy, the feeling of hopelessness please know that those symptoms are a response to your circumstances, not a permanent state. They lift when the circumstances change.
What to Do If You Recognise Yourself in This Article {#what-to-do}
1. Name it out loud, to yourself first
You do not have to tell anyone yet. But stop calling it “complicated.” Stop calling him “difficult.” Stop saying “it’s not that bad.” Name what you are actually experiencing. That naming is the first crack of light.
2. Talk to one safe person
Not to get advice. Not to make a decision. Just to stop carrying this alone. A trusted friend, a family member, or a counsellor. The isolation of a toxic relationship is part of its power. Break the isolation in the smallest possible way.
3. See a counsellor — individually, not together
Individual therapy for toxic relationship recovery is one of the most effective interventions I know. It helps you rebuild your sense of self, understand the patterns that brought you here, and make decisions from a place of clarity rather than fear or guilt. At Pragma Counsellors we work with people navigating exactly this in complete confidence.
4. Do not make any permanent decisions while you are still in the fog
Trauma bonding and chronic stress impair decision-making. This is neurological not a character failing. Give yourself time in a safe environment before making major life decisions. The clarity comes. It just needs space to arrive.
Books That Helped My Clients More Than Anything Else {#books}
These are the books I recommend most frequently for people navigating toxic relationships. I have read all of them personally.
- 📖 Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft — the most important book ever written on controlling and abusive relationships. My absolute number one recommendation. Every person who has ever asked “but why does he act like this?” needs to read this book.
- 📖 Codependent No More by Melody Beattie — for people who find themselves constantly putting their partner’s needs above their own to the point of losing themselves entirely. A life-changing read.
- 📖 Should I Stay or Should I Go? by Lundy Bancroft — practical, honest, and free of judgment. Helps you think clearly about a decision that feels impossible to make.
- 📖 Whole Again by Jackson MacKenzie — specifically for the recovery period after leaving. One of the best books I know for rebuilding self-worth after a toxic relationship ends.
- 📓 The Self-Love Workbook by Shainna Ali — practical exercises for rebuilding self-esteem. I recommend this to almost every client coming out of a toxic relationship.
These are Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase through them, Pragma Counsellors may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend books I give to my own clients.
Frequently Asked Questions {#faq}
Q: Can a toxic relationship become healthy? Sometimes but only under very specific conditions. Both people must recognise the toxic patterns. The person causing harm must genuinely want to change and be willing to do serious work usually in individual therapy before couples therapy. Change must be demonstrated consistently over a long period, not just promised. I have seen it happen. It is not common. And it requires both people to be honest about what is actually happening.
Q: Is it toxic if they never hit me? Yes. Physical violence is one form of toxicity but emotional abuse, coercive control, psychological manipulation, and chronic disrespect are all forms of relationship toxicity that cause serious, lasting damage. The absence of physical violence does not mean a relationship is healthy.
Q: How do I know if I am the toxic one? The fact that you are asking this question is itself significant in my clinical experience, genuinely toxic people rarely ask whether they are the problem. That said, we all have unhealthy patterns. Individual therapy is the most honest way to examine your own behaviour without defensiveness. I encourage anyone who asks this question to explore it with a professional.
Q: What if we have children together? Children are one of the most common reasons people stay in toxic relationships and one of the most heartbreaking. Research is consistent: children in homes with high conflict, emotional abuse, or controlling behaviour suffer significant mental health consequences. Staying “for the children” in a toxic relationship is rarely as protective as it feels. I have written about the impact of relationship conflict on children it is worth reading if this is your situation.
Q: What is the first step if I want to leave? Tell one safe person the truth. That is it. You do not have to have a plan. You do not have to have anywhere to go. You do not have to be ready. Just break the silence with one person you trust and let that be the first step.
Parting Wisdom
That client I told you about at the beginning the one who called him “complicated”? She came back to therapy eight months after our last session. She had left. She looked different lighter, clearer, more like herself.
She told me: “The hardest part was admitting to myself that what I was calling love was actually just fear of being alone. Once I saw that, I couldn’t unsee it.”
You cannot unsee the truth once you have seen it. And that is both the hardest and most hopeful thing about this work.
You deserve a relationship that makes you feel safe, seen, and more like yourself not less. That is not a high standard. That is the minimum.
My question for you: What was the moment the specific thing someone said or did that made you first start questioning whether your relationship was healthy? You do not have to name anyone. Just share the moment.
Drop it in the comments below. Your story might be the thing that helps someone else finally see what they have been afraid to look at. I read every comment and respond personally.
Ready to talk to someone? At Pragma Counsellors in Nairobi we offer a free 15-minute consultation completely confidential, zero commitment, zero judgment. Just an honest conversation with a qualified counsellor.
📍 Muhoho Avenue, South C, Nairobi 📞 +254 752 448 315 / +254 784 684 422 📧 contact@pragmacounsellors.com 👉 Book your free consultation here
