HOW TO SPOT A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP

By psychologist and cognitive behavioural therapist Will Napier (willnapier.co.uk)

1Your partner’s behaviour is intense and provokes equally intense reactions from you. He may say that your relationship is the best he’s ever been in, then the next minute act offended when you don’t want to do something he suggests. This makes you apologise and feel as though you have to shoulder the responsibility for making everything OK. It can be mesmerising but often we mistake intensity such as this for intimacy.

2When you’re together, you may act recklessly and take risks – drinking more heavily or taking drugs. It could even be speeding in a car. Something about it can feel thrilling and illicit. But what would your friends say?

3 4You stop liking yourself because your partner has contaminated you with his own insecurities, trying to make himself feel better by putting you down. You find yourself making excuses for your partner’s unacceptable behaviour. Not good. It’s time to learn to value your own needs and to realise that a relationship based on subjugating yours is doomed.

5If you try to raise any issues you have in the relationship, your partner may stonewall you. Open communication is replaced by passive communication. This includes sulking or the silent treatment, so you have to guess what you’ve ‘done wrong’ and put it right. Never a healthy sign.

6Because you may feel as though you’re constantly walking on eggshells or lurching from one drama to the next, you feel depleted – the relationship is sucking the energy out of you. This may manifest itself physically and you may want to sleep more.

7You’re keeping the relationship – or worrying aspects of it – from your family. Secrecy is the number-one sign of unhealthy, addictive behaviour.