A healthy relationship is every couple’s fairytale storyline. After all, all of us want our love lives to be filled with bliss and happiness.
But other than a lucky few, most couples lose their way along marital or relationship bliss and end up taking the unhealthy path towards bad romance.
The difference between a healthy and an unhealthy relationship is easy to see though. In a happy relationship, your lover is your pillar of strength and your support, and you feel like a piece of you is missing when they’re away from you.
But if you’re living through an unhealthy relationship, you’d feel drained of energy and devoid of happiness whenever you’re around your lover. In fact, you’d feel happier when you’re away from your lover with friends or with a secret crush.
Here are 7 critical signs of an unhealthy relationship:
1. Dishonesty and secrecy
Do you cover up a lie with half truths even if it’s something as trivial as what you’ve been up to the whole day? Or do you have a secret crush on someone and avoid talking about it with your lover? Whatever it may be, talk about it and you’ll see how much close both of you can get.
2. Affairs
Affairs can come in different forms, be it sexual or emotional. But what matters is that it can affect your relationship with your lover. When you invest your partner’s share of love towards someone else, it’s obvious that your partner will feel neglected and hurt. And that may force them to drift away from you, even if you convince yourself that you’re not having an affair.
3. Desires and expectations
Do you have secret expectations from your partner, something you haven’t told them about? Or do you have aspirations that you wish your partner could help you achieve? Expectations in love are good, but only when they are communicated and realistic.
4. Lack of respect
In a happy relationship, both partners need to respect each other. They make promises to each other and keep them, and they avoid speaking ill of each other’s shortcomings just to feel better about themselves.
5. Sex is the driving force
Are you and your partner together only because both of you are smitten by each other sexually? Is glorious passion between the sheets the only reason why both of you are together? If sex is the answer to everything, be it spending an evening together, making up after a fight or even to display affection, that’s just unhealthy.
6. Unhealthy jealousy
Are you jealous of your partner? Sometimes, there may be a few things about your partner that you envy, like their high paying job or the number of friends they have. Envy isn’t always bad, but if it turns to jealousy and you secretly plot ways to isolate your partner from their friends or ask them to find a new job, it’s a sign of unhealthy jealousy in love.
7. Insecurity
Does your partner’s closeness to an attractive friend threaten you? Insecurities are common at the start of a new relationship where both partners are still learning about each other, their exes and their cute friends. But in an unhealthy romance, insecurity prevails all the time, even when the relationship flies past the infatuation stage.
