Seven Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship

What do you recommend the toxic partner do to become a better person and partner? Regarding controlling behaviors, etc

Gosh yes! The rules!!! So many of them. Each mug of tea or coffee had to have a different amount of sugar or coffee in, depending on the size of the mug. I had to remember all of this.

His food had to be on his plate in certain palaces. Even if we went to a restaurant, he would get annoyed and move the food round before he would eat it.

I stuck to the rules, because it was just easier.

But, if I had a request, he would just do it his way. Especially pizza. He would always burn it. Because that's how he liked his. 12 years of asking him not to burn my pizza.

Manipulation is one to look out for. Whether if it's financial, social emotional people who are toxic love to wrap their victim around their fingers by making themselves look & sound disadvantaged, poor, uncapable & helpless so the victim would help them out by any means in order to remedy their problem. They not only feel they are entitled for that help but they also think it's the duty of the victim to meet their needs.

Insults. Concrete or veiled. I was called nasty, hateful names repeatedly for years. Always with the promise he didn't mean them, but literally couldn't make it a month without calling me the c- word. 594 days of no contact (which required a restraining order) but I'm finally close to normal again...

I dunno, I run into toxic situations that are 100% the opposite of these.

The inability to have any rules whatsoever. Specifically, someone was agast and upset that I that I had a rule that if they invited me over at 6pm and I drove 45 minutes to get there, that they should either be home or leave the house unlocked so I can come in. They felt that my arriving 50% of the time to a locked house and no one home and being expected to sit in the driveway for 30 minutes waiting for them to happen to arrive home was perfectly fine.

Or another one, if you avoid making conversation with me for 2 hours while you watch tv, do laundry, and send emails, don't wait until I step foot out the door to send me a flurry of long winded texts.

Or when it's 10pm at night, my rule is no starting new hours long games as I have to get home and go to sleep for work the next day.

As you might imagine this person doubled down, then acted shocked when I stopped responding to their texts and stopped coming over.

But I hardly think my rules are the source of the toxicity.

Found this so interesting. My 2 year relationship with much younger man is not healthy and probably never has been, but it takes time for things to become relevant if the partner has narcissistic traits, works long night shifts, older family members relying on him, two hobbies, always texting, but openly to many contacts. Always too busy. The whole situation has worsened recently becoming like passing ships. Could the age gap, and me being retired be an added problem?

Please can we have another video of petulant type

I wouldn't want anyone to have a tracker app on my mobile. It is a ridiculous idea for sane adults.

Abusing freedoms and privileges (which are supposed to be respected by not abusing them) is unhealthy. Revoking them from the perpetrator may look like it’s unhealthy. And it is. But isn’t inappropriate. Allowing them in the first place (because the healthy party was considering them normal) and leading to their abuse by the other (which leads to the unhealthy appropriate behaviors by the disrespected party) should be made clear that is not to be shamed, but corrected (correcting the dynamic between the parties, not the reaction, due to its appropriateness).
In a therapy session or consultation this doesn’t create safe environment- to describe something unhealthy, without addressing the appropriateness of the motivation and how different scenarios can have similar expressions.
In narcissistic relationships the narcissist behaves unhealthy, however - they drive the entangled parties in unhealthy behaviors, due to the sheer chaos and harm the preyed upon party is trapped into having to navigate, if they can’t leave/quit etc…
My point is: Unhealthy behaviors are not to be addressed as shameful, if they are a rational and a form of reactive abuse. When shame is not lifted from the bruised reactive party and specifically put on the originating party - it is not automatically and naturally assumed by the person who’s ashamed to exhibit those behaviors that the shame is for the provoking shameless party. It’s important to stress enough this distinguishing.
A thief can be watched closely at work and can claim they are being mistreated by the appropriate safe-guarding of the victim and sue the victim for creating “toxic environment” with their “unhealthy behaviors”.
Please address appropriateness of rational justified behaviors vs it’s irrational similar expressions. If you can’t do this always, even sometimes it will help more people understand when it’s “crazy” and when it’s absolutely the sane thing to do in the abnormal circumstances, even if it’s unhealthy.

On ‘guilt and shame’, I love the example re: getting a glass of water. The malignant narcissist in our lives used to do the inverse, which was get himself a glass of water and family dinners and never, ever think about anyone else or offer someone else the same. This would, without exception, occur when we were all preparing food and setting the table, during which time he would always just stand there. It just didn’t register in his mind that this was a collective effort for collective benefit. If you ever asked him to get you something, he would scowl at you.

Wow, you make so much sense, thank you !

Maybe this falls under “control”, but one of the tactics I’ve personally experienced is repeatedly broken promises or shirking of planned commitments. The person helps plan a trip, a meeting, or some event, and then bails at the last moment, leaving the victim holding the bag and on the hook for following through. The victim feels the need to explain the offender’s behavior to those who were expecting him or her to show up. When bailing on their promises or plans, the offender will say something like, “I just don’t feel like doing this right now, but I’m not stopping you from going.”. This makes the victim feel like they are the one being unreasonable and demanding for asking the offender to live up to their promises. The offender doesn’t seem to feel any sense of responsibility and will bail on work colleagues, friends, family events - just about anything - without the slightest sense of regret or embarrassment. They often offer the vaguest of apologies when put on the spot, leaving the victim feeling humiliated and responsible for carrying out the promised sctivity themselves..

This is so helpful and enlightening. 🙏🏻

Right.

you nailed it. iam an experienced child support worker but management had all these signs did not promote the experienced workers instead they hired inexperience workers so management can control them. thanks for the info

Wow you know my mom

Woo 7/7 my 1st A+!!!

Oh wait that’s a bad thing

RAD or Adult, attachment disorder? Darren can you explain?

Your list of descriptions leave me in no doubt. Thank you.

I can think of a couple of family members this kind of behaviour definitely relates to, also a former acquaintance. They are all short people, am I just being mean to shorter people or is there any correlation ?

What if your husband sleeps in a different bedroom because he likes the decoration of that room better?

Demeaning

Micro management is awful. Loving your easy delivery. Accent is lovely too.

An EXCELLENT summary of something I personally couldn’t find the words to describe. Thank you.

Very helpful! Thank you!!!

can you explain number six, I'm not sure i get it

I can remember quite vividly situations where I’d make arrangements to go somewhere as an older teen / young adult and then being on the receiving end for not “just asking” my Dad to drive me. From both parents. They treated my independence as a bad thing, an insult to them, most of the time. One of the reasons we no longer speak.

Would you consider discussing the unknowingly dangerous outlets that peuple turn to in abusive relationships? As an abused child, I turned to a silent danger that I found out worsens PTSD. I listened to loud music on my headphones throughout my MTV childhood and adulthood . My parents let us watch anything on TV. It gave me comfort, but actually also gave me a rush the louder it was. I have a severe exaggerated startle response and have to take Klonopin to keep it under control. I read that loud music in cars and headphones, cause a same response as trauma and so are movies that are scary or have violence . I am glad I heard you touch on the subject about movies. The public needs so badly to know this, especially for children.

Hi great videos thank you. Personally I would love to know more about narcissists as a parent and dysfunctional family dynamics when a narcissistic parent rears and creates another narcissistic how they can work together to abuse the "victim" be that the other parent or another sibling etc..xx

Thsk again... and also for subtitle. (^_^) Well, after watching your wonderful subject. I just wonder that, perhaps, in some relationships there might be one of those 7 signs that still complement to each other? SOME TOXIC signs from each person, can possibly help the other one "bad/toxic" behaviour? Ex: Isoolation might helpful for rules... so on. A kind of "Ying/Yang" balance... (^_^)

My narc husband of 32 years doesn't DO anything. What I mean is - he doesn't require things to be done a certain way because he doesn't know how anything is done since he doesn't do anything. The way I do things is just fine to him as long as he can do nothing and be undisturbed. He's not interested in what it takes to get things done as long as they are done and he didn't have to lift a finger.

The silence treatment they pretend not to hear you when right in the room your talking to them and there not listening their staring at their phone, playing a game , watching TV anything but paying attention to you and what you’re saying. Not giving you any attention your talking and you expect an answer like no encouragement or praise for anything it’s just a silence . Disproving silence you say something and there’s just nothing on the other end. They leave you hanging! My narcissistic husband does this . My mother and my Aunt do this one they act like your bragging about something . My Aunt you will be talking about something and she interrupts you and starts talking about something totally different like what you’re were talking about is just unimportant. Asking you did you throw there car part down the stairs after sabotaging and breaking something of yours the week before you come down and it’s suddenly broken and it’s not working and they were the only ones in the room and of course they accuse you of accusing them of breaking it. Gaslighting there’s so any more things trying to humiliate you in public .

thank you for these videos, thats all i can say =)

You just outlined my entire life. You hit every thing I experience every day. I’m not perfect by a long stretch, but I have experienced all of these things and they have just grown worse over time.

Could easily title this 7 signs of unhealthy people

So many great takeaways! Love all of the 7 signs that you point out. And, it’s so refreshing to know that ‘we’ are not alone. It really is all about isolation, sabotage and control. ‘Victims’ (or targets) will never ever measure up to the N’s standards, lest they lose sense of their scruples and succumb to the N’s wicked ways and become enslaved to their cruelty.

One of the greatest things I’ve ever heard an N say is “you are out of my life”! Most LIBERATING day ever! If someone ever hears an N say this … CELEBRATE! Spread your wings and FLY! Don’t walk! Don’t run! Don’t turn back and ask nor beg WHY! Just fly and praise God that you will never ever have to deal with the N again. It truly is rejuvenating and FREEDOM will never look so good once you are no longer held captive by the N.

One topic I would love to see covered are the physiological characteristics and telltale signs that a person may experience during the first few seconds (or minutes) of meeting a Narcissist. Most N’s are quite charming and persuasive during those first few moments, but I rarely see anything on what individuals experience. One example is the emotional high that one can feel and a false sense of realism or powerful chemistry that may mislead them into believing this is the perfect relationship (business, professional or romantic) that they’ve been waiting for all their lives. Thoughts?

Thanks again, Darren!

I've had an issue for years with my otherwise wonderful husband and I really don't know if it's him or me at fault. He loves everyone. He's really happy go lucky. But he wants to act this way towards my covert narc/dependent personality disordered mother (who he loves entirely, believing her lying public sweet persona). And the same for my cerebral narc cousin who has spent our lifetimes trying to make herself look 'better than' me in every way possible. I feel betrayed that he would desire to treat my abusers as if they have done nothing wrong. He feels that I'm trying to control who he is able to be friendly with. I truly don't know who's right.
I hate these people knowing all of my business, but hubby is an open book and will tell everybody everything while I sit there wishing the floor would open up and swallow either him, or both of us. If I react to what he's saying the narcs only have a great laugh that I've reacted so I can only sit there while I'm stabbed in the heart.

Hope that with every video you put English subtitles, please, for the people who study English.

LET HIM GO 🚶‍♂️ 🎶

👍

it makes me laugh when 'friends' when shopping together claim they cannot afford lunch, so you shout them lunch, BUT 30mins later buy 2 expensive items

There is a flipside to number 3...the amount of people being dodgy and hiding what's on their phones these days regarding cheating is shocking. If you have a bad feeling it's better to rip the bandaid off and know than to let infidelity or disloyalty continue forever just because you don't want to invade privacy. Trust your gut, as they say, within reason at least

They feel they have the right to pry into your personal business, friends, acquaintances, finances, etc. but don’t you dare question them about ANYTHING!!