Humans are social animals - this is a statement we have been learning by rote since childhood. No human being can exist in complete isolation from others. The ability of humans to establish and engage in simple and complex interpersonal relationships is what sets them apart as a species. Right from the moment of birth, every individual has to do justice to various relationships in life, to live a smooth life. While some relationships are established by birth, there are many others that we indulge in by our own choice and agency, facilitated by socially accepted methods of establishing ties like marriage. Each relationship in life should bring peace and prosperity to an individual. This may be in the form of tangible and material happiness and more importantly in the form of mental stability and support. Man can survive without riches but not without peace of mind. Every relationship in a person's life must add to it, thus leading them to be better and better with each passing day. When relationships yield results diametrically opposite to such expected ones, they can be called toxic relationships.
While a toxic gas leak can physically suffocate someone, toxic relationships rob people of their peace of mind and lead them to suffer mental suffocation. In many romantic relationships today, toxicity creeps in from a very early stage. A toxic partner would hinder mutual growth and would have no vision of a good future with the person on the other side. They would be in a relationship, to satisfy their selfishness and egos and to deal with the insecurities of their mind. A toxic partner would be following the policy of all take and no give. There are various pointers to identifying a toxic relationship and emancipating oneself from it.
Envisaging a future together is of prime importance in any relationship. However, it is equally imperative to keep your partner from exercising uninvited control over your life citing that they have a right over your choices, just because they would be part of your life sometime in the future. When this happens, we feel the so-called invasion of personal space occurs. This process can easily take the proportions of a dementor and hollow out your life by sucking out the essence of love and understanding. Make your personal choices clear and make sure that your partner too has some feasible personal goals to work for. Your partner should be someone who is dedicated to achieving their aspirations and simultaneously able to give you support towards working on your own. Your significant other should assign the required importance to your goals, and ignite you to work for them. They should be the source of motivation and mental support that would inspire you to be the best version of yourself every day and in every sphere of your life. If one person does not have any goals, they might have a certain degree of denigration over the other person's life, and make them fall short of the motivation to work for their personal goals. This has several facets. The person lacking goals might develop an egoistic attitude or jealousy towards the other, knowingly or unknowingly. This is one of the clear indications of a toxic relationship, where one person does not want the other to outgrow them or do better in life. To satisfy their egos, they might stoop to demoralizing their partner, preventing them from being productive, and in extreme cases, physically and mentally abusing them to restrain them. It is highly important to break off from any such relationship. Remember that your physical and mental health should be your priority. Also, it would do good to remind yourselves of the following point at similar junctures in life - that your mother did not carry you for ten months and give birth to you enduring unimaginable pain to spend your life on fringes, enslaved by someone else's motives and to succumb to a life of fear and subordination. Your parents did not work late night shifts and invest in your education and upbringing, for someone to come along, botch up all your aspirations and turn your life into a living hell.
If your partner claims overt control over the most basic things in your life - your attire, your network, and even your body know that it is not caring, but pure toxicity. Your network, your choices, and your opinions are all crucial contributors to your personality. Your creativity and view of life are what build your identity. If your partner tries to rein in your creative process and starts invading your choices regarding even the most trivial things like your outfit or food choices, realize that they would not support your major life decisions, too. They would mercilessly drain the cheerful and active spirit out of you. Asking pricked questions about your social media posts, checking your phone against your will, calling incessantly while you're out on personal work, asking for live locations now and then, doubting every minor presence of the opposite sex on your social media, denying you the choice to wear what you want, can all be considered red flags. If they ask for all these and you are unwilling, they are obliged to refrain. If your partner cannot respect your boundaries, are they even trusting you? If your partner has major trust issues and relies on screenshots and live locations to keep the relationship going, they are not going to stick around for long. They would easily take someone else's word over yours and never trust you completely and will always be suspecting you. But, keep in mind that asking you to follow a healthy diet or suggesting comfortable clothes is a genuine concern while denying each of your choices and wishes and making you feel bad about them is indeed toxic. Establish that you are an individual entity with unique perceptions about yourself and your choices. If your partner views it as you being selfish, stubborn, or self-centered, point out that it is not you but them and that they are welcome to walk out of the relationship if they cannot deal with your strong sense of individualism.
Toxic relationships are often characterized by the constant anxiety on part of a single person to work toward the relationship. Relationships work out when both partners put in equal effort and work to keep the love alive. In case of this process becomes one-sided, the relationship would collapse sooner or later. However, there is a more terrible phenomenon that can happen - where one partner is made over-conscious about the expectations of the other and then made to believe that it is their duty to fulfill this assigned quorum of expectations. This results in a constant worry - a continuous consciousness to apparently "perform well" in the relationship. This can be seen along the same lines as the pressure some parents exert on their children to top in exams and every other thing they do, like extracurricular. The other partner might be lethargic in spending quality time, and frequently lying and making excuses. They might gradually lose attraction for the other person, communicate with hostility, and start acting indifferently. Some people make it worse by threatening to end the relationship if their needs and expectations are not met by the other person. This is a very toxic trait that needs to be identified and done away with in any relationship. If one out of two people in a relationship is made to feel obliged for the most minuscule slights or trivial things - like coming in late due to work or personal engagements with other people, or because they did something they loved without asking for their partner's approval - the relationship is toxic through and through. At such a stage, the person who is burdened with such restrictions and obligations must take the decision to break free. They must realize that their happiness does not mean anything to the other person and that their egos have more worth than someone's joy. Realize that living in denial or coping with the pain of a breakup is far easier than choking your soul in a suffocating relationship.
In today's world, it is very unreal to trust someone at first sight. Therefore, while you are in a romantic relationship, make sure that you have a confidante in your family or closest circle, who would know about your partner and their basic details. It can be your parents, siblings, or even a close friend. Make sure to keep them informed - give them an outline of what goes on in your relationship. While it is not good to give a third person an upper hand over your relationship and you or your partner, it is necessary to have someone to confide in. If your partner disagrees with your having a confidante or someone knowing about your relationship, understand that they do not have any long-term intentions, or even worse, have shady ones. Often in relationships unknown to others, misdemeanors or abuse can never be disclosed to anyone, due to which people are forced to endure all of this unwillingly.
It is also necessary to draw the distinction between things that are predictable and unpredictable concerning a relationship. You would know your family better than your partner. And if you have sufficient reason to believe that your family might not support your relationship and if those reasons make sense to your conscience as well, know that you have every right to end the relationship and walk out. You might still have feelings for that individual, but going forward, you might not be able to make peace with yourself by creating discord with people who brought you up. On the other hand, it is equally right to fight for your relationship and convince your family, if you have a staunch belief that your partner adds value to your life and will continue to do so in the future, be it in any form. If your partner negates your decision to walk out, questioning how you predicted your family's response, tell them in no unclear terms, that you have lived with them all your life and know how they think and function. They might further argue that everything would change over the years but particular factors in every family would not change over the years. If something of this kind is what would prevent your family from accepting your relationship, it would cause more pain and chaos to end the relationship at the last minute. In contrast, there are factors that partners can work on and make better in the future. If reasons cited by your family fall into this category, go ahead, work on it and prove that it was in no way a hindrance.
Another toxic trait in a relationship that you have to be wary of is disrespect towards parents and family. If your partner harbors bitter opinions about your family and does not have even a shred of respect, take a stance and tell them to clear off. Someone who does not assign any importance to your family will not be respectful to you as well in the long run. Mutual respect is a key pillar that imparts gravitas to any fruitful relationship. If your partner asks you to stop doing something you love, saying that their family would not like it, understand that this person would never be able to defend your wishes to anyone, especially their family. If a person cannot treat you and your family with respect, their family would treat you the same as well, which would be detrimental in every sense in the long run. There are cases of families trying to dominate the life of their children's partners. Examples of these include in-laws locking away a woman's wedding gifts for themselves, and then demanding more and more money for extravagances in their family. Men are often persuaded to join their in-laws' businesses after being shamed for having a relatively lower income. All these come under the purview of toxic relationships, albeit not in romantic regard.
The more delay you bring in to assess, identify and accept the toxicity in your relationships, the more tedious it gets to come out of them. The toxicity does not take long to pervade your entire life and destroy it. Repeated displays of red flags such as the aforementioned ones should be your cue to come out of the relationship. When you do not take such a step even after realizing that you are in a toxic relationship, that is when things start getting out of hand. And when you try to pull yourself out, you would almost be neck-deep in the toxic quagmire. It is in the most horrendous forms of such breakups that cases of acid attacks or revenge porn come up. Some people derive pleasure from injecting fear into the hearts of their former partners. Threats to release nudes or intimate videos from the time of courtship are what constitutes revenge porn. Some people even carry out their threats, as evident from the high rates of acid attack cases in India. Often, the motive is to prevent one’s ex-partner from finding someone better and leading a peaceful life. This often happens in the case of insecure people, who have no hopes or aspirations about themselves and want to convert the more ambitious person into something similar. Such molesters are often too scared of being alone and cannot stomach anyone dumping them for the better and doing good in life. From various parts of India, we hear news of women being set on fire for rejecting a proposal or even being gang-raped for not conceding to the demands of their so-called lovers. A prime example here is Aftab Poonawallah's gruesome murder of live-in partner Shraddha Walker. To silence her during a disagreement, this man allegedly strangled the victim, chopped her body into pieces, and left them at different locations. A case from Kerala, of a girl named Greeshma poisoning her boyfriend and alleged the first husband based on some astrologer's advice to marry someone else also needs to be mentioned in this context. Ironic, how lovers turn attackers in the spur of the moment, isn't it?
Let's have a look at this issue from a very different and intriguing angle. Among many married couples, there are prime examples of toxic relationships entailing domestic violence, abuse, and even murder in some cases. There have been cases of men marrying for money from dowry, harassing their wives for more, and ultimately killing them. Often families get involved in such heinous acts as well. Although in most toxic relationships, women bear the brunt of it, there are many cases of men falling prey to it too. Fake dowry cases and extortion of alimony following divorce are examples of these. There are cases of women making life at home unbearable with constant nagging and even running off with boys half their age, abandoning their families and children. These are all various types of toxicity found in relationships. Often in the case of married women, they might be struggling in a toxic relationship but do not confide in anyone at their home, believing that everything will be fixed one day. At the extreme point of tolerance, some might inform their families. But the decision of the family to save them depends on their attitudes. For a long time, there have been cases where families ask their daughters to cope and adjust to the abuse, for fear of loss of face in society. Divorce was something unimaginable for many Indian families. Such responses have led to a lot of suicide cases among young women. However, now there is a ray of hope in this regard, as people have begun to realize the gravity of the situation and the need to provide a sense of security to their married daughters. The realization that a divorced daughter is better than a dead daughter is gradually taking hold in society. Women too, need to be able to take firm decisions when it comes to the very question of their own lives and their children. Educating women is a way to combat the evils wrought by toxic relationships. An educated woman would be able to distinguish between right and wrong, assert her stance, and live life on her own terms. It is more important to equip our daughters with the agency to provide for themselves and their dependents. Investment in their education and skill acquisition is a better option than saving to conduct a big fat wedding for them at a tender age. Rather than viewing them as a burden to be dumped on to any man, women need to be made capable of choosing the right partner for themselves, if and only if they feel the need for a companion. Both women and men need to be given this agency to decide for themselves when to marry, whom to marry and if they want to marry at all.
Another hilarious yet alarming facet of this issue is of victims not realizing that they have been victimized. Young girls from the ages of 12-18 often end up romanticizing the very toxic movie hero and this is what shapes their perception of the ideal man. They often end up playing into the hands of much older men who would be misusing them in every way and finally leave them. Sometimes, girls get caught in the honey trap laid by men with absolutely shady intentions. They pretend to care for them while hurting them physically and verbally. We can find funny depictions and troll videos of such situations on online media. However, we need to understand the need to protect young children from such diminutive effects of social media. Child pornography has become a very sensitive case nowadays. Young girls need to be sensitized that the toxic acts of their so-called boyfriends do not equal care or love and that they are merely being taken advantage of. The same goes for teenage boys. There are also cases of elder women trapping young boys with similar measures and subsequently threatening them for money and more. While media cannot be cited as a bad influence on all, romanticizing high school romances often captures the minds of teens venturing out on the journey to adulthood. Also, glorifying eve-teasing, domestic violence, stalking, verbal abuse, online stalking, harassment, etc. are major reasons factoring in their normalization and attempts at these by both the young and the old. School and college romances garnished with such baseless acts appear all macho on-screen but are very disturbing in real life.
People must be educated about the legal provisions in place to safeguard them from the detrimental effects of toxic relationships. Police and other security forces need to be made more efficient at dealing with such cases. Fast resolution of cases like online harassment or stalking should be facilitated with the support of the cyber crimes cell. Victims must be able to report anonymously with evidence. Although such a reporting platform is currently available, its efficacy is marred by the inability of the victim to track the progress of the case. Assigning a complaint number to anonymous reporters and enabling them to use this number to track the case must be implemented. Such threats and serious cases must be dealt with quickly by initiating arrest or immediate action against the offender based on ample evidence. Victims of toxic relationships must keep in mind to gather evidence against the attacker if they need to be brought to light. Every small bit helps the case - call recordings, chat screenshots of online threats, voice recordings of armed struggle, voice notes between the molester and their associates, etc. Even a blurred or hazy photograph or video of the attacker in action can be a shred of important evidence to bolster the case and to ensure immediate action. Empathizing with victims is also an important step towards sparing them through the trauma and helping them restart a normal life. They require strong and compassionate advice and not nasty comments and nagging about not valuing relationships, initiating breakups, and accusations of bringing everything upon them on their own. Society needs to understand that no person can conduct a complete and thorough analysis of another at first sight or in a short time. It takes some time, even months or years, for people to start manifesting their true colors. And if they turn out to be shady, it is imperative to undertake positive action to help victims and not to undermine their self-esteem which would have already been blistered by their toxic partner.
Toxic relations feed on the minds of its victims, rendering them unproductive. To do away with this, people need to be made aware of how a relationship - romantic or otherwise, should be. Any survivor of toxic relationships must not be made to feel guilty or deem themselves so. They must bear in mind that it is not their responsibility to fix a person whose mind and body follow toxic alignments. Escaping from a toxic relationship should be a stepping stone towards building a better life, and living for your own dreams and for those who genuinely care, with a clear conscience. Love, affection, and desire are all pure and positive emotions. It is our perceptions and actions that decide how our relationships function. Let love blossom in every heart, while ensuring everyone a sense of security and collective and personal accomplishment.