How to Know If You’re the Problem in Your Relationship

The answer isn’t as easy as you think

My friend is a victim of gaslighting. It’s hard for her to see it because she’s in it. I know because I was once in it, too. She is reeling at what she’s been told about herself. This is the first sign.

Healthy people don’t tear you down while telling you the truth.

Gaslighting and Emotional Abuse

I once endured a 45-minute car ride with a former partner who spent the entire time telling me what a terrible person I am — in detail. I was crying great big silent tears because I had no defense against what I was hearing, and I was vulnerable enough to wonder if any of it was true. I knew that what was happening felt terrible, but it would take me another year to be able to call it abusive. Make no mistake: this behavior is absolutely abuse.

It is possible to be honest with someone while also being kind — even if the truth is going to hurt. People who engage in gaslighting behavior like to turn the tables. Part of it is a defense mechanism when they are in the wrong. They will succeed if they can keep us feeling wrong-footed.

It’s also a way to deflect from dealing with their own behavior. As both defense and deflection, it usually works. We think we must be the ones to blame for their behavior, and they don’t have to be accountable, apologize, or in any way change their actions.

But here’s the real truth — and I’m sorry, but it’s probably going to hurt.

The Real Truth About Our Relationships

Unhealthy relationships take two people. If we’re in the unhealthy relationship, we are also part of the problem because healthy, secure individuals don’t stay inside toxic relationships for long. We free ourselves. Until we do, we are participating in the toxicity we allow.

I’m including myself in this blanket statement. I’ve stayed in one relationship after another where I wasn’t being treated the way I deserved. If I’d been healthier, I would have expected better for myself. I can see it now, but I can only see it because I did the work of addressing and healing past trauma. I couldn’t see it clearly when I was in it. I was too busy dealing with feelings of fear, abandonment, and anxiety. It felt like something happening to me when it was only happening because I was staying.

We are not responsible for other people’s abusive behavior. We are responsible, however, for loving ourselves enough to ask for help and to no longer tolerate less than we deserve. Every single one of us deserves kindness, respect, and compassion within our relationships. That should be a base level of treatment for any relationship we allow in our lives — romantic or otherwise. We do not deserve abuse, unkindness, disrespect, belittling, condescension, or being ignored.

The Path To Becoming Healthier

Yet, to have healthy, respectful relationships, we have to become healthy ourselves. I thought I was before my last relationship. I was sure of it. I had done the work. I had put in the time to deal with my issues. I was ready for a healthy relationship. I just wasn’t ready to exit an unhealthy one yet.

I had learned all the skill sets I needed to be loving, respectful, and even a better communicator. I kept putting the work into the relationship, and I felt really good about it. But when the scale tipped and I found myself putting in more of the effort, I didn’t recognize the imbalance as being inherently unhealthy.

In relationships, I believe that we all go through struggles where sometimes our partner has to be the strong one, and sometimes we have to be strong for them. I thought this was happening. I thought there would be time later for me to stop having to be so strong all the time. That time never came, and I realized that I had not equipped myself to leave, only to stay.

I had old trauma that I had not healed. I had deep abandonment issues that prevented me from doing anything more than suffering when I was no longer getting my needs met. I was healthier than I had once been, but I still wasn’t healthy enough to insist that my needs mattered as much as anyone else’s. It’s healthy to learn how to stay, but we also need to be healthy enough to go when love is no longer being offered within the relationship or it no longer meets our relational needs.

Sometimes, our partners may be willing to work on the relationship with us when we share our feelings. We cannot, however, single-handedly save our relationships when partners refuse to acknowledge a problem and/or put the effort into resolving it. If the relationship won’t get healthier, we have to.

Why We Should Leave Unhealthy Relationships

Staying in relationships where we are either mistreated or simply not loved well is unhealthy. We can blame our partners all we want, but if we had stronger self-worth, we would not allow anyone we love to hurt us without any effort to change. It’s different when both people are actively working on the relationship. But it’s not okay to stay in relationships where we are the ones doing the work of maintaining them while the other person just gets to relax and enjoy the benefits of our effort.

So, the truth is that anyone who is engaged in gaslighting or disrespectful behavior is absolutely the problem. This is emotional abuse. It may not mean the other person is inherently bad, but they are certainly not emotionally healthy — and it’s not our job to save or fix them. The truth is that they may be the problem, but if we stay, we become a part of that problem, too. The relationship cannot exist without our willing participation.

Leaving isn’t easy, especially if we’re in love or if we have a past history of trauma. It’s even harder if the abuse is also physical, and leaving could put us in even more danger. It is necessary, however, when the relationship no longer meets our needs. It is absolutely essential when the person who should love us is a danger to our mental or physical well-being. A partner who makes us feel crazy is the problem, but we are also the problem as long as we stay.

We deserve better. We likely know it. It doesn’t matter until we actually believe it and stop tolerating less than what we deserve.

Modeling Healthy Relationships

So many of us aren’t demanding healthy relationships because we don’t even know what the hell they look like. We’ve only ever seen codependent ones or toxic ones or distant ones. How many relationships can we name that are equal, respectful, loving, and affectionate? Where the partners don’t talk about each other disrespectfully, where each person fully supports the other person’s interests and dreams? Where they equitably share home and financial responsibilities? Where they are both kind and accountable?

It’s a rarity, and it shouldn’t be. Yes, I might die alone because my standards won’t allow me to settle for less. I’m less afraid of that lonely death than the one that involves sharing my life with someone who doesn’t love and respect me in equal measure. I don’t want to spend my life burying all the good parts of myself in service to someone else’s idea of who I’m supposed to be. That’s far scarier to me than facing the end alone. There are worse things in life to be than single.

We need to be healthy to have healthy relationships. It’s hard work, and it’s not easy. I’m still working through trauma. Despite my journey in therapy, I will always be processing my emotions, and there will always be layers I have to both feel and heal. The healthier I get, the less I’m attracted to unhealthy partners. They just don’t appeal to me. I know what I want — but what’s more is that I now know I deserve it.

Until we know that — and truly believe it — we will remain a part of the problem even if we aren’t the whole of it.