At a glance
You may be holding on to a relationship you love while dreading the moment you walk through the door. Calling it toxic names the hurt, yet it leaves you unsure what to do next. This article helps you tell a rough stretch from a relationship that is doing you harm, and what to look at first.
Clinical insights from 22 years in psychotherapy
I’m Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist in Copenhagen. Qualified at the Psychosynthesis Education Trust and the University of East London. 22 years of full-time, face-to-face clinical practice.
- The word often arrives late. By the time clients call their relationship toxic, many have spent years finding good reasons why it was not.
- Relief on a day apart is telling. Clients often admit, a little ashamed, that home feels easier when their partner is away, and that admission usually says more than the rows they describe.
- Shame keeps the account small. Early on, clients tend to play down what happens at home, and the worst evenings come out only once they trust they will not be judged for staying.
Clinical notes: My observations are anonymised and compounded from my session notes since 2004.
What am I really saying when I call it toxic?
Toxic is a word you reach for, not a diagnosis anyone can confirm or rule out.
It is good at one thing. It gives a name to harm you may have spent a long time talking yourself out of: the nights that end in silence, the shrinking list of things you feel allowed to ask for, the sense of becoming smaller in your own home. If the word has started to fit, part of you has stopped believing the explanations, and that deserves attention before anything else.
It is less good at another. It turns a pattern into a person, and once your partner is simply the toxic one there is nothing to work on: no behaviour to name, no sequence to break, just a judgement. The question I find more useful is what happens between you once things have gone wrong, and whether anything either of you does afterwards makes it better. Read more about online couples therapy.
How can I tell a rough patch from a relationship doing harm?
The difference usually shows in what happens after a bad evening: whether someone comes back and something softens.
You already know what coming back looks like. A cup of coffee put down beside you. A sentence that grants you had a point. A joke that makes you both breathe out. These gestures are seldom graceful. In a difficult stretch they come late, clumsy and a little reluctant, and they still do their job, because underneath they say that the other person is still there and still cares.
When a relationship has started doing harm, nobody comes back. The evening is sealed over, the topic disappears, and by breakfast you are both acting as if nothing was said. Couples can go years like this without finishing a single argument, and the hurt settles in the shoulders and the stomach instead of being spoken. Treating repair as the dividing line is my clinical judgement, not a measured cut-off, but it is the one I rely on most.
Which signs should I take seriously?
Once a couple reaches me, the topic of the fight matters much less than the habits that have grown up around fighting. I am not trying to decide who is right about money or holidays. I am watching how the two of you treat each other while you disagree, and especially for four habits the couples research calls criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling1.
- Criticism. A complaint is about an event. Criticism goes after the character of the person behind it, and that decides whether your partner can respond at all.
- Defensiveness. The automatic turn to excuses and innocence, so that what your partner actually said is never answered.
- Stonewalling. One of you goes silent and stops responding. It looks like refusal from outside, and often feels like overload from inside.
- Contempt. Mockery, sarcasm, insults, the rolled eyes: speaking from a place above the person you share a life with. The research treats it as the strongest predictor of divorce among the four, and it is the one that worries me most when I see it.
The same habit does not cost every couple the same. Withdrawing from an argument can be a way of keeping the peace in one household and a way of abandoning a partner in another, so I look at what each move means to the two of you rather than ticking it off a list. Once these habits take hold, an argument is no longer about what started it.
What if what I feel is fear rather than frustration?
If you are afraid of your partner, none of the distinctions above apply to you.
The outward signs are small and ordinary. Clearing your phone before handing it over. Practising a sentence on the stairs before you say it. Saying no to a friend because you can already feel the cost of saying yes. In a pattern like this, apologies and calm spells are part of the pattern rather than proof against it, so counting moments of repair only shows how practised the pressure has become.
Couples work is the wrong tool here, and so is an article. If one of you spends the week keeping the other calm, joint sessions about talking better put that person at a disadvantage, since whatever honest thing they say on the call has to be lived with afterwards. This belongs in individual therapy, with someone who is there for you alone and has no duty to be balanced about what you describe. Read more about online psychotherapy.
What can I actually do about the pattern?
Name the behaviour, notice the repairs, and change your own part of the loop.
- Name behaviour, not character. Saying that your partner goes silent for two days after a row gives them something to answer. Calling them emotionally unavailable is a verdict, and verdicts rarely change anyone.
- Notice repair. For a week, see each time either of you softens, says sorry, makes a joke that works or comes back into the room. Use it to see the pattern, not to keep score.
- Imagine a friend telling you this. If someone you love described your relationship to you exactly as it is, what would you want to say to them?
- Listen to your body. A knot in the stomach before your partner gets home, and lightness when they are away for a few days, show what your explanations have been covering.
- Do not wait for it to fade. In a study that filmed long-married couples three times over 13 years, blaming, pressing and withdrawing stayed fairly stable while avoidance grew2. The couples were mostly older, well-educated and comfortably off, but it is still a reason to look at your pattern now.
- Change your half. A loop takes two people, so changing your own move changes the sequence, even though it cannot make your partner change theirs.
None of this tells you whether to stay, and I would be cautious of any therapist who claimed to. The aim is that whatever you decide, you decide it with the pattern and its cost in full view. Read more about online couples therapy alone.
These steps fall short where neither of you ever comes back after a fight, where one of you refuses to look at their own part, and above everything where your main feeling is fear. In those situations sessions on your own come first, not joint ones. What often remains unclear at this stage is whether the pattern grew between you or came into the relationship with one of you, and that is worth exploring carefully before anyone makes a decision.
Questions people ask
Can couples therapy by video help when things feel toxic?
Yes, when what you describe is a pattern you both fall into, and starting sooner tends to be easier. If one of you is afraid of the other, begin with individual sessions instead.
What if we cannot agree on what the problem is?
That disagreement is a good place to start. I ask each of you to walk me through one recent evening, step by step, and the work begins from there without anyone needing to win.
Can I talk about this on my own first?
Yes, and many people find it clearer to begin alone. You get to look at your share of it without having to watch how your partner reacts at the same time.
How do I suggest therapy without it sounding like blame?
Invite them to look at the space between you, rather than at what is wrong with them. Naming your own part in it makes the invitation far easier to accept.
Will you tell me whether to stay or go?
No, that decision stays with you. What I can do is make the pattern clear enough that, whatever you choose, you choose it with open eyes.
If you are no longer sure whether your relationship is safe for you, I can help you see it clearly in online couples therapy alone, without your partner in the room.
You may also find these helpful
Sources
- The Gottman Institute. The Four Horsemen: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling.
- Holley, S. R., Haase, C. M., & Levenson, R. W. (2013). Age-related changes in demand-withdraw communication behaviors. Journal of Marriage and Family, 75, 822-836.
How this article was written: I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. I read the draft, correct and improve it and stand behind every clinical statement. The professional and clinical judgement is mine.
