We have talked about toxic relationships before, but there is one fact that needs to be taken into account: this is a concept that encompasses many different types of situations.

This means that there are several types of toxic relationships with different characteristics and encompassing different forms of relationship in which one or both partners experience discomfort.

Why do some people insist on making life difficult for others?

For example, in some cases the toxic relationship is part of a dynamic of abuse towards the partner, while in others it is a relationship in which resentment and frustration appear but the other person is not harmed deliberately.

These are relationships that tend to get worse over time because of a particular person’s attitude. The problem with this type of relationship is that, in the end, there is always someone who ends up paying the price and suffering .

The main types of toxic relationships

That is why it is good to keep in mind even if it is a scheme about the main toxic relationships and the way they can be identified.

1. The relationship in which decision-making power is ceded

In some couples, one of the two people takes the capacity to make the important decisions and becomes, in some way, the boss or head of the relationship. Of course, this hierarchization of the couple has no real justification, since unlike what happens in teams focused on a specific objective (to sell or produce a type of product), the couple is not focused on carrying out certain tasks efficiently: their existence is justified by the emotional ties of its members.

Therefore, the reasons behind this power grab cannot be justified by how useful it is to achieve certain goals and, moreover, undermines the autonomy of one of the components of the couple, who sees his or her decision power drastically reduced .

This may not be perceived as a problem at first, as it can be seen as a type of relationship where the other person is the one taking risks and making things more difficult. However, entering into these dynamics will make one of the parties accustomed to command and the other to obey without questioning .

2. The relationship based on blackmail

Sometimes, the affections and love that were once the basis and justification of the relationship are replaced by a form of blackmail that extends the life of the relationship in a harmful and artificial way.

The case of emotional blackmail is clear: a person feels sorry for his partner and grants him privileged and favourable treatment , which in turn serves to teach the other person to “be a victim” in order to collect his benefits. In this relationship, the main victim is the one who constantly gives in, since in practice she is being controlled and manipulated by her partner.

She can make it seem as if she leaves the other one with total capacity to make decisions about her own life, but indirectly she does things to make the other one feel bad when, for example, she goes out to party with friends of the opposite sex and without their “supervision”. In other words, the tool that the manipulating party uses to benefit from the other is his or her ability to induce guilt in the other .

3. The other idealized

This type of toxic relationship appears when it begins to become evident that one or both partners have not fallen in love with the person they share affection with, but with an idealized version of him or her. Although this fact may have been intuited already during the first months of the relationship, it is possible that little importance is given to it and that, in any case, this cognitive dissonance has been solved by overestimating the capacity that the other has to change in the future and adjust to our expectations.

When it becomes clear that the other person will not change as we want him to, resentment appears . However, the worst scenario that can occur from this type of toxic relationship is when the pressure that one of the two people exerts on the other to try to change is transformed into a form of abuse.

4. The idealized relationship

Just as a person can be idealized, so can relationships. If the degree of idealization is intense enough, this will transform it into a kind of toxic relationship .

The fundamental problem in this type of relationship is that the partners leave with very different expectations about what their relationship will be like. This is basically a problem of communication during the first stages of the relationship .

For example, if there is a lot of distance between the homes of the two of them, one of them may assume that after a few months of saving the other person will go to live with her, or one may assume that at some point both will go to live in a city where neither of them has lived, while the other prefers not to make this sacrifice because she is happy to see her partner only during the weekends.

This is one of the types of toxic relationships whose effects are felt in the long term, when several sacrifices have been made for the partner that at some point may be seen as futile or useless, which can produce a lot of resentment and frustration .

5. The instrumental relationship based on the lie

This is a type of toxic relationship in which the partner is seen as a means to fill an existential void or crisis, to gain the approval of others or to gain access to certain resources, and in which the other person is deceived about the nature of the emotional ties that have been created between the two parties.

It may also be the case that the person is not fully aware of the real motivations that lead him/her to continue with the relationship .

6. Fear-based relationships

Of course, relationships in which there is clear abuse based on aggression (physical or verbal) and fear of retaliation by the partner if he or she finds out about certain things is not only a toxic relationship, but a serious threat whose resolution must be managed through the judicial system.