It is a fact that most problematic and dysfunctional relationships don’t end with a dramatic finality. There are no explosions, no outbursts of emotions, no protests, just a silent detachment that emulates grace to a degree. The connection between two people feels immensely heavy and unmanageable when one of them evinces certain perturbing habits. It makes the prospect of being in a relationship with them increasingly difficult. Read on and learn about the types of people who make relationships immensely hard and difficult to endure right here.
Never Taking Responsibility
These are the kind of people who never take accountability for their actions. For them, every misstep or issue is caused by someone else. They excel at making others scapegoats for their oversights and never apologize, even when they are clearly at fault.
Dismissing Your Feelings
These people are quick to call you sensitive or overreacting when you express your feelings. This slowly teaches their partners to doubt and be ambivalent about their own emotional reality. They make their partners feel like they are being too demanding or overbearing with their demands and feelings, weakening the connection in their relationships considerably as a result.
Communicating Via Mixed Signals
These people vacillate between different extremes capriciously. One day they will be affectionate, warm, and outgoing, while the next day they will be indifferent and cold. This is a kind of inconsistency that leaves their partners anxious and uncertain about where they stand in terms of love and affection and their bond suffers because of it.
Avoiding Difficult Conversations
These people don’t understand that problems don’t disappear if you avoid them. All they do is let them simmer until resentment sets in within the relationship. With time, these unspoken and unresolved feelings and issues keep accumulating until they eventually destroy the relationship completely.
Making Everything About Themselves
These people are incredibly self-centered and think that the world revolves around them and their demands. It is their struggles, desires, and feelings that matter, callously pushing their partners and their feelings aside. This self-centered approach can never be enough for sustaining a relationship.
Using Silent Treatment as Punishment
These people are wont to using silence as a form of punishment towards their partners. They employ it when they feel like they aren’t getting their way or want to coerce their partner into doing something they want. That is why they shut down, withdraw, and stop discussing altogether when things aren’t going their way in the relationship.
Crossing Boundaries
These people don’t respect their partners’ boundaries, physical or emotional, because they don’t value them at all. They will constantly test their limits or outright ignore them, all in the name of wanting love and not keeping secrets from each other. It gradually teaches their partners that their need for space, respect, and trust isn’t important, so they eventually withdraw from such a heavy relationship.
Rewriting History
These people aren’t averse to rewriting past events to fit their narrative. They will do it to gaslight their partners and get them to believe in their version of a story, all to get the upper hand and the last word in an argument. It makes their partners question their memories and very perception.
Thriving On Drama
These people love drama and find calm to be incredibly boring. They go out of their way to bring conflict, chaos, and unrest into their relationships. For them, these emotional spikes are what a relationship should be replete with instead of tranquility or peace.
Withholding Affection
These people withhold affection and praise for the same reason that they use silence as a weapon: to get their way in the relationship. They make love feel conditional, where warmth is only accorded when their partners act in a way that they approve of.
Not Showing Empathy
These people aren’t empathetic at all. For them, kindness is a weakness, one that they choose to root out and stamp out proactively. They make a point of minimizing their partner’s pain and treating it with impatience and indifference. It makes their partners feel trivialized, as if they don’t matter at all.
Keeping Their Partners in a State of Uncertainty
These people are the ones who make plans, commit to something, and yet cancel out of nowhere. This level of uncertainty is normal when you get into a relationship with these kind of people. They never follow through on their commitments or promises and keep you on your toes. You won’t find any kind of emotional clarity here.
Criticizing More than Encouraging
These people are the kind that criticize even the smallest things in their relationships. They will mock and denigrate their partners for the smallest mistakes. But you will always find them silent and withholding when it comes to exhorting their partners or celebrating their achievements. They make the relationship feel like a competition where you will be dismissed and mocked for excelling at anything.
Expecting Their Partner to Do the Emotional Work
These people expect their partners to start conversations, make up after conflicts, completely manage all the feelings and do the emotional labor in the relationship while they offer no support and contribute nothing towards this aspect.
Making Their Partners Feel Smaller Over Time
This is the clearest sign that these people aren’t suitable for getting into a relationship with because they make you feel inferior and small at the same time. You don’t feel like yourself when you are around them and they gradually drain you of your confidence until all that there is left is a husk, one drained of all emotion and passion.
Final Thoughts
Healthy relationships aren’t bereft of conflict but they certainly don’t leave you feeling exhausted and emotionally drained. That is exactly what a relationship with these negative people does to you; it leaves you tired and utterly devoid of passion and affection. You feel like you have had enough of everything and just want the pain to stop.
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