The Best Defense Against Toxic Relationships

Everyone runs a risk of getting into at least one toxic relationship in a lifetime. Many who haven’t fallen prey feel like they dodged a bullet when hearing how former lovers treated subsequent partners.

Growing up in angry, abusive, or neglectful homes raises the odds of getting into a toxic relationship. But the sad reality is that it can happen to anyone. And to some people, it happens repeatedly. As one of my clients put it, “I can walk into a room full of philanthropists and social workers and fall in love with the one criminal.”

It’s neither fair nor accurate to assume that toxic relationship repeaters can’t learn from mistakes. Such a judgment is blind to attraction dynamics. In choosing partners, we tend to be generals fighting the last war. If you were hurt by a narcissistic partner, you’ll be vulnerable to one who seems to “feel” you. If betrayed by a promiscuous partner, you’ll be susceptible to someone who claims to be virginal. If you were abused, you may fall prey to a “rescuer”—someone who promises to protect you by demonizing abusers, which is an indication of reaction formation—expressing an exaggerated opposite version of what one actually feels.

Many toxic partners have a fluid sense of self that can easily transform to fit the desires of potential partners. It’s not difficult to take on another skin when you don’t feel authentic in your own.

You Don’t Just Attract Toxic Partners

During recovery from a toxic relationship, it’s normal to put up subtle walls that say, “I can be friendly, but not intimate.”

Most people recognize and respect those boundaries. There are probably people interested in you who can sense that you’re not ready for a relationship and keep a respectable distance. Toxic partners, on the other hand, either do not recognize boundaries or see them as a challenge. They’ll keep hitting on you until your hungry heart kicks through your defensive walls and opens up to the wrong person.

Beware of people who try to seduce you into loving them.

Locus of Self-Value

Beware also of trying to get someone to love you. Underlying the drive to be loved at all costs is an external locus of self-value.

When you perceive self-value to come from within, you’ll look for potential partners who seem able to give as much love as you give, but not a lot more—you’ll be repulsed by seducers and love-bombers.

If it feels like value has to be poured into you by someone else, that is, you perceive holes within yourself that someone else has to fill, you’ll likely find someone who will try to fill them with a small cup—not much love to give.

That’s because people with big cups—a lot of love to give—aren’t looking for big holes. They’re looking for other big cups so they can get as much as they give. People with small cups look for potential partners who perceive themselves to have big holes, who will settle for what little they can give.

The perception of holes within can feel like you don’t know who you are unless someone loves you. But there’s an inherent problem with wanting to feel worthy of love by having someone love you. It doesn’t feel good to feel loved when you don’t feel worthy of it. You’ll feel like you’re getting something you don’t truly deserve and can’t adequately reciprocate. If you don’t feel worthy of love, you won’t trust someone who loves you.

The perception of holes within practically guarantees disappointment, if not toxicity, in love. Research shows that the greatest predictor of a happy relationship is to be happy before the relationship. But we can enjoy a reversal of fortune by making ourselves feel worthy of love.

In the real world, there’s only one way we can make ourselves feel worthy of love—be compassionate, kind, protective, loving.

Filling Perceived Holes Within

Recording your deeper thoughts, feelings, goals, and behaviors can be a valuable tool for filling perceived holes within.

Good journaling helps you:

• Align feelings with your deepest values
• Feel more humane
• Lower emotional reactivity to others
• Convert negativity into growth and creativity
• Explore solutions to problems
• Find a definite course of action.

Relationships Essential Reads

Why Are Friends With Benefits on the Rise?

5 Ways to Quit the Habit of "Kitchen Sinking" Your Partner

After recording your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, try to look objectively at what you’ve written. It helps to read what you’ve written into your phone or a digital recorder and listen carefully to the playback.

Be sure that you’re acting according to your deepest values and the person you most want to be.

Ask yourself:

• What can I learn from what I’ve written?
• How can I grow from it?

Assure yourself that:

• You can tolerate a certain amount of ambiguity
• It’s okay to have mixed feelings.

Describe what you will do to improve situations or your experience of them. Describe how you will behave differently in the future to avoid repeated mistakes.

Create an action plan to meet worst-case scenarios.

Growth Formula

Validate your experience, including your feelings, but focus on what you want to feel and what you can do to feel the way you want. That will probably include appreciating someone or something, connecting emotionally to friends, family, or pets, and protecting the well-being of someone.

To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.