A healthy relationship needs more than just love, that’s for sure.
How two people treat each other when life isn’t going smoothly matters, too. You can care deeply for someone and still find the relationship exhausting if they keep crossing lines, ignoring your feelings, or making you question yourself. Love alone doesn’t fix patterns that wear you down.
Some behaviours are small red flags that turn into bigger problems if you ignore them for too long. They destroy any sense of trust, safety, and respect until you’re left doing all the emotional heavy lifting. No matter how much chemistry or history you share, you can’t have a healthy relationship with someone who does these things.
Makes you feel guilty for having boundaries
You say you need something, or you’re not comfortable with something, and they act hurt or punish you for it. They make you feel selfish for having basic needs or limits. That’s manipulation hiding behind a front of sensitivity. Healthy relationships need boundaries to work, and if someone makes you feel bad for having them, you’ll end up losing yourself trying to keep them happy.
Refuses to take responsibility for their actions
When they hurt you or mess up, it’s never their fault. They blame you, the situation, their past, or anything else they can think of instead of just owning what they did. You can’t build anything real with someone who won’t be accountable. Without responsibility, there’s no growth or change, just the same patterns repeating forever because they can’t admit they’re part of the problem.
Keeps score of everything you’ve done wrong
They’ve got a mental list of every mistake you’ve made, bringing up old stuff whenever there’s a disagreement. Nothing ever gets resolved because they’re always dragging history into it. That stops you both from moving forward. You end up walking on eggshells, knowing that any mistake will be added to the permanent record and used against you later.
Makes you responsible for their emotions
If they’re upset, it’s your job to fix it. If they’re happy, it’s because you did something right. You’re basically in charge of managing their entire emotional state all the time. That’s exhausting and impossible. You can’t be responsible for another adult’s feelings, and trying to will drain you completely while they never learn to handle their own stuff.
Talks to you with contempt or disgust
There’s this tone they use, dripping with disdain, like you’re stupid or beneath them. They roll their eyes, sigh heavily, or speak to you like you’re a child who’s annoying them. Contempt kills relationships faster than almost anything else. When someone regularly speaks to you like they don’t respect you, that’s not something you can love your way through because the foundation is rotten.
Isolates you from friends and family
They don’t like your mates, they find reasons why you shouldn’t see your family, and they make it difficult when you try to maintain other relationships. Slowly, you’re just left with them. That’s a massive warning sign. Healthy partners encourage your other relationships because they know connection is important. Isolating you is about control, not love, and it leaves you vulnerable and alone.
Threatens to leave whenever there’s conflict
Every argument includes threats about breaking up or walking out. They use the relationship itself as a weapon, making you too scared to bring up problems in case they leave. You can’t build security with someone who’s always got one foot out the door. That constant threat means you’ll never feel safe enough to be honest or work through difficult things together.
Invades your privacy regularly
They go through your phone, read your messages, check your location constantly, or demand passwords to everything. They frame it as trust or caring, but really it’s about monitoring you. That’s not love, it’s control. Everyone deserves privacy, even in close relationships, and someone who can’t respect that is showing they don’t trust you and need to watch everything you do.
Dismisses your feelings as overreacting
When you’re upset, they tell you that you’re being dramatic, too sensitive, or making a big deal out of nothing. Your feelings are always wrong or excessive according to them. That makes you doubt yourself constantly. You start thinking maybe you are too much, and you stop sharing how you feel because you know it’ll just be dismissed or mocked.
Lies about things that are easily verifiable
They lie about stuff you can literally check, and when you catch them, they either deny it or act like you’re crazy for questioning them. The truth seems flexible depending on what suits them. If someone lies about small things, they’ll lie about big things. You can’t build anything solid with someone who treats honesty as optional because you’ll never know what’s real.
Uses your insecurities against you in arguments
When you fight, they bring up the things you’re most sensitive about. They know exactly where it hurts, and they go there deliberately to win the argument or shut you up. That’s cruel, not fair fighting. Someone who weaponises what you’ve shared in vulnerable moments is showing they care more about winning than about not hurting you, and that’s not fixable.
Makes you prove your love constantly
Nothing you do is ever enough. You’re always having to demonstrate your commitment or affection because they never quite believe it. It’s like a test that has no passing grade. You’ll exhaust yourself trying to convince them you care. Healthy relationships have a baseline of trust, not constant auditions where you’re performing to prove yourself over and over.
Punishes you with silence or withdrawal
When they’re upset, they go completely cold. Days of silent treatment, ignoring you, acting like you don’t exist until you’ve suffered enough, and they decide to talk again. That’s emotional punishment, not communication. It’s designed to make you so uncomfortable you’ll do anything to get back in their good graces, which stops you ever standing up for yourself.
Refuses to discuss the relationship or work on issues
Bringing up problems is impossible because they shut down, get angry, or tell you to stop being negative. They won’t go to therapy, won’t read anything, won’t even have a conversation about it. You can’t fix things solo. If someone won’t engage in working through issues, you’re stuck in whatever the relationship is right now forever, with no possibility of it getting better.
Makes everything about them, even your pain
You’re going through something difficult, and somehow they become the victim. Your struggles get turned into how hard it is for them, and you end up comforting them about your own problem. That leaves you completely unsupported when you need it most. A partner should be able to put their stuff aside sometimes to be there for you, not make your pain about them.
