9 Relationship Mistakes Telling You You’ve Gone Toxic

Andrew Foster
5 min readNov 24, 2022
Photo by Pablo Stanic on Unsplash

There are signs your relationship has gone from healthy to a radioactive government pit of toxic sludge. I particularly write that because it’s only the extreme that will make you realize you’re the proverbial frog in the slowly boiling water.

I’m writing this so you can use your frog legs to hop out!

1. Black or white thinking, which I’m going to refer to as ‘splitting,’ is a term used to describe the extreme dichotomy experienced by people with Borderline Personality Disorder. This does not mean you have it, but it’s something to be aware of and research if you believe you are with a partner with this personality trait, they can go from being the best person you’ve ever met to the worst thing that’s ever happened to you in an instant.

No, not for a second am I suggesting this is a diagnosis or speaking negatively about those that do have it. Movies may get away with “I hate you, I love you,” but the truth is, we’re all shades of gray. There are negative aspects to them, but there are also positive qualities. They share your capacity for humanity. Seeing everything as black or white, right or wrong, is a mutual issue that needs to be worked on.

Black and white describe two extremes of the same issue. Rarely does life come in extremes.

If you think about swinging a pendulum, where does it stop? In the middle.

2. Over-dependence occurs when your mental health, happiness, and everything else in your life depends on them when you can’t stand being alone, when you get antsy if they miss a text or two, when you base every major decision in your life on what they think, when your mood swings are dictated entirely by your most recent conversation with them, you have crossed the line into overdependence.

Photo by Jeremy Dorrough on Unsplash

3. You’re all in, and not in a good way! You are not living a life. Your relationship with your partner is your life. You believe they will be the source of all your happiness. Ultimately, this causes you to become overly dependent and extremely sensitive to even the smallest details…

Andrew Foster

A student of love, relationships and self help who likes to write about and teach what I’ve learned along the way