Content Warning: Controlling and Toxic Relationship Behaviors
We've all either been involved in or witnessed a relationship where we saw something that we thought was cute or sweet at first, but we eventually found the behavior to be troubling or "too much."
It's actually alarming how quickly a sweet behavior can turn toxic, as a person uses what they're doing as a way to control or hurt their partner.
Cringing in anticipation, Redditor Obvious-Barber6622 asked:
"What's something people do in relationships that they think is sweet but is actually toxic?"
Ours Is Ours
"'They love me so much that they want me to spend every minute with them and no one else.'"
- gouwbadgers
"And then when you want to do something by yourself or not with them, they call you out for not loving them enough."
- sinofchaos162
"My ex was this way. Everything had to be OURS. I didn't have anything of my own."
"Shortly after I met my now-husband, I remember begging him to go to a concert with me, but it wasn't music he listened to, and I was saying how much I HAD to see this band, and can we please go."
"And he just casually said, 'Go. Take Becca. She likes that s**t.' And it hit me like a truck that it was totally normal for couples to do things separately."
"Now, 15 years later, we DO do a lot together, because we genuinely love each other's company, but we also both have stuff the other one isn't usually involved in. I do community theatre. I'm in a band. I go to songwriter nights and song circles. He goes and tinkers with a tractor or goes hunting with his dad."
"And I can't IMAGINE going back to having to share everything. I feel like I can't breathe when I think about it."
- LizardPossum
Any Wait Time Is Too Much Time
"Asking me to always text back as fast as possible so I do not forget about them."
- Vivid_Morning_8282
"This was something my abusive ex would do. It would extend to keeping me awake. I’d send a goodnight text, he’d say he wanted to keep texting with me, and then blow up when I inevitably fell asleep while texting."
"My mind was thoroughly blown when, years later, a therapist suggested that my chronic insomnia was likely connected to this trauma, and that sleep deprivation is a tactic cult leaders use!"
"So yeah, not cute."
- Sterling2K
Not A Joke
"Putting you down but playing it off as a joke. If it hurts your feelings, it’s not a joke."
- kyungsookim
"My husband and I play fight all the time. If either of us thinks the other took it just a little too far or ventured into mean territory without meaning to, we're quick to tell the offending party, and apologies are made."
"There's jokes and then there's being hurtful."
- Kristal3615
Blowing Up The Phone
"When they call constantly and then get mad if you don't answer."
"I worked with a guy who left his phone on my work desk by mistake while he went out to get a coffee and pick up some work stuff, and I counted 15 times his partner called."
"I asked him how he seriously put up with that... The worst thing is that it wasn't even urgent; it was something meaningless like, 'Can you pick up some milk?'"
- Excellent-Ad-2443
Social Media Validation
"Posting their 'happiness' all over social media."
"90% of the time, at least one person in those types of partnerships isn't happy and just feels the need to keep up appearances because they've told everyone and their dog how perfect their relationship is for years, and when it stops being perfect, they just keep on singing the praises of a person they can barely stand."
- collagenFTW
No Physical Boundaries
"Not respecting personal space. Or just boundaries in general."
- traumatized_syntax
"My girlfriend will come stand at the bathroom door and talk to me while I'm s**tting despite me asking numerous times for a few minutes to myself."
"She says, 'I just can't stay away from you,' and I'm like, 'Okay, not for 10 minutes?!!'"
- Doesntmatter1237
"OMG, I hate that so much. A shocking number of people believe that climbing up your SO's @ss constantly means that you're really, extra-special, super-duperly in love."
"I've dated a fair few men like that, and when, 'No, seriously, don't do that,' was ineffective, I started flailing. Step back or take the chance of getting smacked."
"My husband has largely learned to not do that, thankfully."
- MissySedai
Anxiously Attached
"Obsessively tracking Life360, constantly calling and asking, 'Why are you at ...'"
"Announcing to the group, 'Wonder why they stopped at...'"
"Incessantly texting when they're not together. Calling others because they can't reach their partner because 'it's an emergency, they're not answering,' after texting 15 minutes prior, and there is no emergency."
"They're anxiously attached."
- HealnMee
Hobby-Shaming
"A guy I used to date would try to prevent me from engaging in hobbies I enjoy because he was 'concerned for my safety.' I found it really controlling."
"In general, I feel like people often disguise a desire for control as concern for another’s safety."
- Opening_Acadia1843
"Same, my last ex was like this. If it didn't involve him, then I couldn't read. I couldn't write; if I did journal, he would read it while I was asleep and be mean about what I wrote."
"I was taking some college classes at the time and couldn't finish the classes because he didn't like that I was in class with other people. I hated that."
"A few weeks later, his family reached out, and it was like I was old news, because his family was talking to him. He went to stay over there, told my family different things about him staying those few days (like it was my fault and he needed space)."
"So, I packed up all of his stuff. He was homeless when we met and was living in my room in my mom's house. It took me THREE DAYS to pack up all of his stuff nicely, because he had accumulated so much stuff."
"I drove it to his aunt's house and dropped it all on the side of the road. Then I changed my locks and my number. That relationship was so toxic, I'm glad I did what I did."
- emoposterchild
Jealous Observations
"Being jealous of literally everyone who speaks to your partner."
- Carless_H**lscape
"Seriously! Friends, the grocery store cashier or bagger, a COUSIN. Ask me how I know."
"Actually, no, don't. I'll just say, if your partner gets too hung up on who you're talking to, and you've never given them a reason to feel that way, like flirting or cheating on them, start looking for a way out, because they will probably put up a fight and not want you to leave."
- TheBookishAndTheBard
Controlling Food
"They start watching what you can and can’t eat, or micromanaging anything. It can seem like a concern at first, but it can extend to controlling behavior overall."
- Wise_N_Wild
"Anytime I ordered anything that had bread/came with bread, they'd say, 'that has a lot of carbs,' and then there was all the sulking, not telling me what’s wrong, and then later admitting to being mad because they didn’t like what I ordered when we went out to eat."
- Extreme-Shower-2639
Forced Sharing Is Not Caring
"I had an ex that would use my stuff all the time, and when he could tell it bothered me, he’d make a face he thought was cute and say, 'What’s yours is mine and mine is yours.'"
"I started hiding things from him. I didn’t want to share my toothbrush, or deodorant, or my expensive face lotion because a lot of others f**k up my skin. He thought it was so cute to share that stuff, but in my next relationship,p I got really possessive about my things and would tend to get mad if they asked to borrow things."
"I’m over it now, and my boyfriend now would never do that, but man, I hated it."
- FuerGrissaOstDrauka
Hard To Say No
"Public surprise proposals."
- northernlyghts
"I'll always defend a woman who says no to one of these."
- birthdaycheesecake9
Romantic Enmeshment
"Enmeshment pattern, like a parent who believes she 'lives through' the child."
"People think it's sweet because 'Awww, the mom or dad really cares.'"
"But what they don't see is the toxic side of how it can strip away the child's individuality."
"The same goes for romantic relationships: identifying yourself too much through your partner, their successes and achievements, measuring your worth on being in a relationship, etc."
- kelcamer
Public Displays Of Affection
"My ex would do very public things to surprise me. Like send me gifts at work so everyone could see how cool he was. I hated it."
- LifeHappenzEvryMomnt
"Cause it’s about himself, not about you. He wants to look good, and he didn’t care how you felt about the public display."
"I had an ex send me flowers at work once, but I was working at a florist. He paid a rival flower shop to deliver me flowers while I was doing Valentine's arrangements for other people. It was genuinely embarrassing."
- continuetolove
The Silent Treatment
"The silent treatment to avoid an actual argument or discussion about something that caused upset. I ended up walking on eggshells constantly as the sheer anxiety triggered from silent treatment was worse."
- Equivalent-Bell-6925
"Walking away to collect one’s thoughts is fine, but if it’s mutually agreed upon and there’s a timeframe given."
"'This is a hard moment, and I need an hour to collect my thoughts. Can we revisit this then?'"
"I would take that any day over just leaving someone on read or disappearing without a word for the day."
- oddmi13
It's clear why these were such red flags to these relationships, even if they seemed sweet or considerate at first. It's important to understand how slippery of a slope some of these behaviors can be since they can so easily be used as a control tactic.
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