With Spring upon us, most of us will begin the task of Spring cleaning our homes, cars, rooms, even our social medias — but what about our relationships? They are one of the biggest aspects in our lives we often don’t pay much attention to when it comes to getting rid of. We have many relationships with friends, family, and partners througout the years; some of them last for long periods of time, while others slowly fade away. Time usually handles that job pretty well, but sometimes time can’t get rid of everything for us. There are people in our lives that are toxic and should be removed so that we can continue to grow and live happily. Love shouldn’t hurt, in any way, shape, or form. Regardless of whether you are dating, married, just friends, or it’s a family member or friend, love should never hurt you mentally, physically, or emotionally.
Toxic Relationships take on many forms as we’ve seen. Sometimes they’ll begin to form with people you truly love and don’t want to be apart from, but it’s important to notice the signs early when they begin to occur. According to Time’s article on Toxic relationships, one of the biggest and first signs is simply ongoing or persistent unhappiness. A red flad will always pop up when something feels wrong, and it’s important to pay attention to them so that you can begin to get out of these toxic relationships. Other red flags include other people in your life being concerned, violent actions, verbal abuse, discomfort around the person, and diagnosed medical conditions. If you’ve found yourself in this situation, it’s time to take matters into your own hands and re-evaluate your relationship with this person. If you fear for your own safety, or the safety of others you love, you may consider involving the proper authorities from a safe space or location with people you can trust and feel protected around. A National Domestic Violence hotline is also available 24 hours every day of the week for assistance at 1-800-799-7233.
The first step is to acknowledge the situation. Step back from the relationship and ask yourself if you truly are happy with it. Is the other person making you feel down about your life? Is your job worth the emotional turmoil you’re dealing with? Is this family member causing your mental or emotional health to depleat? Are you and these people fighting or bickering constantly to no avail? Sometimes it is possible to work through the issues and resolve them peacefully without resorting to cutting them out of your life, but in the instance it can’t be resolved, you may consider cutting them out and cleaning your social circle a little more. You can do this in a few ways:
- Talk to the people involved, let them know how you feel and explain what they did to push you away so they can learn from it.
- You may also just stop associating with them all-together without giving an explanation, you do not owe anyone anything.
- Talk to someone you trust about the situation. Let them know whether you’re in danger if that is the nature of your relationship, or simply confide in them and work out the best solution for the situation.
- Involve the authorities. As mentioned above, you can find information to a hotline or simply involve the right and local authorities if you are in immediate danger.
Cleaning up your relationships may be hard but in the end, your life will turn around for the better. Living without the toxic people in your life is not only liberating, but it will allow you to grow into the best version of yourself possible. Do whatever you need to do to clean up your life and start letting happiness grow.