Key Signs Of a Unhealthy Relationship
When we talk about unhealthy relationships, most people imagine the obvious red flags—screaming matches, betrayal, maybe even abuse. But in reality, it’s way more complicated than that. I like to think of relationships as ecosystems: sometimes what looks “fine” on the surface is actually masking a toxic undercurrent.
And that’s what fascinates me—how something can appear “functional” while slowly eroding a person’s well-being.
As experts, we know that conflict itself isn’t the problem. It’s not about whether two people fight—it’s about how they fight, how they repair, and whether growth is even possible. What I find even more striking is how cultural norms and personal histories sneak into the mix.
A client once told me she thought her partner’s constant control over finances was “just traditional.” But when you zoom out, you see how those “traditions” reinforce chronic disempowerment. That’s the subtlety worth unpacking.
The deeper forces behind unhealthy dynamics
When I sit with couples—or even when I read longitudinal research—it becomes clear that unhealthy relationships aren’t just the product of “bad communication.”
That’s the surface symptom. What’s underneath is a web of attachment patterns, power struggles, and unspoken cultural scripts that quietly dictate how two people treat each other.
Attachment patterns in disguise
Think about how an avoidant partner often “protects their independence” by withdrawing.
On paper, that might sound reasonable—who doesn’t need space? But when withdrawal becomes the default response to intimacy, it can condition the other partner to feel chronically rejected. I once worked with a pair where the avoidant partner kept insisting, “I’m just not emotional.” Yet every time his partner reached for closeness, she hit a wall. Over time, that “style” functioned less as a personal preference and more as a relational shutdown.
It’s not the attachment label itself that’s unhealthy—it’s how it’s enacted in the everyday dance of closeness and distance.
And on the flip side, anxious attachment can spiral into something equally corrosive. A client who texted her partner 40 times in one evening wasn’t just being “needy.”
She was rehearsing an internalized fear of abandonment that turned her into a detective, scanning for signs of rejection. For her partner, this constant monitoring didn’t feel like love—it felt like surveillance. That’s where attachment theory moves from academic curiosity to lived dysfunction.
The lure of power and control
Unhealthy dynamics often crystallize around who gets to set the terms of the relationship. We usually imagine power struggles as overt—think yelling, threats, ultimatums. But honestly, the subtler versions are the most insidious.
Financial gatekeeping, “joking” put-downs in social settings, or even monopolizing household decision-making can all be framed as “that’s just how we work.” Experts know better: those small acts accumulate into a relational climate of asymmetry.
A couple I saw once split childcare in what seemed like a fair way. But then we mapped out their weekly schedules, and guess what? The wife had absorbed 70% of the invisible labor—doctor’s appointments, school emails, birthday planning.
Her husband swore he was “supportive.” He wasn’t lying, but he was embedded in a cultural script where default responsibility fell on her shoulders. That’s the kind of normalized imbalance that erodes relationships without anyone noticing until burnout hits.
Emotional regulation gone rogue
If power defines the structure, emotional regulation defines the weather. We’ve all seen couples where one person storms out and the other chases after them—it’s the classic pursue-withdraw cycle. That cycle doesn’t just create short-term arguments; it wires the relationship into a feedback loop of instability.
Here’s a striking example: a couple that argued constantly about chores. But it wasn’t really about dishes—it was about the husband’s explosive anger. Even minor disagreements triggered fight-or-flight in his nervous system, which he “managed” by yelling until his partner gave in. She learned to self-silence just to keep the peace.
In that case, the unhealthy pattern wasn’t the content of the fights, but the inability to co-regulate in ways that preserved safety.
Cultural scripts and blind spots
This is where it gets really interesting. Some unhealthy patterns aren’t personal at all—they’re cultural. In collectivist contexts, for example, prioritizing family harmony can mean suppressing individual needs. I once heard a client say, “If I bring up how unhappy I am, I’m letting my parents down.” That cultural loyalty effectively trapped her in a dynamic where silence equaled virtue.
And in Western individualistic settings, the opposite often happens. Hyper-independence gets romanticized—“I don’t need anyone” becomes a badge of honor. But when that attitude plays out in intimate relationships, it fosters emotional neglect disguised as resilience.
What we call ‘strength’ can sometimes just be loneliness in a prettier package.
Why episodic conflict isn’t the same as dysfunction
Now, let me make one thing clear: conflict itself isn’t a villain. In fact, conflict done well is a marker of relational health. But the difference between episodic conflict and entrenched dysfunction lies in patterns. If two partners fight bitterly and then repair with honesty, empathy, and concrete change—that’s messy but healthy.
If they fight bitterly, sweep it under the rug, and fight about the same thing again next week—that’s when conflict has become a symptom of something deeper.
One couple I worked with argued about spending habits for years. Not once did they create a shared financial vision. Every conversation started from scratch, as if amnesia had set in. That’s the hallmark of dysfunction: repetition without resolution.
What fascinates me most about all this is how easily these deeper forces camouflage themselves as “normal.” Attachment styles get reframed as personality quirks, power imbalances as traditions, emotional volatility as passion.
That camouflage is exactly why unhealthy relationships can endure for years before anyone calls them out. And as experts, it’s our job not just to name the patterns but to trace the systemic roots that keep them alive.
Signs to Watch Out For
Whenever I talk about unhealthy relationships with colleagues, I always notice how quickly we slip into theory. But let’s be real—most of the time, it’s the concrete, observable behaviors that actually tip us off that something isn’t right.
We can analyze attachment theory all day, but at the end of the day, it’s the patterns we see in action that matter. What’s fascinating to me is how these signs can look so minor in isolation, yet over time, they create an entire relational climate.
So let’s walk through some of the most telling ones—because if you’re like me, you’ve probably had clients, friends, or even peers who’ve rationalized these signs away as “just quirks.”
Persistent erosion of autonomy
This one’s huge. When someone’s autonomy is chipped away slowly, it doesn’t always feel dramatic. I had a client once who stopped wearing certain clothes because her partner “didn’t like them.” She thought it was no big deal—just compromise, right?
But when we mapped it out, she had also stopped seeing a few friends, changed her hobbies, and even shifted her career plans. Each little decision seemed trivial, but the cumulative effect was a near-complete loss of self.
Autonomy doesn’t disappear overnight; it erodes through hundreds of micro-negotiations where one person’s needs consistently override the other’s.
Chronic imbalance of power
Power isn’t just about who makes the money or who yells louder. It’s about who controls the unspoken rules. In one couple I worked with, the husband never raised his voice—but he always had the “final say” on where they lived, how they spent vacations, even which friends they socialized with.
His partner laughed it off as “he’s just decisive.” But here’s the kicker: when we looked at her preferences, they barely showed up in the relationship at all. Power imbalances often hide in plain sight, disguised as efficiency or practicality.
Cycle of invalidation
This one feels so subtle, but it’s brutal. Imagine bringing up a concern, only to hear, “You’re overreacting,” or “That’s not a big deal.” I’ve seen clients slowly internalize this kind of response until they stop voicing concerns altogether. One woman told me, “I’ve learned to keep things to myself because it always turns into me being dramatic.” What’s wild is that the partner wasn’t malicious—they just genuinely believed emotions should be “rational.”
But invalidation doesn’t have to come from cruelty; it can come from chronic dismissal. Over time, it tells the other person: your feelings don’t count here.
Isolation strategies
Sometimes it’s overt: “I don’t want you seeing that friend anymore.” But often, it’s a slow drip. A partner “forgets” to include you in group plans, complains about your family until you stop visiting, or subtly mocks your friends until you withdraw from them.
I’ll never forget a client who hadn’t realized until we laid it out that she hadn’t been to a single social gathering without her partner in over a year. She thought it was just “being close.” In reality, it was a systematic stripping away of her external support system.
Escalating conflict without resolution
We’ve all seen this: couples fighting about the same thing for years. A husband storms out, a wife slams doors, or both sulk in silence for days. The problem isn’t that conflict happens—it’s that nothing changes. I once worked with a couple who fought about chores so often that they had a literal spreadsheet tracking who did what.
You’d think the data would help, but it didn’t, because the issue wasn’t dishes—it was resentment that never got addressed. If fights are happening on repeat, that’s not just bad communication—it’s a stuck system.
Emotional volatility as norm
Here’s where things get tricky. High-intensity relationships can feel intoxicating at first. The highs are euphoric, the lows devastating. A client once described her relationship as “like a movie.” But movies aren’t real life. Living in a constant state of uncertainty—never knowing if today will be passion or rage—trains the nervous system to live on edge. That volatility can feel like chemistry, but really it’s chaos. If unpredictability is the baseline, safety is absent.
Instrumentalization of affection
This one breaks my heart. When love becomes conditional—“I’ll be close to you if you do this,” or “I’ll show affection when you’ve earned it”—it stops being love and starts being a bargaining chip.
I remember a client whose partner would withdraw intimacy for weeks if she didn’t “behave.” She said, “I feel like I’m constantly auditioning for my own relationship.” That’s not intimacy—that’s control, dressed up as romance.
What ties all these signs together is the slow, almost invisible way they creep in. Nobody wakes up one morning and says, “I’m in an unhealthy relationship now.” Instead, it’s the drip, drip, drip of small behaviors that eventually flood the foundation.
As experts, spotting these patterns early—and naming them without judgment—can be the difference between a relationship that recalibrates and one that collapses.
Looking at the Bigger Picture
The tricky part of all this isn’t spotting the signs—it’s interpreting them. A single fight, a sarcastic comment, or one bad week doesn’t necessarily equal dysfunction.
The real work is assessing whether these patterns are episodic or systemic. And that’s where I think we, as experts, sometimes undersell just how complex this gets.
Patterns, not episodes
I’ve worked with couples who screamed at each other once and then rebuilt their communication entirely. I’ve also worked with couples who never raised their voices but carried a cold, icy distance for years. Which is more unhealthy?
It depends on the pattern. One-time blow-ups are often repairable; entrenched silence is far more corrosive. The health of a relationship isn’t measured by whether conflict exists, but by whether resolution is possible.
Frequency, intensity, and systemic embedding
When I assess a couple, I often ask myself three questions: How often does this behavior show up? How intense is it when it does? And how deeply is it embedded in their overall system? Take jealousy, for example.
A one-off flare of jealousy might spark a difficult but ultimately growth-oriented conversation. But if jealousy dictates who someone talks to, where they go, and how they spend money—that’s systemic. That’s when it stops being a feeling and becomes a framework.
Intersection of personal and cultural
We can’t ignore culture. I once consulted with a South Asian couple where the wife carried enormous guilt for asserting her needs—her cultural framework equated self-expression with selfishness. If I’d treated that dynamic as purely individual, I would have missed the broader sociocultural context reinforcing her silence.
On the other hand, I’ve seen Western couples normalize emotional distance because independence is framed as strength. Every unhealthy pattern has both a personal and a cultural layer. If we don’t account for both, our analysis is incomplete.
Longitudinal impact
One of the most sobering things about unhealthy dynamics is how they compound over time. A couple might function okay in their 20s, but by the time kids, careers, and health challenges enter the picture, those same dynamics get magnified.
I worked with one pair who had “managed” their conflict avoidance for a decade—until their teenager started replicating the same silence in her friendships. Suddenly, the relational pattern wasn’t just theirs anymore; it was shaping the next generation. Unhealthy dynamics rarely stay contained. They ripple outward.
Methodological challenges
Here’s where things get meta: even our tools for assessing unhealthy relationships can fall short.
Self-reports are notoriously unreliable—people minimize or rationalize their partner’s behavior. Observational studies can be limited by artificial settings. And cultural bias seeps into almost every standardized measure. So what do we do?
Personally, I’ve found triangulation—combining client narratives, observational coding, and even physiological measures—to be the most illuminating. A couple may “say” they’re fine, but their cortisol levels tell a different story.
Why it matters for experts
The reason I’m pushing this systemic lens is because I think we, as experts, owe it to our clients, students, and research to move beyond symptom-spotting. Anyone can make a list of red flags.
But only by asking deeper questions—about patterns, contexts, and consequences—do we actually capture the lived complexity of unhealthy relationships.
And honestly, that’s where the real learning happens. Every couple is a microcosm of larger systems—psychological, cultural, even economic. If we only zoom in, we miss the forces shaping the whole picture.
Final Thoughts
Unhealthy relationships aren’t just about fights or flaws—they’re about patterns that quietly strip away safety, autonomy, and connection. The signs can look deceptively small, but when they pile up, they reshape lives.
For us as experts, the challenge isn’t spotting those signs—it’s recognizing the systems that sustain them and the long-term impact they create. Our job isn’t just to call out dysfunction; it’s to illuminate the structures that keep it alive, and maybe, to help people imagine something healthier.
