Two Day Magazine

Unhappy?

Lost your creative edge and getting nowhere in your professional life? How's your relationship with your significant other? Think about that seriously for a moment. If your relationship is a major cause of your unhappiness maybe you are one of the millions of people who are part of a toxic couple. Being in this type of unhealthy partnership depletes any creativity you may have and keeps you from living fully. It is difficult enough to get through each day simply doing menial things, let alone be creative.

Relationships make up a large percentage of our daily lives and, no surprise here, people in healthy ones are more successful and happier than those in a relationship that is in constant turmoil. The relationship you have may indeed be poisoning your chances for living a personally successful life.

Mirella was a woman who knew where she wanted to go in her life and how she wanted to live it but who had absolutely no energy to pursue her goals. Her personal life was one continuous tension-filled war zone with no relief in sight. Constant arguments with her fiancé depleted her emotional reserves. She was part of a toxic relationship which exhausted her and made daily living a monumental chore. Yet she stayed in this unhappy, poisonous relationship for five years because it was all she knew. By not leaving she allowed the unhappiness to consume every aspect of her life.

It is interesting to note that the Danish word gift which means 'married' is the same word the language uses for the word 'poison'. While we may laugh at the absurdity of the one word having two such different meanings, the reality of any relationship, married or not, being poisonous can be all too true. Forget about being happy, that's the least of your problems. Toxic relationships cause physical as well as emotional trauma. Your body is under siege from the constant stress. Psychiatrists say comparable to being a soldier in a war zone with no relief troops in sight. Very few toxic relationships ever get better; the majority only gets worse. 

If you think your relationship might be toxic, ask yourself these five crucial questions and answer them honestly-

• Do you wake up every day feeling stressed, sick, miserable, and dread being with your partner?

• Are you allowing yourself to postpone your own career or goals because you have no energy or concentration to pursue them?

• If, after having spent time together, do you end up feeling drained, having sleepless nights and feelings of despair?

• Is the way you feel affecting your job performance, your friendships, or other relationships in your life?

• Are you abusing drugs or alcohol to "help you cope?"

And the most important question of all-

• Is this relationship keeping you from living the way you want to live?

If you answered yes to any one of these questions then you are in a toxic relationship. The truth is that you can never be happy in a poisonous partnership. Any chance you may have to create the life you want is stifled and your goals are either postponed to a distant future or completely abandoned because all your energy is being given to this negative state.

You need to step back and look at what is happening to you personally. Acknowledge that your life is being adversely impacted by the relationship, then decide what necessary and important steps you need to take in order to live a healthy, happy life. Being with someone just to be part of a couple is a disservice to you. That's like saying you are going to settle for a less than healthy relationship because you don't want to be alone! You deserve better.

During an interview several years ago mega-star performer Tina Turner was talking about how she made the change from an abused wife to super-stardom. The interviewer jokingly asked her if she felt she deserved all the accolades and all that she had.  

Without missing a beat Ms. Turner, who’d had an impoverished childhood, had left a horribly abusive marriage, then had worked exhaustingly hard to reinvent her life and career smiled sweetly and said,  “Honey, I’m worth much more.”

And so are you. Your choice, and it is a choice that is yours alone to make, has to be to end the toxic relationship as quickly as possible and slowly begin to build a solid life for yourself.

***************************************************

twoday magazine wants to know: Do you think a bad relationship can poison other aspects of your life? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

Follow @twodaymag on Twitter.

Like this article by Kristen Houghton? Check out other great pieces she has written exclusively for twoday magazine:

     Animal Love: The Real Kind

     Does Money + Love = Happy Relationship?

Books by Kristen Houghton:

No Woman Diets Alone - There's Always a Man Behind Her Eating a Doughnut

And Then I'll Be Happy! Stop Sabotaging Your Happiness and Put Your Own Life First 



Remember, Hetty? (A Short Story)



Nourishing Thoughts: The Little Book of Sayings for a Healthy, Happy Life