Communication is the key to happiness.
You can find tons of advice and tips online on how to end a toxic relationship in order to maintain your integrity and self-esteem. Less often written and talked about is how to turn a toxic relationship into a healthy relationship and how to do it.
Is it possible to transform a toxic relationship? Yes, but if there are certain conditions - mutual love and willingness to change, and if the toxic relationship does not have pathological forms that threaten your mental health and life.
Two healthy people can be toxic if they have poor communication, strong stubbornness and lack the skills to establish balance and shared values between them.
The way transformation can work is for both of you to see relationship problems as a catalyst for understanding and respecting each other's differences.
Start communicating!
Talk, express your feelings
Does one of you feel neglected or overwhelmed by your partner's needs?
Use this exercise to better understand each other. Expose your true self, feelings, fears and expectations. There are no wrong answers here, it's all just information. The aim of the exercise is to hear and receive this information and understand each other better.
Make one important point. Answer the question of what is most important to you in a partnership and why it is worth working for your relationship. Don't expect the same answers, as both points of view are true and valid.
When you believe there must be one truth, everyone tries to prove their truth and impose it as valid, which is a dead end. Accept the fact that you have different views on what is important to you.
Once you accept this, you no longer need to struggle to prove your point. You can focus on understanding your partner's situation and find a solution together.
Think about the past
Once you've identified your own feelings and the ways you respond to your partner's emotions, it's time to examine the past. Look for patterns from past relationships in your current relationship. Find out what you're playing and what you're repeating. See if you can find a connection between past trauma, fears, wounds and current behavior and emotional reactions.
Share your deepest pains and wounds with your partner, be open and vulnerable. Reveal your dark side to them and stay together in the light - do not identify with what you have been and what you carry in your experiences. Begin healing by taking time to process your deepest fears. You ask, listen. In this way, you will understand each other even more and connect even more.
Find out what roles you play
In order to break the patterns that cause the emotional roller coaster, you need to take every part of your responsibility in the relationship. You need to figure out what roles you play. Consider how sensitive, critical, irritable, depressed, closed you are.
You may play the role of the victim or the role of the great critic, the child or the helpless person. You may believe you are stupid or not good enough – all negative beliefs are roles you play and seek validation that you identify with them.
Ask your partner for advice on how to deal with the problem your patterns and behavior are creating
What could you do to avoid a situation that has happened many times before and leads you both to a dead end? He may not offer you any advice, he may not criticize your weakness, but he will embrace you. He may ask you what he can do to make you feel better.
When you get into a conflict, don't use it to push your partner away from you, but to bring them closer together. The effort you put in will deepen your emotional closeness through the understanding and friendship you show each other.
This does not mean that you will never fight again, but that you will not let the fights undermine your relationship, you will learn something from them. You will learn to share responsibility instead of shifting it to each other or keeping silent and suppressing feelings to avoid conflict.
You will remain open and vulnerable even when you are frustrated, hurt or angry, and this is a great achievement because it allows you to hear yourself and your partner even when you are under a charge of emotions.
