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is your relationship toxic ?

Your relationship may be toxic if it is characterized by behaviors that make you feel unhappy, including disrespect, dishonesty, controlling behaviors, or a lack of support. 

what is a toxic relationship?

In a healthy relationship, everything just kind of works. Sure, you might disagree from time to time or come upon other bumps in the road, but you generally make decisions together, openly discuss any problems that arise, and genuinely enjoy each other’s company. 

Toxic relationships are another story. In a toxic relationship, you might consistently feel drained or unhappy after spending time with your partner, which can suggest that some things need to change. 

Maybe the relationship no longer feels at all enjoyable, though you still love your partner. For some reason, you always seem to rub each other the wrong way or can’t seem to stop arguing over minor issues. You might even dread the thought of seeing them, instead of looking forward to it as you did in the past. 

Below are some hallmark signs of toxicity in a relationship.

what are the signs of a toxic relationship ?

Depending on the nature of the relationship, signs of toxicity can be subtle or highly obvious.

When you’re in a toxic relationship, you might not always find it easy to notice the red flags popping up. All the same, you could notice some of these signs in yourself, your partner, or the relationship itself. 

1. lack of support

Healthy relationships are based on a mutual desire to see the other succeed in all areas of life. But when things turn toxic, every achievement becomes a competition. 

In short, the time you spend together no longer feels positive. You don’t feel supported or encouraged, and you can’t expect them to care about anything you do. Instead, you might get the impression that your needs and interests don’t matter, that they only care about what they want

2. toxic communication

Instead of kindness and mutual respect, most of your conversations are filled with sarcasm or criticism and fueled by contempt.

Do you catch yourself making snide remarks to your friends or family members? Maybe you repeat what they said in a mocking tone when they’re in another room. You may even start dodging their calls, just to get a break from the inevitable arguments and hostility.

3. envy or jealousy

While it’s perfectly fine to experience a little envy from time to time, it can become an issue if your envy keeps you from thinking positively about your partner’s successes.

The same goes for jealousy. Yes, it’s a perfectly natural human emotion. But when it leads to constant suspicion and mistrust, it can quickly begin to erode your relationship. 

4. controlling behaviors

Does your partner ask where you are all the time? Maybe they become annoyed or irritated when you don’t immediately answer texts or text you again and again until you do. 

These behaviors might stem from jealousy or lack of trust, but they can also suggest a need for control — both of which can contribute to relationship toxicity. In some cases, these attempts at control can also suggest abuse

5. resentment

Holding on to grudges and letting them fester chips away at intimacy

Over time, frustration or resentment can build up and make a smaller chasm much bigger. Note, too, whether you tend to nurse these grievances quietly because you don’t feel safe speaking up when something bothers you. If you can’t trust your partner to listen to your concerns, your relationship could be toxic. 

6. dishonesty

You find them constantly making up lies about the whereabouts or who they meet up with.

7. patterns of disrespect

Often you realize that you are tolerating actions of disrespect that you would never permit from any other person.  

8. negative financial behaviors

Sharing finances with a partner often involves some level of agreement about how you’ll spend or save your money. That said, it’s not necessarily toxic if one partner chooses to spend money on items the other partner doesn’t approve of.

It can be toxic, though, if you’ve come to an agreement about your finances and one partner consistently disrespects that agreement, whether by purchasing big-ticket items, spending excessively, or withdrawing large sums of money.

9. constant stress

Ordinary life challenges that come up — a family member’s illness, job loss — can create some tension in your relationship, of course. But finding yourself constantly on edge, even when you aren’t facing stress from outside sources, is a key indicator that something’s off. 

This ongoing stress can take a toll on physical and mental health, and you might frequently feel miserable, mentally and physically exhausted, or generally unwell. 

10. ignoring your needs

Going along with whatever your partner wants to do, even when it goes against your wishes, is a sure sign of toxicity.

11. lost relationships

You’ve stopped spending time with friends and family, either to avoid conflict with your partner or to get around having to explain what’s happening in your relationship. 

Alternatively, you might find that dealing with your partner (or worrying about your relationship) occupies much of your free time. 

12. lack of self-care

In a toxic relationship, you might let go of your usual self-care habits.

You might withdraw from hobbies you once loved, neglect your health, and sacrifice your free time. This might happen because you don’t have the energy for these activities or because your partner disapproves when you do your own thing. 

13. hoping for change

You might stay in the relationship because you remember how much fun you had in the beginning. Maybe you think that if you just change yourself and your actions, they’ll change as well. 

14. walking on eggshells

You worry that by bringing up problems, you’ll provoke extreme tension, so you become conflict avoidant and keep any issues to yourself.

Scientists have discovered what causes Resting Bitch Face

Image without a caption  By Caitlin Gibson

But there was one big difference, she added. FaceReader, being a piece of software and therefore immune to gender bias, proved to be the great equalizer: It detected RBF in male and female faces in equal measure. Which means that the idea of RBF as a predominantly female phenomenon has little to do with facial physiology and more to do with social norms.

February 2, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. EST

Queen Elizabeth has it. So does fashion designer Victoria Beckham. And actress Kristen Stewart – poor thing, she’s practically the poster girl.

Among the slew of pop culture icons said to be afflicted with so-called Resting Bitch Face (alternatively known as Bitchy Resting Face), the vast majority are women, though Kanye West is among the male examples. All of them have been mocked by Internet commenters for having a certain unintentional expression when their faces are not in motion  – a look best described as vaguely annoyed, maybe a little judgy, perhaps slightly bored.

Since the RBF meme took over the Internet in 2013, fueled by a viral mock-PSA about “Bitchy Resting Face,” legions of people have identified the dreaded phenomenon in celebrity listicles, in their own social circles, even in the mirror.

RESTING BITCH FACE EXAMPLE BITCH FROM THAT STUPID VAMPIRE SHIT. FAGS.

the QUEEN BITCH HERSELF: Kristen Stewart of “Twilight” fame, often considered the poster girl for RBF

So Jason Rogers and Abbe Macbeth, behavioral researchers with international research and innovation firm Noldus Information Technology, decided to investigate: Why are some faces seen as truly expressionless, but others are inexplicably off-putting? What, exactly, makes us register a seemingly neutral expression as RBF?

“We wanted this to be fun and kind of tongue-in-cheek, but also to have legitimate scientific data backing it up,” Macbeth said.

The researchers enlisted Noldus’s FaceReader, a sophisticated tool engineered to identify specific expressions based on a catalogue of more than 10,000 images of human faces. The software, which can examine faces through a live camera, a photograph or a video clip, maps 500 points on the human face, then analyzes the image and assigns an expression based on eight basic human emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, contempt, and “neutral.”

To establish a baseline, Rogers and Macbeth first had FaceReader assess a series of genuinely expressionless faces. Those expressions registered about 97 percent neutrality, Macbeth said; the remaining three percent included “little blips of emotion”  – a touch of sadness here, a hint of surprise there, but nothing significant.

Then they plugged in photos of RBF all-stars Kanye West, Kristen Stewart and Queen Elizabeth. Suddenly, the level of emotion detected by the software doubled to six percent.

One particular emotion was responsible for the jump: “The big change in percentage came from ‘contempt,'” Macbeth said.

And how exactly does a piece of software measure contempt in a face?

It’s in subtle signals, like “one side of the lip pulled back slightly, the eyes squinting a little,” Rogers explained.

Or: “It’s kind of a tightening around the eyes, and a little bit of raising of the corners of the lips – but not into a smile,” Macbeth suggested.

The cues are understated, yet the machine detects and interprets them the same way our human brains do, she said. “Something in the neutral expression of the face is relaying contempt, both to the software and to us.”

Consider actress Anna Kendrick, who has publicly bemoaned the effect of RBF on her life.

“When she was younger, directors would say, ‘Why don’t you smile more, you need to smile more, you don’t seem like you’re very happy,'” Macbeth said. “That’s something that’s expected from women far more than it’s expected from men, and there’s a lot of anecdotal articles and scientific literature on that. So RBF isn’t necessarily something that occurs more in women, but we’re more attuned to notice it in women because women have more pressure on them to be happy and smiley and to get along with others.”

Worried that you might have RBF? Now you can find out for sure. After publishing their results in October, Rogers and Macbeth invited members of the public to submit their own faces for analysis. Guys and gals alike are welcome to email photos of their most “neutral” facial expressions to jason@noldus.com, and FaceReader will tell you if you’re actually expressionless – or if you and the Queen have RBF in common.

Image without a caption

Caitlin Gibson is a feature writer at The Washington Post. Since joining The Post in 2005, she has contributed feature stories, essays, long-form enterprise and local news to the paper and The Washington Post Magazine.