How to Tell If You’re in a Toxic Marriage: Signs and Symptoms

Relationships are key to our well-being and flourishing. When our relationships are going great, our lives feel full, bursting with vitality, and it’s quite likely that we can face challenges with confidence. However, if things aren’t going so well in our relationships, it can affect everything else in our lives. This is especially true of a toxic marriage.

If you have a tiff with your spouse at home in the morning, that can distract you all day while you’re at work, affecting your focus and productivity. But if your support structure is thriving, you can face and tackle even tough situations with gusto.

We are, at our core, relational creatures. As bearers of God’s image, love and relationship are key to who we are (Genesis 1: 26-27; 1 John 4:16). In a marriage, you are at your most vulnerable; your spouse is the person who knows you through and through.

They’ve seen you in your moments of exultation and triumph, but they’ve also seen you at your lowest moments of failure and shame. They’ve seen you naked – in all senses of that word – and their voice carries weight in ways that other peoples don’t.

It’s no wonder then that Mike Mason, author of The Mystery Of Marriage, wrote that “there is nothing in the world worse than a bad marriage, and at the same time nothing better than a good one.” (Mason)

The shape of a healthy marriage.

When a marriage is good, it buoys you up in ways no other relationship can. A healthy marriage has several features that set it apart including:

You are seen and heard. The world is a cacophonous jumble, and our voices often get lost in the swirl of competing voices that also desire attention. We often find ourselves trying to get heard above everyone else. Our individual complexity is often overlooked, and we don’t always feel seen for who we are.

Your boss, for example, is interested in your hopes and dreams insofar as they pertain to your work and the bottom line. A healthy marriage is a space where you can be both seen and heard, where you don’t have to compete for attention or fear you’re only of interest for the sake of the bottom line.

You are known and loved. Healthy marriages provide space for people to be who God created them to be. While challenging one another toward God’s best for them, the couple in a healthy marriage loves and appreciates who they each are. They spend time with one another, desiring to know one another more intimately, endlessly curious and concerned about each other.

You are safe. To thrive, we need a sense of stability and safety, and a healthy marriage provides that. Not everything that passes between spouses is pleasant to say or hear. Sometimes you need to rebuke one another and encourage each other to pursue deeper faithfulness toward the Lord. However, in a healthy marriage, it is done in a respectful manner that honors the dignity and humanity of the other spouse.

A healthy marriage doesn’t contain the threat or reality of violence, whether verbal or physical. The spouses can express their fears, failings, hopes, and dreams without being afraid of being ridiculed, insulted, humiliated, or undermined somehow. One can be vulnerable without fearing reprisals or being scorned.

You are accountable. Iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17), and a healthy marriage will make for the growth of both spouses. Both spouses are accountable to one another, and the relationship isn’t one-sided.

A marriage doesn’t have to be perfect to be healthy. There is no such thing as a perfect marriage because there are no perfect people. However, a healthy marriage is a safe place of nurture, growth, and exploration.

Signs you’re in a toxic marriage.

For a person on the outside looking in, it may seem obvious that a marriage is toxic. While this may also be true for the person on the inside, it’s not always so obvious. Sometimes toxic behaviors creep up on you, and you become accustomed to them.

Consider the folktale of the frog placed in a cold kettle. The kettle gets hotter and hotter by degrees until the water and the frog inside it boil. Had the frog been dropped into the kettle while it was hot, it would have jumped right out to save its life. We can get so used to the tiny degrees by which things worsen and the way things are that we become numb to how aberrant and wrong they are. One can live in a toxic marriage for so long that it just seems normal.

Some of the signs that you’re in a toxic marriage include:

Low self-esteem. Your levels of confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth are plummeting and have declined due to the relationship. An unhappy and toxic marriage can suck the life right out of you, and that can manifest in you losing confidence in yourself.

You don’t feel safe in the relationship. If you feel like you have to walk around on eggshells around your spouse, that you have to manage their anger, or if you feel like you can’t express yourself freely, those are all signs that you may be in a toxic marriage. If you fear for your physical safety, or you’ve experienced physical abuse, that is also a sign of a toxic marriage. Toxic marriages also often include insults, humiliation, or being made fun of.

Your spouse manipulates, controls, or gaslights you. As an adult, you have your own opinions, capacities, and competencies. If your spouse makes you feel like you can’t trust your own judgment, or that your memory is faulty and can’t be relied upon, it’s a good bet that they’re gaslighting you. If your spouse uses tears, anger, or fear to control you, that is a sign of a toxic marriage.

Demanding to know all of your movements, or demanding access to your devices, bank accounts, or social media, to control you is a sign of a problem. If your spouse also tries to isolate you from friends and family, that is also a sign of a toxic marriage.

The relationship is one-sided. If your opinion doesn’t carry much weight, or if things in your family are geared toward the interests and preferences of one spouse, that is a sign of a toxic marriage. Toxic relationships tend to have poor boundaries, so if you find your needs being ignored or subsumed into the needs of the other spouse, that is a huge red flag and warning sign.

Your relationship is rife with conflict. When two people live together long enough, conflict will arise. Our differences can flare up and cause enormous friction. however, while healthy marriages have good communication and great conflict resolution, a toxic marriage is mired in conflict and anger. Further, the couple might find themselves having the same fight again and again without resolution or growth.

How a toxic marriage affects you.

A toxic marriage can affect your sense of safety, your growth as an individual, and your sense of self as well as your self-confidence. A toxic marriage is like an inhospitable environment for life, such as a harsh desert. Life may find a way, but it’s not ideal for flourishing. A toxic marriage can affect your productivity at work, undermine your relationships with others, and it can have a negative effect on your health – mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Restoring health to a toxic marriage.

A toxic marriage can be turned into a healthy one, but that doesn’t happen by accident or through the mere passage of time. Turning any relationship around, ridding it of unhealthy behaviors, and building healthy rhythms all take time and deliberate, wise effort.

If you’ve found that your marriage is a toxic one, that discovery and the willingness to name it as such is a good first step. You should talk with your spouse, letting them know your thoughts and giving them room to share their own.

For a couple to overcome toxic patterns of thought and behavior will often require the intervention of a third party. Marriage counseling is a necessary step for couples seeking to make a change in how they relate to one another.

Counselors are trained to understand how people relate, and the ways that can go wrong. Besides diagnosing the problem, a trained marriage and family therapist can help the couple get better at communication, problem-solving, and conflict resolution. These skills are necessary for a couple to move forward.

If you’re in a toxic marriage, seek help, whether from a mental health professional or the proper authorities if there is domestic violence and abuse in your relationship. Finding the right help is the best thing you can do to begin your journey toward the wholeness God desires for you. Contact our office for help today.