12 Ways To Manage Your Toxic Partner

Before even telling a single word, I first want you to check the list below to find out if your partner has most of these traits in his (all these things are applicable to females also) personality or not.

Anything you can say or do is not good enough
Comment on smallest flaws
Drag up your past to hurt you intentionally
Acts like he never makes any mistake
Leaves you feeling guilty or ashamed of who you are
Likes to see you suffer
Always about him, and what he thinks, wants and feels
Thinks negative, acts superior, speaks badly about others
Take up too much of your time to serve his needs
Constantly have drama going on
Your words are used against you
Makes disturbing statement, then claims you misunderstood what he said
Try to isolate you from your family and friends
Tendencies to blame his lack of success or failures of others
Irresponsible to his family, unreliable in need, arrogant in attitude, envious to almost everyone he gets close
Lives in a fantasy world which may include porn, flirting, Affairs, and dreams of unlimited success and fame
Lie and distort facts and change events to suit his own agenda
Emotionally distant and unavailable unless he wants something
Be very controlling and unable to relax
Regularly provoke people and blame them for fight
Have trouble admitting his mistakes
Uses emotional blackmail to get what he wants
Other’s feelings and opinions are rarely validated
Mistrustful for no apparent reason
If he does not get what he wants, withdraws his love and affection

REVEAL THE TRUE IDENTITY OF YOUR PARTNER

If many of these above match with your mate’s characteristics, then you surely are interacting with a person having pathological abnormalities. These folks basically use people by manipulating and controlling their emotions and other resources to get what they want. Everything is a deal for them.

These people don’t have any specific personality. They just act and pretend depending on their target pray. If one of them gets you as a target, then he will pretend to be everything you want. He will shower you with attention, affection, and all manner of stuff to make you feel special. Then once he knows you are depending on him and have made a commitment, he will quit pretending and become the person he really is. He will then start to hurt you continuously and will act like you hurt him. He will demand constant attention and admiration without having to invest anything more than the initial time he took to woo you. He once has groomed you to be a constant source of admiration, attention, sex, affection, and nurturing. Now you should be hooked on his service. He does not seem to believe that he should also reciprocate what is getting from you. His entire focus is now getting and getting, what makes him feel good, and you will have to constantly serve him. You will find him changed completely and trust me, you will never get back the person you loved once.

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR TOXIC PARTNER MINDFULLY

You have two clear option here in this case. leaving him forever or living with him painfully. Whatever your decision is, just keep in mind you will never be able to get your charming prince back in your life once again, because he is never going to change himself for you. However, as a professional counselor, I only can provide you some safeguards in case you have made your mind give 'staying with him' a try. The golden rules of managing a Toxic person are described as below.

Talk less

It is highly recommended to not talk continuously for more than ten minutes on a specific topic of conversation at a stretch with him, as chances are very high that he will start talking bullshit which might be little annoying for you to absorb lovingly.

No argument

It is a complete ‘no-no’ to join him in a debate even if you know a great deal about the topic being debated. No matter how brilliant you can be in that, trust me, he is simply unbeatable. He has lots of other cunning ways to make you intentionally confused by triangulation and distraction in some other irrelevant topic that hurts your dignity and makes you vulnerable to win. Though he himself will invite you to argue, your specific job here is to avoid it saying hmm, haa or just nodding your head and exit to do some other important work, (preferably necessary household chores) as he will start to disturb you by throwing tantrums if you want to do any personal work. There is no point having a conversation when he will not pay attention and acceptation whatever you are saying in response.

Maintain politeness in conversation

Always try to keep your cool irrespective of any given situation, while being with him. You may find him talkative, stupid, behaving arrogantly, telling lies or simply being irresponsible. Whatever the situation is, you must maintain your control on your language and actions towards him. It is one of the strongest pillars to keep your wild boy on a leash. He will try his best to make you irritated and get you out of control, and later he will tell you, it’s basically your problem to get irritated in small things and there must be something wrong with your temperament. To avoid such a situation from developing, you simply need to use short phrases with gentle words in a soft tone. Just avoid anything that sounds harsh, that’s all.

Catch red alert

Catch them young as the saying goes. Spot the signal of outbursts as early as possible. Being with him you must know those red signals before the thunderstorm happens. Specific body language, tendencies of the mood swing, unclear verbal communication, passive-aggressive behaviors, all these things suggest that he is not happy in his life. Don’t always blame yourself for this situation. You can’t make him happy, even if you try your best; because you are not the reason for his shortcomings at the first place. There might be something else going wrong in his (work or other) life or he simply is jealous to see someone else having fun in their life, what he himself is missing at this particular moment. So, you basically can’t do anything for him. All you can do is save yourself, pretending to be busy. And never show him your success or happiness at this high- frequency red alert time.

Try to make yourself independent

This is the most important factor out of my all the tips, in case you have already decided to live your whole life with a toxic person. (why??) His main intention is to get the whole of your attention and admiration for rest of your life, and he makes it done by controlling you either by manipulation or forcefully. However, in either case, he can’t do that to fulfill his dream if you are least dependent on him. So manipulation, humiliation or controlling power is directly proportionate to the magnitude of how much dependent you are on your toxic mate.

Try to be less dependent in every possible way- financially, emotionally and socially; which he will never be ready to accept. If you do these all very quickly, he will feel suspicious of your intention and feel a threat of losing you and obviously try to hold you more strongly with all his manipulative ways. So, keep in mind to move slowly but steadily so that it is not easy to detect the changes. Within few months span you need to build a decent connection with some of your neighbors, office colleagues, your and his relatives (preferably during the time you are not with him) a little, by calling, messaging, formal hi-hello or in a get-together.

With the term “emotionally independent”, I mean, not only being responsible for your own feelings but also never ever share your true feelings with him that makes you sounds weak or vulnerable towards any specific thing. That is exact where his mind game starts. He should not know about any of your weaknesses. You of course like him, show him your love immensely; but don’t reveal yourself. Be ready to take responsibility for all of your actions and reactions, and plan ahead to keep everything under control. It’s probably the most difficult thing to attempt as it may make you empty and lonely for a while, but it is worth it.

Manage his needs and expectations wisely

As previously described, his primary need is seeking and getting unlimited attention and admiration: and he ensures these by controlling you emotionally, physically and socially, forever. It’s obviously not possible to feed his fancy all the time neglecting your own feelings and emotions. What you need to do is to maintain pampering at the right time using right doses, at regular intervals. Serving him at the appropriate time always results in a greater impact. For example, giving quality attention when only you two are there, so that he can relish it fully; appreciate him genuinely for lending a hand during difficult time or mention his greatness in a gathering, in front of other people, so that it can make him feel proud, which he badly needs for his ego. Help him, but don’t make it his habit to be too much dependent on you unnecessarily, for every single thing.

Never reveal any personal plan before the right time

Why so? Keep it in your mind, that he needs a bottomless limit of attention and admiration all the time. One of his innate character in this specific case is having an envious mind. He will try heartlessly to spoil your programs and plans if he gets to know you have your own separate plan for yourself, where he is not included. He won’t like to see you with your friends, family or anyone except himself. So, if you are not doing any crime, you don’t need to reveal everything beforehand, and here the right time for him ‘to know it all’ is when it’s too late to spoil your plan.

Hide your aggression and frustration

We tend to be under stress when we get busy schedules, unbearable workload or huge mental pressure. It is advisable for you not to show your aggression, frustration or depression to him. It is a complete ‘no’, as he will not miss this golden opportunity for a free lecture session to his favourite student at this very critical time, providing you all the examples those show ‘how much lucky you should feel about yourself’; and he will dismiss your issues that you tell him by analysed them as ‘silly complaints, nothing else’. Remember he will not empathize but compare with other people to humiliate you and make fun of your emotion. This will further make you even more irritated and angry, and he will get further opportunity to advise you for a mental check up to control yourself as he is not finding you mentally so stable. So please practice trying to keep your mouth shut when you are not feeling well.

No foolish attempt to revolt

Try not to reveal the fact that you know all about him and his personality traits like envious character, self-obsession, or cruelty etc. If you are ready to be with him even after knowing the fact who really he is, then you need to learn to accept him that way. As situation might be even worse if he gets to know what you think about him. So embrace the reality.

Talk his interest in front of him

Focus on things and topics he is interested in. Avoid stuff related to your life events, plans, situations or any other things he is not interested much. Rather try to be creative and plan for some quality time to enjoy togetherness. Make him feel your relation is special when you are with him.

Hide his fears

We all have some unique strengths with some ugly insecurity and fears. He also has, and you are quite aware of those if you spent a fair amount of time with him. Don’t pull those up naked being revengeful. You need to give a conscious effort to avoid his weaknesses and fears to preserve the peace of mind for both of you.

Focus on yourself

As you continue to walk, you will find, it’s no less than a battle living with a toxic person. It is a big bet, sometimes you will feel lonely walking alone even if being in a relation. It’s obviously frustrating and sometimes depressive. So you need to maintain a proper care for your own self. A healthy lifestyle that ensures a holistic wellbeing physically and mentally. However, if you can follow these all for several weeks, you will definitely be quite comfortable in using all the tools properly according to the situation. He also will be used to with this new set up, and things will soon be smoother than before. Here, I must mention you that, don’t be dare to ignore those rules once you have started to get benefits. Like a blood pressure pill, you need to use it till the last day with him. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and Break the Chains!!

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Dr. Suparna Sengupta's