Other research suggests that narcissism also appears to encourage toxic behaviors. While “terrific” narcissists are open about their partners, “vulnerable” narcissists, who have low self-esteem at their core, are more indirectly driven by jealousy to control and monitor those close to them.
In many cases, psychological violence in relationships also escalates. Diane Follingstad and Maryanne Edmundson of the University of Kentucky at Lexington asked more than 600 US adults in 2010 about the worst relationship they had ever experienced. It was found that humiliation and manipulation often went hand in hand: For example, the participants reported that their partner had tried to destroy their self-esteem through excessive criticism, intimidated them or wanted to forbid them from speaking to people of the opposite sex subjects often exhibit similar behaviors. Although they believed that they had engaged in toxic behavior less often than their partner and had done him less harm, the connection remained.
It’s not always just someone to blame
Some experts therefore warn against using terms such as “toxic relationships” or “gaslighting” in an overly inflationary manner in order to simply portray the partner as incapable of a relationship. “‘Toxic relationship’ is not a scientific term,” Christian Roesler clarifies. He is a couples therapist and professor of clinical psychology at the Catholic University of Freiburg and believes that the term often conveys a wrong picture of what happens when relationships go wrong. »Contrary to what the term ›toxic‹ suggests, in the vast majority of cases there is not one partner who exudes his poison and single-handedly destroys the relationship. Dysfunctional relationships are always an interaction.« In fact, when there is talk of a toxic relationship, it is quickly assumed in the next breath that the partner is mentally ill – someone with whom nobody can stand for long anyway. “We know that two people who stay together for a long time are usually similarly impaired when it comes to attachment and relationships,” says Roesler.
»People can develop further and even profound relationship problems can be solved«(Christian Roesler, couple therapist)
It is indeed no coincidence who gets together with whom. People with an avoidant attachment style and people with an anxious attachment style often find each other, as the US psychologists Lee Kirkpatrick and Keith Davis observed in 1994 on the basis of 120 heterosexual couples. One partner has a problem with closeness and pushes the other away as soon as it gets too tight for him. The other, on the other hand, needs a lot of closeness in order to feel safe and secure. Fear of commitment and abandonment seem to attract each other magically. Such couples often end up in a typical vicious circle: the more one clingy, the more the other wants to leave. Frequently – but not always – in heterosexual relationships the woman takes on the dependent role, the man the repelling one.
Such partnerships are often an emotional roller coaster: euphoric phases are followed by injuries and despair. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the relationship is about to end, explains Christian Roesler: “People can develop further and even deep-rooted relationship problems can be solved. Even severe attachment difficulties, such as those associated with narcissistic personality disorder, can now be treated.” Some harmful interaction patterns are best dealt with as a couple. “If you end difficult relationships every time without working on them, there is a high probability that the whole thing will repeat itself the next time.”
Couples therapy can often help with difficult relationships
“The sooner couples seek professional help, the better,” agrees Anne Milek, Professor of Couple and Family Psychology at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster. »So I think it’s good when popular labels like ›toxic relationships‹ help to initiate a discourse around problems in couple relationships.«