What If You're the Problem?

Everyone's out here diagnosing their ex as a narcissist. Posting about red flags. Sharing infographics about toxic behavior. And look, sometimes that's valid. Sometimes your ex really was terrible. But here's a question almost nobody asks themselves with genuine honesty: what if some of the toxicity in your relationships is coming from you?

Not a fun question. Not a comfortable one. But possibly the most important relationship question you'll ever sit with.

Because here's the thing. Truly toxic people rarely Google "am I the toxic one?" The fact that you're here suggests a level of self awareness that's already a good sign. But self awareness without honest examination is just intellectual vanity. So let's actually do the work.

Below are 20 scenarios. Not hypotheticals. These are patterns that show up in real relationships, reported by real therapists, drawn from real clinical work. For each one, ask yourself: "Do I do this?" Not "Have I ever done this once under extreme stress" but "Is this a pattern for me?"

Be honest. Nobody's watching. And the only person who benefits from your honesty here is you.

The 20 Patterns

1. The Scorekeeper

You track what you've done for the relationship versus what your partner has done, and you bring up the tally during arguments. "I always plan the dates. I always text first. I always compromise." You've turned love into an accounting spreadsheet, and you're always the one being shortchanged.

Why it's toxic: Keeping score transforms partnership into competition. It makes every kind act conditional, every gesture transactional. Your partner starts feeling like they can never do enough because you're always moving the goalposts.

2. The Mind Reader

You decide you know what your partner is thinking or feeling, and you react to your interpretation instead of their actual words. "You're only saying that because you feel guilty." "I know you don't actually mean that." You override their stated experience with your assumed one.

Why it's toxic: It's a form of control disguised as intuition. When you tell someone what they're really feeling, you erase them. You make the conversation impossible because they can't even represent their own inner world anymore.

3. The Punisher

When your partner does something that hurts you, you don't address it directly. You withdraw affection. Give the silent treatment. Become cold and distant until they figure out what they did wrong. You make them earn their way back into your good graces without telling them the price of admission.

Why it's toxic: Punishment isn't communication. It's emotional manipulation. It trains your partner to walk on eggshells, constantly scanning for your mood instead of feeling safe enough to be themselves.

4. The Historian

You bring up past mistakes during current arguments. Something your partner did two years ago gets weaponized in a fight about the dishes. Nothing is ever truly forgiven because you keep it all archived, ready to deploy.

Why it's toxic: If you've forgiven something, it shouldn't be ammunition. If you haven't forgiven it, that's a valid problem, but it needs its own conversation, not a cameo in every unrelated argument.

5. The Victim (Always)

In every conflict, you're the one being wronged. Every time. Your partner's frustration is an attack. Their boundaries are rejection. Their needs are demands. The narrative is always the same: they hurt you, and you were just trying your best.

Why it's toxic: Permanent victimhood makes accountability impossible. If you're never the one who caused harm, your partner has two options: accept all the blame forever, or leave. Most eventually choose door number two.

6. The Emotional Hostage Taker

When your partner tries to set a boundary or express a concern, you escalate your emotional response so dramatically that they end up comforting you instead of addressing the original issue. Tears, panic, threats of self harm, spiraling. The topic gets abandoned because managing your reaction becomes the priority.

Why it's toxic: Whether intentional or not, this pattern trains your partner to suppress their own needs to manage yours. Over time, they stop bringing things up at all. That's not peace. That's silence born from exhaustion.

7. The Comparer

You compare your partner unfavorably to others. Your friend's husband does this. Your ex used to do that. Your coworker's wife would never. Whether you say it out loud or just think it constantly, you're measuring your partner against a highlight reel of other people's relationships.

Why it's toxic: Nobody can compete with a curated fantasy. Comparison erodes your partner's confidence and your own ability to appreciate what's actually in front of you.

8. The Controller

You have opinions about your partner's friendships, clothing, career choices, hobbies, and time management, and those opinions come with pressure to comply. You might frame it as concern or as having high standards, but the effect is the same: your partner's autonomy slowly shrinks.

Why it's toxic: Control is one of those things that starts so small it doesn't look like control. It looks like preference. But when your partner starts changing who they are to avoid your disapproval, the line has been crossed.

9. The Gaslighter (Lite Version)

You rewrite small realities. "I never said that." "That's not what happened." "You're remembering it wrong." Maybe you genuinely believe your version. Maybe you don't. Either way, your partner starts doubting their own perception of events.

Why it's toxic: You don't have to be a cartoon villain to gaslight someone. Even low grade reality distortion, done consistently over time, erodes a person's trust in their own mind. That's one of the most damaging things you can do to another human.

10. The Love Bomber Who Cycles

After you've been difficult, cold, or hurtful, you overcorrect with intense affection, grand gestures, or effusive apologies. The cycle goes: tension builds, you behave badly, then you flood the relationship with love to make up for it. Rinse and repeat.

Why it's toxic: Intermittent reinforcement is the most addictive pattern in psychology. Your partner gets hooked on the highs precisely because the lows are so painful. They're not staying because the relationship is good. They're staying because the cycle is hard to break.

11. The Deflector

When your partner raises a concern, you immediately redirect to something they do wrong. "Well, you do the same thing." "What about when you..." The original issue never gets addressed because you always volley it back.

Why it's toxic: Deflection is a defense mechanism, not a conversation strategy. Both partners can have valid concerns. But if every attempt your partner makes to address a problem gets turned back on them, they'll eventually stop trying.

12. The Threatener

You bring up breaking up during arguments. Not because you actually want to end things, but because the threat gives you leverage. "Maybe we should just break up then." It's the nuclear option, deployed casually to shut down a conversation you're losing.

Why it's toxic: Every time you threaten to leave, you chip away at your partner's sense of security. Eventually, they'll either call your bluff or leave first, because nobody can build a life with someone who holds an ejection seat lever during every turbulence.

13. The Projector

You accuse your partner of the things you're actually doing or feeling. You're the one pulling away, but you accuse them of being distant. You're the one being dishonest, but you become suspicious of them. Your internal guilt gets externalized as their problem.

Why it's toxic: Projection puts your partner on trial for your crimes. It's deeply disorienting for them and prevents you from dealing with your own behavior honestly.

14. The Emotional Withholder

You know your partner needs affection, reassurance, or emotional engagement, and you withhold it. Not always consciously. Sometimes it's a power thing. Sometimes it's avoidance. But the effect is the same: your partner is starving for connection while you control the supply.

Why it's toxic: Emotional withholding is one of the quieter forms of harm, but it's devastating over time. It teaches your partner that their emotional needs are inconvenient, and that love is something to be rationed.

15. The "Just Joking" Attacker

You say cutting things wrapped in humor. Comments about your partner's appearance, intelligence, habits, or insecurities, delivered with a laugh so they can't call you out without "overreacting." If they get upset, you tell them they're too sensitive.

Why it's toxic: Humor is supposed to build connection, not provide cover for cruelty. When someone tells you a joke hurt, the correct response is to stop making that joke. Not to tell them they're wrong about their own feelings.

16. The Surveillance State

You check your partner's phone, social media, location. You need to know where they are, who they're with, what they said. You might justify it with past betrayal (theirs or someone else's), but the behavior itself communicates one thing: I don't trust you, and I'm going to monitor you instead of addressing that.

Why it's toxic: Surveillance doesn't create trust. It destroys it. Your partner feels surveilled, resentful, and trapped. And ironically, the anxiety driving the monitoring never actually gets resolved by the monitoring.

17. The Emotional Chameleon

You abandon your own opinions, needs, and identity to match your partner's. Then you resent them for it. You say yes when you mean no. You go along with things you hate. And then the resentment leaks out sideways as passive aggression, martyrdom, or explosive anger that seems to come from nowhere.

Why it's toxic: People pleasing looks generous but it's actually a form of dishonesty. Your partner fell in love with someone who doesn't actually exist because you never showed them the real version. When the mask slips, everyone gets hurt.

18. The Crisis Creator

When things are calm, you feel uneasy. So you create drama. Pick a fight. Bring up a sensitive topic at the worst possible time. Interpret something innocuous as a betrayal. You might not even realize you're doing it, but the pattern is clear: stability makes you uncomfortable.

Why it's toxic: This often comes from growing up in chaos, where calm felt like the pause before something bad happened. But importing that pattern into adult relationships means your partner never gets to relax. They're always bracing for the next storm.

19. The Conditional Lover

Your affection and approval are tied to performance. When your partner does what you want, you're warm and loving. When they don't, you withdraw. The message is clear: you are loved for what you do, not for who you are.

Why it's toxic: Conditional love creates a performing partner, not a genuine one. They'll learn to shape themselves around your approval, losing more of themselves with each adaptation.

20. The Refuser of Growth

When your partner asks you to work on something, whether it's therapy, communication, a specific behavior, you resist. "That's just who I am." "I shouldn't have to change." "You knew what you were getting into." You treat any request for growth as an attack on your identity.

Why it's toxic: Relationships require evolution. The person your partner committed to isn't supposed to be a finished product. Refusing to grow isn't self acceptance. It's stagnation in disguise.

How to Score This

Count the number of patterns you honestly recognized in yourself. Not once. As recurring patterns.

0 to 3: You're human. Everyone has a few tendencies that lean unhealthy under stress. The fact that you can identify them is the first step to managing them.

4 to 7: There are some real patterns here that are likely affecting your relationships in ways your partners feel even if you don't always see it. Pick the two that resonated most strongly and focus your growth there. Consider talking to a therapist about what's driving those specific behaviors.

8 to 12: This is a significant cluster of toxic patterns, and it's probably costing you relationships. This isn't about being a bad person. It's about having developed some genuinely harmful coping mechanisms that need professional attention. Individual therapy, not just couples therapy, would be valuable here.

13 or more: You're likely in a cycle where your behavior is causing serious harm to your partners, and you may be partially aware of it but feel unable to stop. Please seek professional support. This level of pattern recognition is actually a gift because many people at this level are fully defended against seeing it at all. Use that awareness.

The Hard Part Isn't Recognizing It

Look, reading through this list and feeling a pang of recognition is the easy part. The hard part is what comes after. Because your ego is going to kick in within about twenty minutes and start rationalizing. "Well, my partner does worse things." "Those were unusual circumstances." "I've already improved a lot."

Maybe. But improvement and arrival are different things.

Here's what I'd suggest: screenshot your results. Share this with your partner if you're brave enough and ask them, without defensiveness, whether they recognize any of these patterns in you. Their answer might be different from yours. Their answer is probably more accurate.

LoveCheck exists partly for moments like this, when you need an honest assessment of relationship dynamics that isn't filtered through your own blind spots. Use every tool available to you, including the uncomfortable ones.

And if you recognized your own patterns in this list? That's not failure. That's the beginning of something better. Toxic isn't a permanent identity. It's a set of behaviors. And behaviors can change.

But only if you stop pretending they're not there.