Beste Güneysu Şeker
Contributor
Beste Güneysu Şeker is a clinical psychologist whose expertise greatly enriched this article. Her valuable insights play a crucial role in our commitment to delivering accurate and informative content.
When it comes to romantic relationships, it’s crucial to be aware of red flags that may indicate toxic behaviors and potential trouble. Building a healthy relationship is the foundation for a fulfilling and mutually supportive partnership.
However, if you’re navigating your first relationship, recognizing these signs can be complicated.
Table of Contents
Financial Exploitation
This one is not meant to be ironic, trust us. Girls generally spend more on shopping than men, and getting a nice dress from your money isn’t likely to bother you. However, if it’s done with a lack of respect, things can get nasty quite quickly.
Financial exploitation involves manipulating or taking advantage of the partner’s financial resources for personal gain.
It is one of the red flags in a girl that can manifest in various ways, such as constantly pressuring the partner to provide financial support, coercing them into making large purchases or investments against their will, or misusing their funds without their consent.
It is a form of control and manipulation that can severely affect the victim’s emotional and financial well-being.
Lack of Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, and it plays a vital role in fostering connection, compassion, and mutual support. A girl lacking empathy may struggle to acknowledge or relate to her partner’s feelings and experiences.
This can create emotional distance, a lack of support, and a sense of invalidation within the relationship. A lack of empathy is the perfect growing ground for a manipulative relationship, has detrimental effects on your mental health, and should be considered one of the biggest red flags in a girl.
According to Beste Güneysu Şeker, a clinical psychologist, a lack of empathy can be a psychological disorder, and this disorder is characterized by a very special personality type. This personality structure refers to a person who cannot put herself in the place of others because he cannot move away from her own psychological limits. Not only that, they are unable to connect with other people’s realities and often ignore them. We can probably state that these people have narcissistic dynamics.
However, she emphasizes that there is hope. Şeker says that a lack of empathy, as a personality trait, can be improved by using some techniques. According to her, in order to establish empathy, it is necessary to establish a relationship between oneself and other people while separating oneself from other people.
For the following steps, she suggests developing empathy by knowing, understanding, and valuing oneself. Şeker also advises on cooperating and rewarding cooperation. This could mean sharing affirmations when your girl communicates effectively. Try showing genuine appreciation or doing the same. The red flags may shed their color when both parties do their part.
Finally, Şeker says that examining biases can provide a different perspective.
“Most of us have prejudices that prevent them from developing empathy. Moreover, we may have many prejudices that we hide or do not hide in many ways such as race, gender, age. Examining these by self-assessment can be another phenomenon that can benefit the development of empathy.
Consciously examining our emotions and some of our behaviors (gestures and facial expressions) caused by our emotions will also improve our empathy skills. For this, we can improve our ability to understand and recognize others by standing in front of the mirror and studying facial expressions.”
Self-centeredness
A girl who consistently puts her needs and desires above others’ without considering their feelings or well-being demonstrates a disregard for their happiness and satisfaction.
This self-centered behavior can lead to a one-sided relationship where the other person’s needs are consistently overlooked. While it’s a big red flag in a girl, there is a big difference between being egotistical and being narcissistic.
With this kind of behavior, it’s possible for unwilling non-monogamy, or excessive flirting to occur.
Read more: What is Promiscuous? Understanding the Different Types of Non-Monogamy
Manipulative tactics
Manipulative behavior involves using cunning and deceptive strategies to gain control or influence over the other person.
This can include gaslighting (manipulating someone into questioning their perceptions and sanity), guilt-tripping, or emotional manipulation to make the other person feel responsible or indebted.
Here are 45 gaslighting phrases often used by gaslighters. Keep in mind that your partner might unintentionally gaslight you!
Control over Communication and Social Interactions
A manipulative and controlling girl may seek to control and limit her partner’s communication with others.
She may discourage or prevent them from spending time with friends and family, monitor their messages or social media activity, or insist on being constantly updated about their whereabouts.
Relationship coach Susan Winter notes that “Wanting to know your partner’s whereabouts in order to stay in the loop is based on logistical concerns, but needing to know your partner’s every move is micromanagement”
These actions may be triggered by your girl’s fears, especially if they have a history of being cheated on. If this is the case, you must work on building trust with your partner.
However, her past experiences do not excuse anything. This type of behavior aims to isolate the other person and maintain power and dominance within the relationship. This is one of the major red flags in a girl.
Jealousy and Possessiveness
While a certain level of jealousy is normal in relationships, excessive and unhealthy jealousy can be problematic. Pay attention to signs of possessiveness, controlling behavior, and unfounded accusations.
This can involve constantly questioning the other person’s interactions, accusing them of infidelity without evidence, or trying to control their appearance and social interactions out of fear of losing control or dominance.
Lack of Commitment
Commitment is a vital component of a healthy and fulfilling partnership, as it signifies the willingness to invest time, energy, and effort into building a strong and lasting connection.
Lack of commitment can manifest in various ways, such as inconsistency in behavior or conflicting actions that create confusion and uncertainty. It may be demonstrated through a reluctance to make plans or an unwillingness to discuss long-term goals and aspirations.
A girl who lacks commitment may also exhibit a pattern of quickly giving up when faced with challenges or conflicts rather than working through them together.
Emotional Volatility
Emotional volatility is frequent and intense mood swings, outbursts, or dramatic emotional reactions.
While it is normal for you to experience various emotions, consistent and extreme emotional volatility can cause concern. It can create an unstable and unpredictable environment within your relationship, leading to heightened stress and emotional distress for both partners.
Emotional ups and downs could be a hint at deeper mental health concerns, as they usually have a cause. Recognizing that your partner doesn’t change moods on a whim is crucial. Seeking advice from a professional is important in such situations.
Disregard for Personal Boundaries
Manipulative people may often disregard the personal boundaries and autonomy of their partners.
When a girl consistently disregards the boundaries of her partner, it can indicate a lack of respect and consideration. They may intrude upon their privacy, insist on knowing every detail of their personal life, or try to control their decisions and actions.
This lack of respect for personal boundaries erodes trust and can lead to feelings of suffocation and confinement.
Anger Management Issues
Anger, like all other emotions, is a normal and natural emotion. It is our negative behaviors caused by this emotion that make our sense of anger abnormal and destructive. There are some important ways to prevent the harmful behavior that anger can cause.
As Şeker mentioned, experiencing anger is a normal emotion; however, difficulties in managing and expressing anger healthily can lead to toxic behaviors and negatively impact the relationship.
She advises on the ways to mitigate harmful behavior:
- Self-development and education of the individual
- Self-efficacy perception of individuals
- High empathy skills will facilitate anger control
- Breathing exercises, yoga and relaxation exercises, and mindfulness exercises that aim to stay in the moment are some of the important techniques that will help control anger
When doing breathing exercises, you should first relax your body. Then you just have to focus on your breath and breathe through your nose and hold it for 4 seconds. You will then need to exhale through your mouth as if you were blowing a straw. Repeating this exercise 5 times in a row will help your anger fade quickly (Şeker, 2023).
Constant Need for Validation
A constant and excessive need for validation is an enormous red flag in a girl.
When a girl consistently relies on external validation to feel a sense of self-worth and identity, it can create an unhealthy dynamic. This can lead to codependency, an imbalanced power dynamic, and a strain on the partner, who is expected to provide constant reassurance.
This is observed in people with anxious attachment styles, often fearing rejection or abandonment. Understanding and addressing these concerns with empathy and open communication can pave the way for healing and stronger bonds with the people.
Blaming and Deflecting Responsibility
When a girl consistently blames others and deflects responsibility for her behavior, it can be a significant red flag.
This behavior can manifest as constantly shifting blame onto the partner, making excuses for hurtful actions, or failing to acknowledge and address mistakes.
Lack of Communication and Stonewalling
Effective communication is the cornerstone of a healthy and thriving relationship. When your partner consistently avoids or shuts down communication, it can be a red flag in a girl.
This behavior, known as stonewalling, can prevent the resolution of issues, breed resentment, and create emotional distance between partners. Lack of communication and stonewalling can lead to unresolved conflicts and a breakdown in the emotional connection between partners.
Something similar is passive-aggressiveness; according to mayoclinic.org, specific signs of passive-aggressive behavior include:
- Resentment and opposition to the demands of others, especially the demands of people in positions of authority
- Resistance to cooperation, procrastination and intentional mistakes in response to others’ demands
- Cynical, sullen or hostile attitude
- Frequent complaints about feeling underappreciated or cheated
Emotional Withdrawal
Emotional withdrawal refers to consistently being emotionally distant or unavailable in a relationship. When a girl frequently withdraws emotionally, it can create a sense of disconnection and loneliness for the partner.
Emotional withdrawal can manifest as a lack of emotional support, difficulty expressing or understanding emotions, or an unwillingness to engage in deep and meaningful conversations.
Şeker highlights that emotional withdrawal is the state of being unresponsive to confront a negative, undesirable situation or to avoid anxiety. In such cases, closing all communication is the most common form of emotional defense mechanism. In their relationships, they may complain that their partners, who experience emotional withdrawal, do not react or respond. She illustrates an example: tilting her head down, not looking away from the phone, and not saying anything.
So how do you cope with emotional withdrawal? And how do you improve?
Şeker has an answer to this. She says that in order to cope with emotional withdrawal, the presence of the hormone serotonin secreted in our body is of great importance. The hormone serotonin is secreted mostly in the joint areas. Therefore, regular daily walking activities will increase the hormone level of the person and support positive thinking skills.
“So that will aim to increase communication with their partner and to be able to express his feelings mutually. Apart from this, if there is difficulty in verbal communication at the beginning, feelings and thoughts can be expressed by using it in written communication (Şeker,2023)”.
Another effective way would be written communication. Written communication is a safe way to communicate if you find it difficult to communicate face-to-face. It allows you to carefully translate your feelings on paper without the issues of your partner asking questions or interfering.
The Center for Marriage & Family Relationships also emphasizes that it takes longer to write things out by hand than to verbally say what’s on your mind, text, or record a voice message. That extra time can be used to reflect on your words and how they might come across to your partner.
Understanding The Differences in Relationships
Romantic relationships are intricate webs of emotions, experiences, and dynamics that evolve. In order to stop having an unhealthy relationship, you’ll need to establish a healthy foundation and get rid of red flags in relationships. Try to get rid of things like anger management issues, lack of respect, and abusive behavior, one by one.
According to New York State Home, the foundation of a healthy relationship includes the following:
- Boundaries
- Communication
- Trust
- Consent
It’s essential to recognize that humans are complex, with varying personalities, histories, and life circumstances.
While identifying the biggest red flags in a girl, it is essential to approach these red flags with a nuanced perspective. Every relationship exists within a unique context, influenced by the people involved, their backgrounds, and external factors.
What may be considered a red flag in one relationship might not hold the same weight in another. Cultural norms, personal boundaries, and communication styles must be considered when evaluating potential red flags.
When assessing the biggest red flags in a girl, it is crucial to approach the situation with empathy, understanding, and open communication and encourage them to grow in their personal and relational development.
Conclusion
Recognizing red flags is crucial in maintaining a healthy and fulfilling relationship.
Being aware of toxic behaviors, such as lack of respect, manipulation, unhealthy jealousy, and inconsistent commitment, is essential.
Personal growth, mental health, and empathy are essential for building a strong relationship dynamic. Still, relationship growth in an unhealthy relationship is not limited to your partner and requires work from your side equally.
5 Surefire Signs the No Contact Rule is Working
Why is the First Year of Marriage the Hardest? 6 Challenges You Might Face
How to Handle Jealousy - 13 Great Strategies
The Foolproof Guide to Casual Relationships - Expert Tips and Advice
How to Fix a Codependent Relationship - 10 Great Steps
