Are these four painful signs showing up in YOUR relationship? Learn how to identify a stressed relationship and take steps toward a healthier, happier partnership.

Stressful relationships are everything but healthy. When you’re in an overly stressful relationship, you’ll always dwell in a pool of anxiety, you’ll endlessly think about your partner and the status of your relationship,you’ll be extremely worried and afraid of losing your relationship anytime soon…

And you’ll feel stressed and overwhelmed about the said relationship, even if you knew exactly what to do. (Walking out of the relationship of course.)

The truth is, just because you sometimes feel stressed about your relationship doesn’t automatically mean you’re in a stressed relationship. Occasional stress is normal. However, consistent, overwhelming stress is a sign that something is wrong.

Because there’s a difference between temporary and justified relationship stresses and an endless roller coaster of stress.

For instance, you might be having a conflict or disagreement with your partner that somehow stresses you, your relationship might be suffering a setback due to financial problems, or loss of job of either you or your partner.

In any of such cases, your feeling of stress or anxiety is quite normal and coming from a reasonable place. Besides, we all know that in most cases, it won’t last long.

But that’s not the kind of stress we are talking about here. We’re focusing on the persistent, pervasive stress that leaves you feeling constantly disturbed, devastated, and less able to cope with other life stressors. Let’s explore the signs of a stressed relationship.

#1. Stressful partners endlessly Involve third parties, friends, family in every fight.

Fights, disagreements, and conflicts in romantic relationships aren’t always easy. But they are a crucial part of romantic relationships.

The problem is that some toxic and stressful partners endlessly involve third parties to settle conflicts in their relationships.

They are so afraid of losing their relationships, of being unable to resolve their problems with their partners, that they seek external validation. This is a hallmark of a stressed relationship.

Or they are so obsessed about being right while they seamlessly try to show their partners how wrong they are. And validations from friends, family, or any other third party helps them achieve this.

The problem with allowing third parties to mediate in relationship problems consistently is that it creates an environment of discomfort and stress for everyone involved. It rarely solves the underlying issues in a stressed relationship.

Life is so much easier if couples can sit down, iron things out, and settle their differences without the mediation of third parties, no matter how challenging it seems.

When your partner can’t seem to resist the urge to involve third parties in every disagreement, it’s a clear sign of a stressed relationship. This reliance on external intervention is unhealthy.

And like earlier mentioned, such kinds of partners deeply believe that involving others in their relationship issues would get their problems solved. Unbeknownst to them, they’re stressing the hell out of everyone and making such situations even worst. 

Discover: 7 Things Long-Distance Couples Mistakenly Believe Will Foster Unshakable Communication

#2. Pay close attention to how they take sex.

Instead of an act of mutual intention and intimacy between two loving people, stressful and toxic partners take sex to be something else entirely.

They either make sex transactional, or involve in some kind of sexual coercion, or manipulation with little or no considerations of their partners’ feelings.

We are living in an age where a lot of people just jump into action and do whatever pleases them irrespective of whether their actions affect other people or not. Most people are often driven at high speed into actions by their high sense of entitlement, power, and authority over others to seize some advantage in areas not rightly theirs to control. And they end up stressing or even abusing others in some ways for their own selfish reasons. This self-centeredness often fuels a stressed relationship

The problem is that making sex conditional or transactional devalues both parties involved and the relationship since it implies that one will only get a sex reward for desired behaviors or something of such nature. And manipulating, pressuring, tricking, threatening, or other acts of coercion to achieve sexual gratification in the absence of true interest, intention, or consent of the other party is demeaning to the receiving party.

By constantly playing manipulative games even when it comes to sex, such kinds of partners do nothing short of draining one’s energy dry.

If you’re not in the mood for sex and your partner constantly pressures you, or if sex is treated as a reward or punishment, this is a sign of a stressed relationship.

Either of such partners might like you but still want to control and manipulate every aspect of your relationship because of their inflated ego and high sense of entitlement.

Also read: 5 Warning Signs of a Stressful and Terrible Partner

#3. They’re always reminding you of your past mistakes.

If your partner consistently reminds you of your past shortcomings and mistakes, that’s probably because of a few connected reasons:

They’re ruthlessly unforgiving.

Blame and frustration is their default pattern of communication.

They think they’re perfect and can do no wrong while their partners are to be blamed for everything that goes wrong.

They always do so to avoid taking responsibility for their own mistakes.

In our perfection and power-driven world, many people subconsciously believe that their happiness, worth, power, control is linked to their pointing fingers, or worse: to their innocence while all the blames for wrongdoings goes to other people.

They think that forgiveness and letting go is a sign of weakness.

They constantly make mistakes and cast blames on others for their own shortcomings.

This addiction to reminding people of their mistakes partly stems from an unending need to always get a quick ego boost in most confrontational situations.

When people feel disappointed, angry, or annoyed with their partners, it’s easy to believe that berating their partners even for things they do and didn’t do in the past is the best way to avoid such situations in the future.

But that’s not true.

We all make mistakes and reminding, berating, and crucifying others for their past mistakes is a total waste of energy and even draining to the recipients.

The past is the past. What is done is done and what is not done is not.

You don’t deserve to be consistently stressed over your past mistakes especially when someone is trying to use them as a defense mechanism to avoid responsibilities for theirs. 

Recommended: The Top 5 Relationship Red Flags You Shouldn’t Ignore

#4. Don’t end up being molded into someone you are not.

Stressful partners often struggle to love their partners for who they are.

They don’t want to open their eyes to their partners’ good and positive qualities. And they want their partners to be like their exes, their friends’ partners, or some other persons.

The problem with being endlessly compared to others in a relationship is that it isn’t fair to you, it makes you feel worthless or unappreciated by your partner. In fact, it’s even disrespectful to your boundaries.

If you want to experience happiness, peace, and satisfaction in your relationships, you need to be mindful of your unique qualities and individuality.

You don’t need anyone to mold you into their ex-partners or the partners of their friends or anyone else. If their ex-partners were so good why did they break up in the first place? If their friends’ partners are so good, why don’t they go be with them?

There’s no point in comparing relationships because it breeds stress and takes joy and happiness away from a relationship.

That’s why I will always advise you to choose happiness over unnecessary and nerve-wracking relationship stress.

Choose happiness over stress.

Stress in relationships are common.

Sometimes, their roots aren’t obvious, which makes it harder to distinguish between relationship tribulations and unhealthy relationship situations. In some cases, you might be well-advised to look deeply and see if it’s coming from problems at work, with family, or with friends that’s been transferred into your relationship. These kinds of stresses as earlier mentioned, are usually short-lived and easily fixable.

In most cases, however, the anxieties, stresses, and pressures of some conflicted relationships can be best dealt with when one eliminates such relationships.

While every relationship comes with its own fair share of conflicts, resolutions, and other stresses, the stresses of an unhealthy relationship are something else.

Let’s be honest: Relationships are hard work. They require hard, loving, endeavors of commitment. And they can sometimes be compared to an emotional roller coaster.

Because sometimes, it feels like the most amazing thing in the world is being with your partner, and other times, you want to slap your partner, yell at him or her, and do a lot of other not-so-cool things to him or her.

But it’s during such times of conflicts and disagreements that people enjoying great partnerships choose to work on their flaws together and fix what needs to be fixed forever instead of ignoring them and finding a new partner.

However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t leave an obviously toxic and stressful relationship.

Whenever a relationship doesn’t feel right and brings you more pain than happiness, peace, and satisfaction, don’t hesitate to walk away from such stress.

Because stressful relationships can truly take a toll on your physical health and can as well have negative effects on your emotional well-being.