Relationships become toxic when we stop seeing the other person as a human being and begin seeing them as a resource.

When we look for a relationship, we often focus on what the other person can give us—money, children, security, entertainment, attention, or social status. At first, these things impress us, but we forget that what truly matters is not what resources someone offers, but who they are as a person. Instead of building a loving relationship, we end up in a business arrangement with someone we cannot stand, tolerating them only because of mutual benefit.

Relationships become toxic when we seek either pleasure for the ego or personal salvation. This is the most common combination. One partner wants to be admired, praised, and served while using the other person and gradually becoming more selfish. The other is desperately trying to escape loneliness and becomes trapped by their unhealthy need for attention. Sooner or later, such a relationship sinks into toxicity.

Relationships become toxic when we fail to understand that they are a shared project. Many people already have fixed ideas about what their relationship should look like and how their life should be organized before the other person even appears. The partner becomes nothing more than a missing piece in an already completed puzzle. This can never lead to genuine happiness. Our responsibility is to know who we are. But if we want to build a happy relationship, we must decide together what that relationship will become.

Relationships become toxic because what most often connects people is their unresolved trauma. If you carry the wound of abandonment, people will continue leaving you. If you carry the wound of control or obsession, people will continue trying to control you. If you carry the wound of betrayal, people will continue betraying you. Our traumas shape our lives until we become aware of them and heal them. Life keeps placing us in the same situations and introducing us to the same kinds of people until we rediscover ourselves and find a new way to respond.

Relationships become toxic when they are built solely on attraction. Attraction is wonderful, but it is primitive and far from sufficient to sustain a relationship. Another common misconception is believing that whenever love exists, a relationship must exist as well. Not every love story leads to a relationship, and not every healthy relationship contains true romantic love.

Relationships become healthy when they are built upon three essential pillars: respect, understanding, and trust. If even one of these is missing, the relationship is ultimately doomed and should come to an end.

When respect, understanding, and trust are present, those are the relationships worth nurturing for a lifetime.