How to Let Go of Toxic Relationships and Cultivate Positive Connections

The relationships you cultivate have the power to shape your life, influencing your happiness, self-esteem, and emotional well-being. 

Yet toxic relationships can drain your energy, damage your self-confidence, and leave you feeling alone and unloved. And when you’re caught in this unhealthy dynamic, it can be difficult to find your way out. 

Whether it’s a romantic partner, a friend, or even a family member, recognizing when a relationship no longer serves you is a courageous first step. Then comes the work—letting go of that toxic relationship and reclaiming your peace and positivity. 

Let’s look at how you can release relationships that no longer serve you and instead welcome positive, healthy connections into your life. Because letting go of toxicity isn’t easy, but it opens the door to the joyful, fulfilling life you truly deserve.

Red Flags: Signs of a Toxic Relationship

Some relationships are so toxic that their damage is instantly recognizable. 

This includes any kind of abuse (mental or physical), infidelity, friends who spill your deepest secrets, family members who constantly bring up past mistakes, and similar actions. 

Unfortunately, other toxic relationships can be much more difficult to define. Sometimes, the signs are so subtle that you question whether you’ve misinterpreted them. Or the other person is such an expert at gaslighting/manipulation that they can convince you that you’re overreacting. 

While every toxic relationship is unique in its own, unhealthy way, they generally share some behavioral patterns that identify them. 

These are some of the most common signs of a toxic relationship. Keep in mind, your relationship doesn’t have to exhibit all of these signs, all of the time, to be toxic.  

• Belittling: When you’re in a toxic relationship, the other person will engage in behaviors designed to make you feel bad about yourself. This includes name-calling, sarcastic or passive-aggressive comments, “jokes” made at your expense, eye-rolling, and more. 
• Betrayal: This is one of the hallmarks of a toxic relationship, with intentional disloyalty or dishonesty. It can include behaviors such as lying, cheating, or excluding you. 
• Deflecting responsibility: When someone doesn’t want to take ownership of their toxic behavior, they’ll give you excuses for their actions. They might blame it on their upbringing, mental health issues, trauma from past relationships, drug/alcohol use, or other excuses. 
• Guilting: This is a form of manipulation where the other person blames their unhappiness on you. It’s designed to keep you under control by doing what they want, how they want, just to keep them happy.
• Intensity: Also known as love-bombing, this is when the other person is rushing the pace of your relationship with extreme feelings, constant contact, and lavish displays of attention. 
• Isolation: A toxic friend or partner will do their best to isolate you from your support system—friends and family—so that you rely on them more and more. 
• Manipulation: In a toxic relationship, the other person may try to influence the way you think, feel, or act. Manipulators often turn to toxic behaviors, such as the silent treatment, to control you.
• Possessiveness: A possessive person takes jealousy, a normal human emotion, to the next level by trying to control who you talk to or spend time with. A romantic partner may falsely accuse you of cheating; a possessive friend may get mad at you when you spend time with other friends. 
• Sabotage: By sabotaging you, the other person is purposely trying to ruin your personal or professional life. They may be revealing deeply held secrets, starting rumors about you, or taking credit for your work.
• Volatility: In a toxic relationship, you may feel like you’re walking on eggshells around the other person. Their unpredictable responses mean you never know what might set off their mood swings, anger, or other extreme reactions.

Still not sure if your relationship is toxic? 

Here are some questions to ask yourself. 

• How do I feel after spending time with this person? Am I happy, glowing, revitalized? Or do I feel drained and depleted?
• Am I the only one putting effort and energy into this relationship? Does the other person reciprocate?
• Do I look forward to spending time with this person? Or do I dread knowing that I’ll see them?

Tune into yourself. You may have gotten so used to pleasing the other person that you’ve been disregarding your true feelings. You may have gotten used to suppressing your true feelings. But if you’re being honest and realize that you’re in a toxic relationship, it’s time to release that connection. 

Let’s look at how you can move away from a toxic relationship.

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How to Let Go of a Toxic Relationship

The first step is the most difficult: making the decision to leave your toxic relationship.

But once you’ve made your choice, you’re now empowered to release an unhealthy connection and move on with your life. 

Ready to cut toxic ties? Here’s a roadmap to get you through the process so you can go back to a positive, fulfilling life.

Strengthen Yourself Resolve

The first step in letting go of a toxic relationship is recognizing—and acknowledging—its impact on your well-being. 

Be honest with yourself. Admit the pain, stress, or self-doubt that you’ve been experiencing. Take a closer look at how it has affected your physical and emotional health. You may feel hurt or angry—at both the other person and at yourself, for allowing a toxic relationship to continue. 

Try journaling, meditating, or speaking with a trusted confidante to help you process your feelings and strengthen your resolve to leave this relationship, once and for all. 

Set Your Boundaries

The next step in severing an unhealthy connection is to set your boundaries. Clearly define what you want next and what you will and won’t tolerate. 

With a romantic partner, you might choose to break up or divorce and remove that person from your life completely. When a family member is involved, it may be more complicated. You may decide that certain conversational topics are off the table and that you will leave any gathering that crosses that line. 

If a person consistently crosses your boundaries, you can set a clear rule such as, “I’m not comfortable with surprise visits; please call first.” You can also set boundaries on your time by refusing to answer late-night texts or only replying to work emails during office hours. 

Your boundaries are for you and you alone, to manage your responses and reactions. You can’t forbid someone from bringing up a taboo topic, but you can firmly communicate that you won’t engage in that conversation. Then follow through. 

Share Your Decision

Once you’re confident that you’ve become firm and unshakeable in your resolve, it’s time to share your decisions. Be prepared; the other person is likely to not take it well. 

When you’re with someone toxic—whether it’s a friend, family member, or romantic partner—they don’t want to lose you. They are happy being in control of you. They’ll do everything they can to reel you back in. They may make empty promises, try to convince you that you’re overreacting, argue with your version of events, or suddenly change their behavior to convince you to stay. 

Stay firm! Don’t fall for these classic gaslighting techniques. Use clear, respectful language to communicate your boundaries, allowing no space for further conversation. If you have to go as far as blocking them for your mental health, that’s okay, too.

And remember: your safety is a priority. If you have any doubts about how the other person will react, you don’t have to meet with them in person to talk about your relationship. You can communicate in whatever way—text, email, letter—makes you feel safe and comfortable. 

Practice Self-Love

Chances are, your self-esteem took a hit during your toxic relationship. Whether they belittled you to keep you under their control, made you feel as though your opinion didn’t matter, or simply left you with your faith in relationships destroyed, your confidence might be shaky right now. 

Lavish yourself with plenty of self-love while you’re healing, to help you get back to being “you” again. 

Self-love and self-care look different for everyone, but here are some ideas to get you started. 

• Spend time on your favorite hobbies. 
• Do something creative.
• Establish a healthy lifestyle: eat nutritious foods, exercise, and get plenty of sleep. 
• Spend time outdoors. 
• Take a social media detox.
• Practice gratitude. 
• Write yourself a love letter—it may sound silly, but you deserve to hear all your wonderful qualities! 

Give yourself permission to prioritize your mental and emotional health. 

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Rebuild Positive Connections

If you’ve been in a toxic relationship for a while, it’s possible that your other relationships are almost non-existent. 

As we mentioned earlier, one of the signs of being in a toxic relationship is isolation. The other person will separate you from your family, friends, and support system. This makes you easier to control, as you rely on them for emotional fulfillment. 

But now that you’ve removed yourself from that relationship, it’s time to fill that space with positive, healthy connections. Reach out to your family and friends. Plan time together, or call people who live further away. 

Note that there may be some hurt feelings when you first try to reconnect, especially if you ignored people in favor of your toxic connection. Be honest about the situation you were in, apologize, and make an extra effort to reconnect. 

Focus on communication, transparency, and reciprocity. Understanding the signs of a healthy relationship will help you build and nurture positive connections in the future, too. 

Regain Your Positivity

Now there’s just one thing left to do: reestablish a positive mindset! 

Many of the activities you practice for self-love will pull double-duty, adding joy to your life by raising your confidence and turning your focus to things you enjoy. For example, a regular gratitude practice will remind you of the good things in your life, while exercise can release the “feel-good” hormone, endorphins.

After a toxic relationship, you can also take a psychobiotic supplement to support your mental well-being. You’ve been on an emotional roller coaster; it’s time to end that ride! 

We love Just Calm for this. It contains nourishing B vitamins and beneficial bacteria specially chosen to support your mood and emotional health. With just one capsule per day, you’ll feel calm and cool, ready to get through your day in complete control of your emotions. 

It also helps balance your cortisol levels. This is the hormone your body releases when you’re feeling stressed—such as that “walking on eggshells” feeling that’s so common in toxic relationships. Just Calm, even encourages your emotional resilience, just what you need to stay firm in your boundaries! 

Final Thoughts

A toxic relationship can make you feel stressed or depressed, lower your self-esteem, and make you question your beliefs, choices, and values. Letting go of these unhealthy connections is a brave, life-changing act of self-love. And it creates space in your life for meaningful, empowering relationships that bring out the very best in you. 

Remember: you deserve love, respect, and positivity in all your connections.

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