Toxic Relationships: How to Heal the Hurt?

Marriage.com Editorial Team

Expertise: Relationship & Marriage Advice

The Marriage.com Editorial Team is a group of experienced relationship writers, experts, and mental health professionals. We provide practical and research-backed advice on relationships. Our content is thoroughly reviewed by experts to ensure that we offer high-quality and reliable relationship advice.

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Updated: 29 Dec, 2022

Table of Contents

Decide if it’s worth it — before pushing forward, honestly assess whether you can rebuild with care and consider all options with courage.
Find a marriage counselor — an objective professional can provide perspective, facilitate respectful dialogue, and give you practical tools to heal together.
Make time for your relationship — dedicate regular, focused time to grow your connection so you’re prepared to weather challenges and deepen intimacy.

When you enter into a romantic relationship with someone else, you likely envision everything working out for the best. You’ll undoubtedly want it to all go smoothly and have it work out for the best.

Some may want the fairytale wedding, others may just want a life partner to grow old with. No matter the intended outcome, though, no one anticipates or hopes for their relationship to turn toxic. Sadly, there are a fairly good amount of relationships that do take this nasty turn.

Can it be avoided? In many cases, yes it can. There are often signs that things are headed in the wrong direction, but as they say, “Love is blind.” It can become hard to distinguish between toxicity and healthy disagreements, and before you know it, you’re in a relationship that you never thought you’d be in.

If it gets to that point, and you still want to make it work with the person lying next to you every night, there are some steps that you can take to try and heal the hurt. Some of those solutions require assistance from outside individuals, others require doing the work within your own home.

The following advice can be used if you believe your relationship or marriage have become toxic over time. You may feel like there is no hope, but there is, if you’re willing to do the work.

Decide if it’s worth it

Some may see divorce as the last resort for their marriage; the emergency rip cord you pull if your relationship is plummeting to the ground without a chance of survival. Before you try to work on things and create a fresh start to your currently toxic relationship, take a moment and ask yourself, “Is this really worth it?”

If you and your spouse have got to the point where the love between you has officially died, then it may be best to just pack it up and move on. You only get one life to live, and it’s hard to justify living it with someone who makes every fiber of your being miserable. Consider all of the options, don’t just blindly go to work on a relationship that is destined to fail over and over again.

If you choose to stick it out and give each other another shot then…

Find a marriage counselor

One of the biggest reasons that relationships and marriages slip into toxicity is because the two parties are fighting with no referee. It’s just a constant back and forth between husband and wife with no one to step in and give some perspective.

A marriage counselor could (and should) be that person for you and your spouse.

At the very least, they will provide perspective on the situation and allow for you and your spouse to carry on constructive conversations to help heal the emotional wounds. You would be surprised at how much more respectful two people can be to each other if there’s an objective third party viewing the exchange.

Along with the counselor’s ability to be that objective party, they are professionals and are trained at cleaning up messes like the one you have made with your significant other. The best part about how they clean up the mess is that they don’t hold the broom or the mop. They give you the tools to clean up your mess on your own.

This must be the first step to recovering the romance in your relationship. Don’t skip past it and think you can navigate the turbulence on your own. Look one up before moving forward.

Make time for your relationship

The only way to get in good physical shape is to dedicate time and energy to exercise.

The only way to learn more information about a subject is to dedicate time and energy to reading a book, hearing a lecture, or watching a video about it.

In order to improve anything, you need to dedicate the time necessary to make it a consistent practice. Plan an hour or two to sit down and work with your partner as you both attempt to improve the quality of your relationship.

If you only choose to work on your issues when things “come up”, then you won’t be equipped to handle those mishaps. By setting aside time to do the important work on your relationship, you will be better prepared to handle any event that might derail your plans for transforming your marriage.

Practice patience. Give grace

If your relationship has reached a place of toxicity, there most likely won’t be a magical 180-degree turnaround.

It’s going to take time. It’s going to take patience.

You have to give yourself and your partner some grace and allow yourselves to grow from the wreckage of what your relationship has become. If you put a strict timetable on the healing or try to rush it, chances are you won’t give your relationship enough space to grow.

Without patience, your attempts to revive a love that was on the verge of death won’t do much at all.

Turning toxic relationships into healthy relationships

It’s not impossible to bring a relationship back from the brink of obscurity, but it will undoubtedly be a humbling experience if you choose to explore that route. If you and your partner are both committed to staying the course and sticking it out, then these steps will surely point you in the right direction. The path won’t be smooth, but if you keep working on it together, you can come out the other side.

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Marriage.com Editorial Team Relationship & Marriage Advice

The Marriage.com Editorial Team is a group of experienced relationship writers, experts, and mental health professionals. We provide practical and research-backed advice on relationships. Our content is thoroughly reviewed by experts... Read more to ensure that we offer high-quality and reliable relationship advice. Read less