Basic Adjectives to Describe Toxic Relationships

Good relationships provide mutual love and respect but don’t happen overnight. It takes a willingness to share ideas on how to improve the relationship. Relationships require compromise, communication, respect, and patience.

Describing a toxic relationship can be tricky – almost impossible. A proper description of relationships will explain all the nuances to enable you to gain clarity. There are some descriptive adjectives you can use to explain toxic romantic relationships.

Using the proper adjectives to describe relationships will help you maximize your chance of gaining the insight you need to move on.

We created this article to help you achieve that. You will learn various adjectives to describe your current state with your parents or lover and better understand the nature of relationships.

man and woman holding hands
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

7 Bad Adjectives to Describe Relationships With Parents

The words one should use to describe their relationship with their parents are nuanced and subjective. So, there’s no point in throwing around a list of nouns and adjectives to describe a relationship that’s difficult for you.

Instead, this guide will focus on common words that people often use to describe those with toxic parents. Let’s get started!

1. Arduous

Use the adjective challenging to describe an intellectually and physically tasking relationship. A problematic relationship demands great effort with little result and is exhausting.

2. Distant

A poor relationship doesn’t necessarily involve constant arguing and fighting. It can indicate little to no communication and a lack of intimacy. This would suggest that you are in a remote relationship.

3. Difficult

A negative connection with your parents is difficult if you cannot seem to understand one another. In other words, it feels like you are talking to a brick wall and unable to communicate with them.

4. Estranged

If you don’t talk to your parents often or don’t talk to them at all, you are estranged from them. You can use the term when you separate yourself from your parents, or they disown you.

5. Hostile

Parent-child interactions become hostile when one side verbally or physically abuses the other. Your relationship is hostile if you are constantly at odds with your parents and cannot reach an agreement.

6. Pernicious

Pernicious can describe a connection when the parent causes the child harm gradually/subtly in some way. This could be by destroying their self-confidence, failing to meet necessities, or even overfeeding. While it may not be intentional, it does result in a pernicious relationship.

7. Strained

A connection is strained if it is continually challenged or yields quickly to pressure. It will appear like something is always preventing you from living in harmony.

6 Words to Describe a Bad Relationship With Your Lover

Infidelity, financial difficulties, ideological differences, and so on are just a few of the many potential causes of a bad romantic relationship.

You and your partner are the most excellent judges of your relationship and should choose the appropriate descriptor. If you’re in a toxic relationship with your lover, consider these seven words:

1. Complicated

Use the phrase “complicated” to express that your romantic relationship is intricate and complicated for anybody to comprehend fully. This may indicate that private difficulties are putting stress on your relationship that you have yet to resolve.

2. Failed

A relationship that has totally broken down and is only moving towards a split is a failed relationship. It’s a sign that both parties have finally given up on the relationship.

3. Fragile

When people in a relationship are worried about damaging it, they tend to treat each other as “fragile.” A fragile relationship is not strong emotionally and, therefore, very vulnerable to the burdens of life.

4. Problematic

A problematic relationship with a lover can be excruciatingly stressful. For example, if you’re in a relationship with someone who causes you to rack up a lot of debt, you’re in a problematic relationship.

5. Unstable

There are ups and downs in any relationship. But, if the downs outweigh the ups, you may say that your connection is unstable. This means that there is no equilibrium between you, and you cannot function as a unit.

6. Uphill

Some people think that an uphill relationship is the same as a downhill relationship since they both tend to end in disaster. This indicates that no matter how hard you try to make the relationship work, it never seems enough. It is a situation where it is difficult to accomplish anything together.

Final Words

One, two or three adjectives to describe relationships make those involved suddenly see how toxic they have become. Learning to name the problems and admitting them to others in a more abstract, not-personal way is essential in helping to diffuse any issue.

Because of how fleeting life is, it’s important to treasure the positive influences in your life and avoid the toxic ones. Hopefully, this article will help in that regard.

Abir is a data analyst and researcher. Among her interests are artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. As a humanitarian and educator, she actively supports women in tech and promotes diversity.

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