15 Sure Signs of a Toxic Girlfriend

Most times men stick to toxic girlfriends because they don’t understand what they’re dealing with.

Even if the girl is obviously causing them emotional turmoil, they’ll choose to hold on to the relationship because all they can see is her beauty and her body dimensions. And this ignorance has led to a lot of emotional and psychological turmoil among a lot of guys.

Being in a toxic relationship is no joke. If you stay in one for too long, it can cause major damage to you. If you don’t understand the signs, a toxic girlfriend could even make you feel you’re the one who has the problem.

The worst part is that most toxic girlfriends won’t realize that they’re toxic. This is why you must understand the signs so that you can get yourself out of a toxic relationship before you get too deep into the rabbit hole.

That said, here are 15 signs you may be dealing with a toxic girlfriend.

1. She uses you for your money

It’s sad how many times I’ve come across guys who have girlfriends that are dating them because of their money. The crazy thing is that these types of relationships are often obvious to everyone else except the guy.

You see how she comes around and becomes extra nice when the guy has a little money to spoil her. But once she needs something and he can’t provide, she suddenly becomes cold and edgy, comparing him to his other friends who are doing better.

The best way to spot a girl who is using you for your money is by how entitled she feels to the things you do for you. Sometimes she might even forget to say thank you because she doesn’t feel what you did was big enough.

A woman who isn’t after your money will not be entitled to anything you own. She’ll be grateful for everything you do for her, and she’ll also find ways to reciprocate in her own way.

When she acts like she doesn’t care where your money comes from, or if you run dry attending to her insatiable spending appetite, it doesn’t matter what she tells you in her desperate times, she’s toxic and she doesn’t love you.

2. Guilt trips you (out of habit) just to make you feel bad

For instance, when she asks you for a favor and you refuse to do it, she might give you a response like, “That’s right. I know I’m never good enough for you to buy something that expensive,” even if she knows that you might not be financially capable of doing that thing at that time.

Or, you might have planned to have dinner together and at the last minute, a family emergency came up that you had to attend to. But instead of her making sure she understands the gravity of what has happened with your family, she said,

“After all I’ve done for you in this relationship you can’t even give me an hour of your day.”

Guilt-tripping statements are often unnecessary responses aimed at making you feel bad while putting her in a good light.

And whenever it happens, you’ll most likely have to apologize or please her in some way to be able to make things right again. Even though in the real sense, you never did anything wrong.

If your girlfriend has a habit of pulling stunts like this frequently, it’s toxic. And it might make you feel exhausted always having to apologize for doing nothing wrong. She might be finding pleasure in making you feel bad while making herself look like the better one among you two.

3. She plays mind games

She’ll intentionally hang out with male friends without you. But she’ll tell you about it and make you understand it’s just a casual outing. But she’ll post pictures and rant about how great of a time she had with them.

She might try to make you feel jealous by intentionally complimenting certain qualities in other guys that you don’t have.

Sometimes she might ignore your call or intentionally take a long time to reply to your texts.

These tactics are all designed to get into your head and make you feel smaller. And the goal is to make her have the upper hand over you. It’s a sign of underlying insecurity.

She does these things to feel in control. Making you feel insecure about your place in her life by praising other guys is her way of making you compete for her attention.

Ignoring your calls makes her feel she’s the bigger one in the relationship, giving you her attention when she pleases. These are all tactics toxic people use, including guys.

4. Her life revolves around the relationship

She doesn’t have a life outside the relationship. All the time, she wants to talk about love, she wants to see you, she wants to know what you’re up to, and who you’re with.

She’ll tend to get overly concerned about everything you say and do. Even the most harmless jokes can suddenly get heated because she’s so apprehensive about the relationship that she holds onto everything you say.

Her constant need for your attention is going to make you feel suffocated.

Every relationship needs a certain level of space to thrive.

This is why you need to have a life outside your relationship. Have meaningful goals you’re passionate about reaching. This will also make your time with your partner richer as you’ll have more meaningful things to discuss.

When all your life revolves around your relationship, things will get boring much faster.

Interesting: 5 Surefire Signs A Girl Is Just Using You

5. Jealous and possessive

A little dose of jealousy is cool. But what’s not cool is punishing your partner for being attractive.

A toxic girlfriend can get suddenly edgy and passive-aggressive whenever another girl merely smiles at you. And what’s worse is that she won’t come clean about what’s really making her feel hot-headed all of a sudden.

Instead, she’ll blame her jealousy on other things, confuse you, and make you apologize for nothing. And the next time you say hi to one of your beautiful friends again, the pattern will repeat itself.

The tendency to be jealous and overly possessive is rooted in an underlying insecurity.

On the inside, jealous and possessive partners are insecure about their place in your life. And whenever they see you with another girl, their insecurity is heightened. And they respond to it by losing control of themselves and projecting their insecurity on you.

6. She can’t handle being wrong

Anyone in a serious relationship understands how frustrating arguments can be. But it’s even more frustrating with someone who isn’t listening because they can’t handle being wrong.

Having a partner who always pushes the blame on you can be emotionally draining and overwhelming. It means he or she will never acknowledge when they hurt you.

Instead of listening to you and understanding your pain or your perspective, they’ll blow it away and even bring up a counterargument of their own.

Having a partner who has a habit of being constantly insensitive and dismissive of their faults is one of the most toxic things. You’ll feel betrayed and be unable to sleep properly.

We all need a partner who can listen to us even when we have something to say that they may not like. We need someone humble enough to listen and acknowledge our story and our pain, even when they think it’s not their fault.

7. She’s a master at passive-aggression

Whenever she has a problem with you, she doesn’t know how to come clean about it and discuss it like a mature person. Instead, she’ll deal with it with mood swings.

She’ll suddenly become cold and distant, leaving you confused about what’s happening.

Passive aggression often happens because of these three reasons:

First, she has a problem with you, but she expects you to figure it out by yourself and apologize.

Secondly, she has a problem with you, but she’s ashamed to talk about it. For instance, feels jealous about the chemistry you had with an old friend you guys came across. But instead of her talking about it, she bottles it up and decides to punish you with cold treatment.

Thirdly, she just isn’t emotionally mature enough to confront you like a mature person.

There’ll be passive aggression once in a while in every relationship. Sometimes your partner will do things that just make you impulsively lash out at them. However, these moments should be occasional.

When being passive-aggressive becomes a person’s way of silently punishing their partners for something they’re not aware of, it’s highly toxic.

Also read: 6 Signs Of A Toxic Friendship You Shouldn’t Ignore

8. She wants you to fix her

This is the girl who goes into a relationship because she needs someone to complete her.

When she’s having a bad day, for instance, she’ll call you to cheer her up, not minding how your own day is going. And if you fail to make her feel good, she might lash out at you.

A girl that needs you to fix her will frustrate you. She’ll project her insecurities on you and make it seem like you’re incapable of taking care of her needs. But in reality, she’s just a fragile and insecure girl who can’t take care of her insecurities on her own.

9. She’s manipulative

For instance, she might be inconsistent with the way she treats you. One moment she’s loving and caring, the other moment, she’s distant and cold as stone. And she’s fully aware of the impact her inconsistency is having on you. But she couldn’t care less.

Even when you ask for an explanation for her erratic behavior, she might behave like it isn’t happening. She’s breadcrumbing you, making you live for those short-lived moments when she’s in the mood to love you.

If you notice this pattern of behavior with your girlfriend — or boyfriend — you’re being manipulated.

10. She blames you for everything

She may not directly tell you it’s your fault that the relationship isn’t working, but she’ll stylishly insinuate it in a way that makes you unable to come directly at her and defend yourself.

For instance, if you both worked on a project together and things go wrong, she might find one aspect that you were responsible for and subtly insinuate that you may have done something wrong there.

If you’re constantly having arguments, she’ll blame you for being unable to listen, when in reality, the both of you have been yelling at each other, maybe she even started it.

It’s emotionally draining for your partner to blame you for everything. We all like to be given the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong. If your partner always shields herself from all the blame at your expense, that’s highly toxic behavior.

11. She’s a sadist

Sadists are emotionally draining. They tend to see the negative side of everything, they’re usually down, and it’s difficult to not let their constant negativity rub off on you.

If your girlfriend is a sadist, she’ll tend to see everything through a negative lens. For instance, if someone was staring at both of you while you were taking a walk together, she might interpret it as the person mocking her, when in reality, it was just a harmless stare.

You might give her a compliment about her looks and she’ll see it in a negative light, saying you’re just trying to cheer her up because you think she’s miserable.

We’ve all come across sadists. And even if you’re not dating them, they can have a profound effect on your mood when you’re with them.

12. She doesn’t respect your boundaries

For instance, she might feel she’s entitled to get sex from you whenever she wants. Even when you’re not in the mood, she’ll try to push herself on you.

Or, you tell her you don’t have enough funds to afford what she’s asking for, but she looks for your credit card and uses it regardless.

The crazy thing about boundary violations is that they often get worse over time. If you keep letting her get away with it, she’ll keep pushing.

Someone who continuously disregards your boundaries doesn’t respect or care about you. They only care about what they want and have no regard for how it impacts you. That’s toxic.

13. She’s clingy

Clinginess can seem cute at first. The whole process of craving time with you and staying in touch through text whenever she’s not with you physically might seem like fun in the beginning.

But with time, it can get suffocating when your partner’s life revolves around you.

Clinginess is often born out of insecurity. She might feel she isn’t good enough to keep you interested in her. Hence, she’s always anxious when she’s not with you, wondering who you’re with and what you could be doing.

14. She gaslights you

Gaslighting has long been one of the most frequent topics that come up when we talk about toxic behaviors in relationships. And for good reasons.

It is one of the most dangerous types of psychological manipulation. It can make you question your own sanity. And it doesn’t happen by chance. A partner that gaslights you frequently is deliberately trying to manipulate you.

If you don’t know, gaslighting is when your partner makes you question your own sanity by dismissing that something that happened — or is happening — never happened or isn’t happening.

For instance, you catch her flirting with another dude. It was obvious. But when you confront her about it, she tells you to “calm down, you didn’t know what you saw. You’re just being insecure.”

That’s gaslighting right there. And when your partner keeps doing this to every issue that you raise, you better find the next exit before you lose your mind.

15. Stonewalling is a habit

When stonewalling becomes a habit your partner uses to cope with difficult conversations, it can be extremely frustrating.

A major sign of stonewalling is your partner ignoring or dismissing what you’re saying. It’s like passive aggression and silent treatment combined.

You both know that there’s something wrong that needs to be talked about. But when you bring it up, she either doesn’t say anything, changes the subject, stumps off, or totally dismisses that anything wrong is going on.

When she has this habit, any conflict between the two of you will always linger longer than necessary. And this can build up resentment that will eventually ruin the relationship.

Final words

Sometimes we see these signs and we ignore them because we don’t realize what’s going on underneath. And this has caused a lot of psychological and emotional turmoil to a lot of people — men and women.

Though seeing these signs just once may not mean anything serious, seeing a cluster of any of them frequently is a huge red flag. Don’t let your mental health deteriorate before quitting a toxic relationship.