Can love be toxic?

When we think of love being toxic, we only think of visibly abusive relationships that either involve domestic violence, infidelity and so on. But there are several types of toxic love that go unseen, even by those in it, which are far more dangerous. It erodes us from within, and before we know it, we will merely exist as a hollow shell of ourselves - devoid of self-esteem, autonomy and the ability to trust anyone, including ourselves.

Like autodrivers say - Love in poison, beware!!!

A friend, who’d had an arranged marriage, got divorced a few years ago. Her ex-husband would stalk her, check her phone when she wasn’t around and insist on accompanying her everywhere. At first, she didn’t think much of him wanting to spend all his time with her, because she assumed it’s the “honeymoon” phase of their marriage.

But over time, she began to realise that the boundaries between them had blurred beyond her level of comfort. He started passive aggressively punishing her for talking to her male friends. She also learnt that he had lied about his profession, and he was deeply insecure about her earning more than him. She tried really hard to put up with it since she was worried that getting divorced would affect the chances of her young sister getting married.

It is really disheartening to see unsuspecting people fall prey to such toxic relationships. One may argue that she must have stopped talking to all men at all costs once she got married or quit her job to soothe her husband’s ego, but would that have been enough? And that too, for what benefit? While I am a big proponent of resilience in marriage, I am very clear that commitment is not the same thing as control.

Some people exercise control over their partners in less obvious ways, and do so gradually over very many years, in a way that you don’t even realise unless its too late. This doesn’t always happen because the “controlling” spouse is evil, sometimes it happens because the “controlled” spouse just has poor boundaries.

But why do these toxic behaviours even exist? Why do people feel the need to control or be controlled in ways that seem to hide under the guise of care, love, or concern?

Sometimes it’s the result of insecurities—perhaps not just from the controlling partner, but from the one being controlled, too. We often seek validation, approval, and a sense of belonging, and sometimes, love gets confused with ownership.

There’s a fine line between wanting to spend time with our partner and insisting on being the only person they can rely on. There's a difference between caring about someone’s well-being and trying to manage every aspect of their life to ensure our comfort.

These blurred lines can make it difficult to see what is healthy and what isn’t, especially when we’re in the midst of it. Is it possible to detect toxicity when it’s creeping in, disguised as "care" or "concern"? Often, it’s not so much about the words or the obvious actions but about how we feel. Do we feel stifled or suffocated, or are our needs and desires consistently minimised?

When we’re in it, it can be hard to recognise, especially if we’re in a culture that emphasises duty and self-sacrifice over individual agency. So often, we tell ourselves it’s “just a phase,” or “things will get better,” or “I just need to adjust.” And in adjusting, we slowly lose ourselves until we no longer recognise ourselves.

The initial days of dating my now husband was similarly confusing. He wanted to spend all his waking and non-working hours with me - having just graduated from college, I still enjoyed hanging out with friends over the weekends and hence, struggled to make the transition. Naturally, our courtship escalated from feeling romantic to suffocating within weeks.

When I expressed discomfort, everyone around me, including my parents told me that it was a phase, and that things would get better when he recovers from the loss of his parents. I believed it, although I didn’t want to.

But, it indeed turned out to a phase, albeit a really long one. It wasn’t just time that helped us get untangled, it was a long journey with growing pains of building and respecting our own boundaries, and each others’. And having children really makes you see the value of alone time. Lol.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of these covert toxic behaviors is that they are normalized, even justified. How many times have we heard people say, “Oh he just loves me too much” or “She’s just protective because she cares”? These explanations can make it difficult to identify that something is amiss.

After all, if love is about care, then surely anything done out of love must be acceptable, right? But love that stifles growth, that forces conformity, that makes us second-guess our own desires, isn’t love at all—it’s fear masked as affection.

And even if we do see the signs, how do we confront them? If we realize that we’ve been slowly drained by a relationship that was supposed to uplift us, where do we even begin? Recognizing toxicity isn’t always followed by an immediate solution. In many cases, it can take years to disentangle ourselves from the web of emotional manipulation or control, and even longer to reclaim our sense of self.

We may ask ourselves - is it too late to fix things? Or has the damage been done, both to our identity and our relationship?

And let’s not forget the complicated web of external expectations. In many cultures, especially in India, marriage or relationships are viewed as a kind of achievement or validation, a marker of success. We’d much rather be married to a billionaire while suffering from emotional disconnection and depression than be happy, while single.

And I’ve seen this happen with a lot of people. There is no judgement here at all, but it is interesting to see how society shapes our choices, and holds and veto power to our personal happiness.

For those within toxic relationships, walking away may seem like losing that status or facing public judgment. There’s a constant internal tug-of-war - the desire for personal freedom and self-actualization versus the fear of letting down others, or of not measuring up to societal norms. The guilt that comes from wanting to leave, not just for ourselves, but for what others might think, can be a powerful force that makes it hard to even contemplate a way out.

The pressure to stay in a toxic relationship can feel like trying to stop watching House of Cards after Season 4 because it’s no longer fun, but now we’re stuck binge-watching rest of the show because we’re too deep in the plot to leave.

But then, what happens if we don’t detect the toxicity? What if we stay, afraid of the unknown or too entrenched in the familiar? Over time, the emotional cost can become too high to ignore. We might wake up one day and realise that our energy, our sense of joy, and our dreams have all been siphoned away, bit by bit.

In the process, we may have forgotten what it feels like to be truly free—to pursue our own passions, to make decisions that align with our own needs. The sadness that comes from this kind of loss is not always visible. It’s subtle and often masked by the day-to-day ‘busy’ness of life. But beneath it, there’s a quiet aching, a longing for something more, something real.

So, how do we begin to untangle ourselves from such dynamics?

Maybe the first step is acknowledging that we deserve more — more space, more autonomy, more love, more understanding of ourselves and the world around us. It’s not about making grand gestures or rash decisions; it’s about small, everyday acts of reclaiming who we are.

It’s about understanding that love doesn’t require sacrifice of self, and that control, covert or otherwise can never be justified as care. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s about learning to ask questions about what we need, what we deserve and how we can reclaim that.

Now, I’m not suggesting that we should ask ourselves these questions every day, starting from day one—that would be insane. Plus, let’s be real, sometimes the problem isn’t our partner, it could be us struggling with commitment issues.

In the end, we might not have all the answers, but asking the right questions is a necessary first step. It’s about gradually stepping out of the fog, finding clarity, and recognizing that love should nourish us, not deplete us.

And once we see things clearly, we can begin to reclaim our sense of self, set healthier boundaries, and choose relationships that help us grow rather than hold us back. Because true love doesn’t demand the sacrifice of who we are—it supports us in becoming the best version of ourselves.