Am I toxic? A 4-minute self-check of your relationship habits

“Am I toxic?” is a question many people ask when a relationship feels hard. This self-check turns it into a more useful question: which of your habits help your close relationships, and which may be hurting them?

The 12 questions are about the past three months with a partner, family members or close friends. Most of them describe habits that commonly wear down trust:

• going silent or ignoring someone instead of saying what is wrong;
• bringing up old mistakes, blaming others, or using guilt to get your way;
• checking someone's phone or whereabouts without their agreement, or getting angry when they spend time without you;
• put-downs, shouting, insults or threats;
• finding it hard to say sorry, or expecting others to guess what you need.

Two questions ask about habits that protect a relationship: listening fully, and accepting “no” without pressure. Relationships can sit anywhere on a spectrum from healthy to unhealthy to abusive, and healthy ones rest on communication, respect, trust and honesty¹.

Each answer scores from 0 (“Rarely or never”) to 3 (“Almost always”). Questions 11 and 12 describe helpful habits, so they are scored the other way round: “Almost always” scores 0 and “Rarely or never” scores 3. The total runs from 0 to 36, and a higher total means more of the habits that commonly hurt relationships.

If you say that arguments often include shouting, insults or threats, your result also shows a note about anger and safety, whatever your total. The anger self-check looks at this more closely.

The result never calls you a “toxic person”. It describes habits, because habits are what you can change.

Your result describes habits in your answers, not who you are. Everyone slips into some of these habits at times, especially when tired, stressed or hurt. What matters is how often they happen, and whether you repair things afterwards.

• Mostly respectful habits: you mostly handle conflict with respect. Keep noticing what helps you repair after hard days.
• Some habits worth working on: a few patterns, such as silence, blame or checking up, may slowly wear down trust. Small, steady changes make a real difference.
• Patterns that may be hurting your relationships: several habits that often cause hurt showed up. Noticing this takes courage, and these patterns can change with support.

Some habits, such as checking a partner's phone or pressuring someone after they have said no, are a form of control¹. If they came up in your answers, take them seriously.

When to talk to a professional. Talk to a qualified professional, such as a counsellor, a clinical psychologist or a BMDC-registered psychiatrist, if:

• arguments often turn into shouting, threats or pushing;
• jealousy or checking up feels out of your control;
• you have fixed suspicions about a partner that others can't share;
• anger comes with low mood, drinking or drug use.

Couples or family sessions can help when both people want to work on the relationship, and individual sessions help when you want to start on your own.

Some people take this self-check because they are being blamed, controlled or hurt, and they wonder whether it is their fault. This self-check looks at your own habits; it does not assess abuse. If you feel afraid of someone close to you, or someone hurts, threatens or controls you, it is not your fault.

Abuse is not only physical. It can also include threats, constant put-downs and cutting you off from family and friends².

You can use the “Quick exit” button at any time to leave this page at once. If you have hurt someone, or feel you might, please talk to a professional now.

Habits change through small steps, repeated often. Pick one or two to practise this month:

• Name the feeling instead of going silent. “I felt hurt when you said that” is easier to hear than silence or blame.
• Pause before you react. When you notice your voice rising or your body tensing, take a short break and come back when you are calmer. Breathing slowly or counting to ten can help anger settle³.
• Stay with the present. Talk about this disagreement, not old mistakes.
• Apologise for something specific. “I'm sorry I shouted at you” repairs more than a quick “sorry”.
• Listen fully before you answer, then check that you have understood.
• Respect privacy and “no”. Ask instead of checking a phone, and accept a no without pressure.
• Say what you need. Others cannot guess it.

If anger, drinking or low mood make these steps hard, that is a sign to get support, not a failure.

The team at Dr. MR Siddique Psychiatry Centre wrote this quiz to help people reflect on their relationship habits. It is not a test of whether you are a “toxic person”: no quiz can tell you that. It is not a validated test or a diagnosis, and it does not assess abuse. The questions are in our own words; they are not copied or translated from any published questionnaire.

The sources below explain healthy and unhealthy relationship habits, the signs of abuse and ways to manage anger. They are written for readers in the US and the UK, but the ideas apply everywhere.