Your partner snapped at you recently over something tiny, and now you can’t stop wondering what’s going on.
It’s not like they’ve never been like this before – everyone gets grumpy and short-tempered occasionally, after a bad day, or a nightmare night’s sleep, or a headache that’s made them irritable all week.
It’s completely understandable – in fact, it’s perfectly normal, and as the experts at marriage.com often note, occasional moodiness is a part of every relationship.
But sometimes these ‘bad days’ can turn into a pattern; something that crops up again and again, until they’re no longer isolated incidents. Recognizing the difference between a relationship red flag and a bad day requires tuning in to exactly what your inner voice has been trying to tell you.
What Is a Relationship Red Flag vs. A Bad Day?
A bad day is a day that comes to an end, leaving you tired, cranky, or stressed. It is a day that by morning will already feel like yesterday. Whereas red flags in a relationship are events that contribute to your feelings towards your relationship.
A day of bad events that occurs in your relationship is typically a bad day. However, when the events seem to be recurring, it is a red flag in your relationship, and the first thing to do is to differentiate between the two.
Relationship Red Flag or Just a Bad Day? 7 Ways to Tell
You might think that it is your day, and people can be rude sometimes, but there are quite a number of signs that you will be able to determine that it is not just the day of your colleague or friend, and if they are worth talking about.
Here are 7 ways to see what is going on.
1. It happens once, not on repeat
Most of the time, one-off bad actions don’t say much. They could have had an easy, understandable explanation. Perhaps they were having a bad day, or they simply forgot – it happens to all of us. It’s the same behavior repeated time and time again that should concern you.
If your loved one is treating you badly more than once, there’s clearly something going on that they need to address. One incident may well be written off as a one-off, but a series of them speaks volumes.
2. There’s a valid explanation for the behavior
When someone has a bad day, more often than not, there is a legitimate reason for it. Your loved one could be tired, stressed out at work, or having a generally bad day – things happen. The important thing is to consider the circumstances.
If you feel that the behavior is out of character for your partner, it’s most likely not something you should take personally. On the other hand, if you can’t think of a reasonable explanation for their actions, it might be something you ought to look into – uncomfortable as the truth may be.
3. They apologize, and things actually change
A really bad day often ends in an apology and actual improvement. They were rude to you, and they admitted it and then acted differently afterward; that is accountability.
Accountability is important because when they apologize, it should be followed up by changed behavior. If it is not followed up by changed behavior, it is no longer a simple bad day; it is something more, which means you need to name it for what it is to yourself.
4. Your gut feeling is still uneasy long afterward
Your logic may tell you that there was nothing to be concerned about, but your gut feeling disagrees with you, and it should. This means that you are feeling tense or on edge long after the bad day has already passed. This can even happen hours or days later.
It is important to listen to that feeling for a reason, because a true bad day often ends when the tension is released, but a relationship issue will leave you feeling uneasy about the situation, even if you can not place why.
5. Your needs feel dismissed, not just missed
There’s a difference between forgetting something important and completely dismissing it – and it’s the difference between bad days and concerning patterns.
Bad days lead to mistakes and miscommunications – nothing more. There are patterns if you feel ignored and dismissed, even if your words are carefully chosen every time, again and again.
6. The behavior undermines your sense of self-worth or safety
Something that happens or has happened in toxic relationships is something along the lines of “eroding the sense of self.” It can be done in little ways or blatant ways, and it might not be noticeable right away or for a while.
If someone is making you feel, or think, like you are less worthy, confident, safe, etc. than what you are used to or what you consider part of you, then that is definitely something to think about.
Someone rarely does that to another person for no reason, or they are toxic and want to manipulate you in some way.
7. Friends or family have mentioned their concerns
As I touched on a little bit earlier, love can make people a little blind or crazy. If friends or family members notice what is going on and they speak up about it, then that is something you should seriously consider.
This is another thing where people can have conflicting opinions or ideas about what is really going on.
I am not saying that just because people are saying things that you should believe them over what is really happening, but if most people are saying the same things, then it is definitely something to think about.
Can a Bad Day Turn Into a Relationship Red Flag?
Yes, and that is the thing, as one hard day does not make one’s relationship doomed, it may be stress, fatigue, and so on, which a person is entitled to have.
However, if the “bad day” begins to repeat, and a person can look back and realize that there has been a series of such days, then they should begin to reevaluate the relationship.
Often, the bad days start affecting the relationship more than positively, which is evident when one begins to rationalize more than one is willing to initially accept.
Therefore, a relationship red flag may present itself in the form of a day that was bad, but it never resolved and became an everyday occurrence. And so, a person should ask themselves, does the bad day remain an exception, or is it now an everyday occurrence?
Trust the Pattern, Not the Moment
In the end, the answer is rarely complex. A bad day ends, it is forgiven, and forgotten. A bad sign in a relationship lingers, it resurfaces and grows, and your perception of it shifts to make room for a new reality. Trust in patterns, and trust your instincts.
Your instincts will rarely lead you astray. They are your subconscious mind telling you to be wary. You don’t always have to be right away; you just have to notice as time goes on.
You must ask yourself the hard questions and hold on to your answers as if they are the last things standing between you and a brighter future.
