Relationship Reality Check: A Diagnostic Guide

What this is: A three-part tool to help you understand what’s actually happening in your relationships—not what you hope is happening, not what you’re told is happening, but what the repeated patterns reveal.

Who this is for: Anyone who feels exhausted, confused, or stuck in a relationship (romantic, family, friendship, work) and wants clarity about whether they’re experiencing normal friction, healthy asymmetry, or something more concerning.

Important disclaimer: This is a self-reflection tool based on common patterns in relationships. It is not a substitute for professional therapy, safety planning, or clinical diagnosis. If you are experiencing abuse or feel unsafe, please contact a crisis hotline or trusted professional immediately (National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233).

Why this exists: Healthy relationships involve temporary asymmetry—parents invest in children, friends support each other through crises, mentors guide mentees. But some structures systematically extract resources while framing that extraction as moral obligation. This guide helps you distinguish productive difficulty from structural depletion.

How to use it:

Start with the Emotional Compass to check how things feel
If you get concerning signals, use the Structural Diagnostic to understand why
Track patterns over time with the Power Analysis Worksheet
If you feel triggered or overwhelmed as you go, pause and come back later—this is information, not a test you have to pass

Part 1: The Emotional Compass

Purpose: Notice how the relationship actually feels, not how it’s supposed to feel.

Ask yourself these seven questions. You don’t need all “yes” answers—but if most are “no,” pay attention.

1. Do you both pay attention to each other?

Good sign: You both listen, ask questions, and care about what’s going on in each other’s lives.

Warning sign: You’re always the one reaching out, remembering important details, or trying to connect. They barely respond or seem to notice.

2. Can you say “no” without consequences?

Good sign: You can set a boundary or ask for space without drama. Your “no” is respected.

Warning sign: You feel scared or guilty saying “no.” When you do, they get angry, cold, or make you pay for it later. Over time, you start saying “yes” to avoid the fallout, not because you actually agree.

3. Can you talk about real problems without things blowing up?

Good sign: You can share difficult feelings and work through them together. Conflict leads to understanding.

Warning sign: Every hard conversation turns into a fight, shaming, or silent treatment. You’ve learned to just not bring things up, and unspoken rules start to govern what is “allowed.”

4. Do they respect your point of view, even when it differs from theirs?

Good sign: You don’t have to agree on everything. Different perspectives are okay.

Warning sign: They always have to be right. Your opinions get dismissed, corrected, or treated as attacks.

5. When things go wrong, do they try to make it right?

Good sign: They admit mistakes, apologize genuinely, and care about how their actions affected you. Healthy accountability focuses on behavior (“When you forget to call, I feel…”), not on your worth as a person.

Warning sign: They pretend nothing happened, blame you instead, or make you comfort them about the harm they caused you.

6. Are they mostly honest and kind with you?

Good sign: You can trust what they say. They treat you with consistent care and respect.

Warning sign: There’s lying, guilt-tripping, or saying one thing while doing another. Kindness feels conditional or performative.

7. Does this relationship help you grow or feel more like yourself?

Good sign: You feel supported, seen, and stronger over time. You’re becoming more of who you are.

Warning sign: You feel smaller, stuck, consistently diminished, or like you’re always pretending to be what they need.

Additional gut-checks:

Do you feel better or worse after spending time with them?
Can you be yourself, or do you feel like you’re performing a role?
Do you feel like you’re auditioning for “good partner/child/friend” rather than just being a person with needs?
What would happen if you were completely honest with them?
Is it comfortable to be quiet together, or is there constant pressure to engage?
Do you trust them with your vulnerabilities, or have you learned to hide them?

What your answers mean:

Mostly good signs: This relationship has a healthy foundation. Keep investing in it.

Mixed signals: This is common. No relationship is perfect. Focus on whether things improve when named, or whether the same patterns repeat and intensify over time.

Mostly warning signs: Something significant is wrong. Move to Part 2 to understand what you’re dealing with.

Important: No single bad week or hard conversation qualifies as a pattern. Look for what repeats over months.

Part 2: The Structural Diagnostic

Purpose: Move from “how it feels” to “how it’s built.” Understand why things feel the way they do.

If the Emotional Compass flagged concerns, use these questions to see if you’re dealing with an extractive structure—where one person’s needs consistently take priority, often framed as shared moral duty or necessity.

1. Is the Performance Escalating?

In healthy relationships, things get easier and more natural over time. In extractive ones, it takes more and more performance—drama, speeches, and proof of commitment—to keep things stable.

The Check: Does it take more emotional intensity, more reassurance, more “sacred” language to maintain equilibrium than it did six months or a year ago? Pay attention not just to the size of gestures, but to how often you’re called on to “prove” yourself.

Example of escalation:

A year ago: Missing dinner meant “No problem, see you tomorrow.”
Now: Missing dinner triggers a two-hour conversation about commitment, what this relationship means, and whether you really care.

What healthy looks like: Rituals and expressions of care stay roughly stable. You don’t need constantly bigger gestures to prove the relationship is real.

Healthy escalation (temporary): During a major life crisis (new baby, illness, grief), more reassurance and intensity may be needed short-term, but it eases as the crisis resolves and reciprocity returns.

Warning sign (Theater Trap): You’re constantly told how “special” or “important” or “sacred” the connection is, even as you feel more exhausted and depleted. The “debt” is never paid—there’s always a new reason why you owe one more sacrifice.

2. Is the “Why” Always Your Fault?

When problems arise, notice how they’re explained.

Healthy framing:

“We have a communication problem.” (The issue is between you, in the relationship space)
“We’re both stressed—let’s figure this out together.”
“I contributed to this too. Here’s what I could do differently.”

Extractive framing:

“You aren’t being [generous/loyal/empathetic/committed] enough.” (The problem is your character)
“If you really cared, you wouldn’t make me feel this way.”
“I do so much for this [family/team/relationship], and you can’t even do this one thing.”

The Check: When conflicts happen, is the problem framed as something wrong with you or something wrong with us? Does growth mean you changing yourself, or both of you adapting together?

Warning sign: Every difficulty becomes evidence of your inadequacy, disloyalty, or failure to live up to shared values. You’re told you’re “selfish, ungrateful, broken” rather than hearing about specific behaviors that need adjustment.

3. What Is the Exit Friction?

A rope helps you climb—you can let go when you need to. A snare keeps you trapped—the harder you pull, the tighter it gets. Pay attention to whether leaving is treated as a sad possibility or as a moral crime.

The Check: Imagine stepping back, taking a break, or ending the relationship. What would be the cost?

Healthy friction:

“I’d be sad, but I understand.”
“Let’s talk about what’s not working and see if we can fix it.”
Practical concerns about logistics, shared commitments, or genuine loss.

Extractive friction (Moral Assassination):

“I thought you were a better person than this.”
“You’re abandoning everything we built.”
“After all I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me?”
“You’re betraying [the family/the mission/our values].”

Warning sign: Exit isn’t treated as a legitimate choice but as a moral failure. The cost isn’t just losing the relationship—it’s losing your identity as a good person. This often happens unconsciously, learned from systems that equate loyalty with worth.

4. Who Benefits from the Silence?

Healthy relationships can handle periods of low intensity. Extractive ones require constant maintenance to survive.

The Check: If you stopped performing—stopped reaching out, stopped doing the emotional labor, stopped acting engaged—what would happen?

Healthy pattern: The relationship continues with some adjustment. The other person notices and checks in with curiosity or care rather than panic. Things feel different but not destroyed.

Healthy variation: In secure attachments, temporary withdrawal (one partner needs space) leads to gentle check-ins, not collapse or crisis induction.

Extractive pattern: The relationship immediately starts to collapse. You get contacted with urgency, guilt, or crisis. When you go quiet or pull back, the response is panic, anger, or guilt trips aimed at getting you “back in line.” Often, an artificial crisis suddenly appears that requires your immediate return to the caregiver role.

Warning sign: You realize you’re the engine, not a passenger. The moment you stop, everything stops. All the talk of “mutual” benefit evaporates when you withdraw your labor.

5. Does “Potential” Mask the Reality of “Now”?

Extractive systems run on future promises. You’re asked to endure current costs because of the growth, reward, or transformation coming later.

The Check: Is the “good version” of this relationship always three to six months away?

Examples:

“Once I finish this [project/degree/transition], I’ll have more time for us.”
“We’re building something that will pay off eventually.”
“The hard part is temporary—stick with me and it’ll get better.”
“You’ll understand later why this sacrifice matters.”

Healthy pattern: Promises are generally kept. The “better later” actually arrives. Current difficulty is genuinely temporary and you see concrete progress.

Extractive pattern: The timeline keeps extending. The “later” never comes, or when it does, new reasons emerge for why you need to wait longer. The benefit flow has been one-way for an extended period.

Warning sign: When you try to discuss the current imbalance, you’re redirected to potential, to what this could become, to the vision rather than the reality.

Self-check: Ask yourself: If nothing changed from how it is right now, and it stayed like this for the next two years, would that be acceptable to me?

6. Where Does Your Energy Actually Go?

This is the reality check that cuts through all the narrative. Structural insight: You cannot be successfully gaslit while you’re looking at honest data about your own time and effort.

The Check: Make two lists:

What I Give:

Time (hours per week)
Emotional labor (managing their feelings, walking on eggshells, providing support)
Money or resources
Opportunities you’ve passed up
Parts of yourself you’ve suppressed
Things you do to keep the peace

What I Receive:

Actual support when you need it (not promises of support)
Reciprocal emotional care
Growth, joy, or strength
Freedom to be yourself
Practical help or resources
Genuine partnership in problem-solving
A sense of safety in your body (feeling calmer, not constantly braced)

Now compare: Over a six-month period, do these roughly balance? Or is one column much longer than the other?

Important note: If it feels “petty” or “selfish” to write down what you receive, notice that. Sometimes systems teach you that tracking your own needs is wrong precisely because it would reveal the imbalance.

Warning sign: You can easily list what you’ve sacrificed but struggle to name what you’ve gained that isn’t “potential,” “hope,” or “the feeling that I’m a good person for staying.”

Reading the Results

If you see…	You’re likely in…	What to do…
Occasional friction, stable care	A healthy relationship with normal challenges	Communication, patience, mutual adjustment
Clear extraction, minimal drama	Open selfishness or honest imbalance	Negotiation, boundaries, or acceptance of the trade
Escalating performance + ongoing imbalance	A degrading system moving toward extraction	Document the drift, make decision with clear eyes
High drama + high drain + moral lock	An extraction snare	Exposure and exit planning

Part 3: The Power Analysis Worksheet

Purpose: Track patterns over time so you’re making decisions based on data, not just feelings or isolated incidents.

How to use this:

Pick a timeframe (suggest 3-6 months)
Track weekly or bi-weekly
Be honest—no one else has to see this
Look for patterns, not perfection
You don’t have to fill in every line. Use what fits, ignore what doesn’t.

Weekly Tracking Sheet

Week of: ___________

Energy Out (What I Gave This Week)

Time:

Hours spent managing their emotions: _____
Hours spent on tasks primarily benefiting them: _____
Time I wanted for myself but gave to relationship maintenance: _____

Emotional Labor:

Times I suppressed my needs/feelings to keep peace: _____
Times I comforted them about problems they caused: _____
Times I performed happiness/enthusiasm I didn’t feel (to avoid conflict, disappointment, or guilt): _____

Concrete Resources:

Money spent primarily for their benefit: $_____
Opportunities I passed up to accommodate them: _____
Things I did that I didn’t want to do: _____

Self-Suppression:

Opinions I didn’t share: _____
Activities I avoided because they wouldn’t approve: _____
Parts of myself I hid: _____

Energy In (What I Received This Week)

Support:

Times they noticed I was struggling without me asking: _____
Times they adjusted their needs to accommodate mine: _____
Times they gave me space without making me feel guilty: _____

Reciprocal Care:

Times they did something thoughtful unprompted: _____
Times they listened without making it about them: _____
Times they handled their own emotional regulation (without making you responsible for their mood): _____

Freedom & Growth:

Times I felt I could be fully myself: _____
New things I learned or tried with their support: _____
Ways I felt stronger or more capable: _____

Practical Help:

Concrete actions they took to make my life easier: _____
Problems they solved without being asked: _____
Resources (time, money, effort) they contributed: _____

Monthly Review

After tracking for a month, look at the pattern:

Energy Flow:

Is the giving roughly balanced with receiving?
Is the imbalance temporary (acute stress period) or structural (always this way)?
Is the gap widening or narrowing over time?
Do I have a clear sense of why the imbalance exists right now (e.g., short-term crisis), or is the explanation always vague and shifting?

Performance Trend:

Is the amount of drama/intensity increasing, decreasing, or stable?
Do conflicts resolve faster or take longer than they used to?
Is more “proof of commitment” required than before?

Exit Friction:

When I’ve set small boundaries, what happened?
Am I more or less afraid to be honest than I was three months ago?
Has the cost of saying “no” increased or decreased?

Clarity Check:

Can I clearly articulate what I’m getting from this relationship beyond “potential”?
If a friend described this pattern to me, what would I tell them?
Am I making excuses for behavior I wouldn’t tolerate from anyone else?

Pattern Recognition

Healthy Pattern:

Some weeks you give more, some weeks you receive more
Over months, it roughly evens out
When you notice imbalance and mention it, adjustments happen
You can take breaks from intensity without crisis

Unbalanced / At-Risk Pattern:

You consistently give more than you receive
The gap is stable or widening
When you mention imbalance, you’re made to feel guilty for “keeping score”
Taking breaks from emotional labor creates immediate problems
The story is “we’re both trying,” but your numbers and your body say otherwise

Extraction Pattern:

Nearly all energy flows one direction
Your list of “what I receive” is mostly about future promises or how you feel about yourself for staying
The “performance” column is escalating
You feel trapped by identity/morality rather than circumstances
You’re more afraid of what leaving would “mean about you” than of the practical consequences

Optional Simple Scoring

Tally Energy Out vs. Energy In items. If Out consistently exceeds In by 2:1 or more over multiple months, and Performance Trend is rising, this suggests structural rather than situational imbalance.

Important Warnings: Read Before Making Decisions

This is a diagnostic tool, not a weapon

Don’t use this to:

Justify leaving every time things get hard
Avoid responsibility for your own behavior
Pathologize normal relationship asymmetry (parent-child, mentor-mentee, temporary crisis support)
Attack someone else’s character

Do use this to:

See patterns clearly
Distinguish temporary stress from structural extraction
Make informed decisions about what you can accept
Recognize when “trying harder” won’t fix a broken structure

Not all asymmetry is extraction

Healthy relationships involve times when one person gives more:

Parents invest heavily in children (with expectation of eventual independence, not permanent debt)
During illness, crisis, or major life transitions
In mentorship or teaching relationships (time-limited, with clear role definition)
When someone is building something that will eventually benefit everyone

The difference:

Healthy asymmetry: Temporary, role-appropriate, eventually reciprocated or released, doesn’t require identity suppression, and can be talked about openly without punishment. Often includes built-in endpoints or mutual benefit (mentorship ends with independence; parenting invests expecting eventual reciprocity/independence).
Extraction: Permanent, escalating, framed as moral obligation, maintained through guilt and identity threat.

Beware of using this against yourself

The biggest risk is using this framework to justify staying:

“Well, the performance is escalating, but that’s just because we’re going through a hard time”
“The exit friction is high because this relationship is so important”
“I’m not tracking the energy because that would mean I don’t trust them”

If you find yourself explaining why the warning signs don’t count, that’s information. If you notice yourself working hard to reinterpret red flags as “growth opportunities,” pause. That effort is part of the performance the structure asks of you.

The framework is meant to help you see clearly, not give you better reasons to stay in something that’s depleting you.

Beware of using this against other people

This guide describes patterns, not people. The same person can participate in healthy structures in some relationships and extractive structures in others. The question isn’t “are they a narcissist” but “is this particular relationship structured in a way that works for both of us, and if not, what am I willing to do about that?”

The Golden Rule of Exposure

Once you realize that the performance—the guilt, the mission language, the sacred framing—is serving your depletion rather than enabling genuine coordination, something shifts.

You stop debating whether you’re good enough, committed enough, or understanding enough.

You start asking whether this structure is worth the cost.

That clarity is the work. What you do with it depends on your values, your circumstances, and what alternatives exist. But at least you’re no longer fighting the wrong problem.

You don’t have to act on that clarity immediately. Seeing the pattern is already a major shift.

What To Do With What You Learn

If the Emotional Compass shows mostly green:

Keep investing. Maintain the relationship. Address small issues before they become big ones.

If the Structural Diagnostic shows temporary imbalance:

Have a direct conversation. Name the pattern. See if it shifts. Give it a defined timeframe (3 months) and check again.

If the Power Analysis shows structural extraction:

You have three options, and only you can choose:

1. Accept

Stay with clear eyes about what you’re choosing
Stop expecting it to change
Find what you need elsewhere
Set internal boundaries on what you’ll give
This can be a valid choice in some contexts (e.g., caring for an aging parent with limited capacity). Acceptance is not the same as denial.

2. Attempt Reform

Reduce your performance (stop proving, stop explaining)
Expose the extraction (name it directly)
Insist on measurable change in energy flow
Set a timeframe and stick to it
Document privately first—track responses to boundary-setting before major confrontations
Important: Reform requires joint participation. If you’re the only one trying to reform the structure, you’re still doing it alone.

3. Exit

Plan carefully if there’s practical entanglement
Often, systems like this respond to loss of supply with moral condemnation. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong; it means the structure is defending itself.
Build support outside the relationship first
Remember that guilt is the enforcement mechanism, not evidence you’re wrong

The hardest truth:

You cannot fix an extractive structure by being better at being extracted from.

More communication won’t work if the problem isn’t misunderstanding. More empathy won’t work if the issue is that your empathy is being exploited. More commitment won’t work if your commitment is what’s being consumed.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do—for yourself and even for the other person—is to stop participating in a structure that requires your depletion to function.

Final Thoughts

This isn’t about finding perfect relationships. Those don’t exist.

This is about recognizing when difficulty is productive (helping you both grow) versus when it’s extractive (depleting you to maintain someone else or a structure that only really works for someone else).

This is about trusting yourself to see what’s actually happening, even when the story being told is beautiful.

This is about choosing consciously what costs you’re willing to pay and what you deserve to receive in return.

If effort increases while benefit doesn’t, something structural is happening. Intensity is not intimacy if it doesn’t reduce future strain.

No relationship is perfect. But you deserve ones where:

Your voice matters
Your space is respected
Your growth is supported
Your “no” is honored
Your giving is met with genuine reciprocity rather than escalating demands on your identity

If this guide helped you see something you couldn’t see before, trust that clarity. It’s telling you something important.

Focus on the architecture, not the diagnosis. Change what you can change. Leave what you can’t. Choose what you’re willing to accept.

That’s enough.

If you found this helpful, share it with someone who might need it. If it made you uncomfortable, that discomfort might be important information.

P.S.: This is an expansion on earlier version, the Relationship Checklist.