Signs Of A Toxic Relationship

Watch the episode here:

• There are many types of toxic behaviors
• Toxicity can be subtle
• What character assassination is
• Jokes should not be attacks
• How you deal with jealousy, don’t attack them
• How it’s okay to always talk and ask questions

Hey, what’s shakin’? Hey, I’m Rick Jordan. Today, we’re going all in. Are you in a toxic relationship? Maybe you’ve been asking yourself this question here and there. And you’re just not sure because you’re trying to figure this out, right? But it’s hard, it’s very difficult to try to figure this out when you’re actually in it. Because you don’t necessarily have that perception that’s unbiased, right? Because it literally has to do with you, it’s almost like you have an inherent conflict of interest that you’ve created. It’s kind of crazy. It’s a paradoxical situation. And that sucks I feel for you, because it’s difficult to tell these things when you’re in the middle of it. So today, I’m going to give you the signs of a toxic relationship. And you can take these for what they are because I was reading an article around this, I jotted down some notes on my thoughts, you know, based upon this thing, and I want to share them with you because it was pretty interesting. Because a lot of people will think of like toxicity as somebody who’s constantly verbally abusing, right, or maybe physically abusing or, you know, things that are like the most obvious things that individuals will think about when it comes to oh, that person’s toxic. But sometimes they’re a lot more subtle. And that’s some of the things we’re going to talk about today toxicity isn’t necessarily about the things that are just right smack there in your face. 

They can be little things over time that just gradually chip away at the very fabric and being of your soul. It’s like dying a slow death. Jeez, Rick, we’re starting out on a super like low note today, you know, what’s with a high note is going to be this because when this episode is done, after you’ve heard all these things, you’ll be able to assess right now where you’re at in whatever relationship you’re in, if it’s toxic or not. So let’s go through these. The first one is subtle character assassination. You know, this is when someone assassinates your character. And it isn’t always obvious. That’s what I’m saying. This is a little more subtle, like, and the thing is, that’s really interesting about this one is that that person can do it to you. Or maybe you can do it to somebody else. Without any bad intentions, right? Maybe it’s just kind of how they’ve become because they’ve got a bunch of crap they’re dealing with it doesn’t mean it’s right. They might not hate us for the delay. Well, I didn’t intend to do that, while you still did it. 

You know, let’s just speak fast, you might not have intended to do it. But the fact is, is that you still did it. So just because somebody didn’t have bad intentions for something, it doesn’t take away from the fact and truth of what they’re still doing. Alright, so they might not realize this, you know, this is any dialogue or behavior. So it’s like anything they speak or any action, whether it’s intended or not, that takes away from your worth. That’s character assassination. So this could be little things, you know, like, oh, well, yeah, well, this person did it better, or will I did better, like you, Oh, you, you know, you did good for a woman, or you know, what you did well for your first time doing it. Right, all of those things. Those little things are subtle, but those are character assassinations, those are direct attacks, on your worth as a human being. So when you hear those kinds of things, just start to take note of these and recognize them because I’m trying to give you signs today of things that might not be good for you to be around. 

Now, I’m not saying that this is something that as we go through these, I need to make this clear, this is not something where I’m saying you need to like jump ship, get out of your relationship that you’re in right now. Because starting to notice these things, especially this first one that I’m talking about here, I’m saying it could even be done without bad intentions. That individual might not even know that they’re doing it. But once they become aware, because it’s your responsibility now that you’re recognizing these things, once that individual who’s doing this to you becomes aware of these, and they choose to stay in that space to continue behaving acting speaking the way that they are. That’s when there’s a problem. And some of these things, you know, it might take a little bit of time to rewire stuff, and that’s okay. But that amount of time is going to be completely up to you. Because keep this in mind. 

You’ve been tolerating this for how long already? Give them an opportunity, though. You need to bring this up to them, and it’s going to be painful. They will probably be defensive. Just giving you a heads-up. Still, what’s worse, letting your soul die a slow death or actually bringing this up and maybe even building a stronger relationship with somebody or getting to a place where you can get into a better relationship. Number two, controlling without knowing it, right, this is another thing where there might not be bad intentions, but this is actually really controlling behavior, right? checking up on you, accusing you of talking to people who you quote unquote shouldn’t I’ll purposely make friends or family feel uncomfortable when they’re visiting or maybe you go to a friend and family house and the things that your partner or whoever you’re in a relationship with, is saying and doing while you’re around is making the family friends or you uncomfortable in that situation where you’re all around, you know, that can be little things like depreciating, you know, saying specific things. 

I mean, even doing like number one that we talked about with character assassination, and they’re like, Oh, it’s on for that’s the biggest bullshit story ever is that like, Oh, I’m just joking, you know? And so well, you still did it. It’s not funny. A joke, in order to be a joke has to be funny. And it wasn’t funny. You just degraded my character, my self-worth in front of family and friends. Not cool man, not cool lady. Other things that how they control without knowing it are punishing you by making you feel bad about something. Right or demanding a report on your actions and your conversations like, Oh, would you talk to him about? Oh, yeah. How about this? What else did you say? What did they say back? You know, grilling, you like interrogating yourself for what happened in the conversation or a situation or not allowing any activity. This one’s huge. Not allowing any activity that excludes them. And I hate this word allowed so let me just take an aside on this for a bit. I hate the word allow. Because I hear this in couples like, oh, he won’t let me do this. Or she won’t let me do that. Or, Oh, he’s letting me go. Are you freaking kidding me, you don’t need frickin permission. You need to have mutual respect and understanding of the situation, especially if you have kids or something like that, or external commitments, or whatever. But you need to understand that nobody in a relationship needs the other’s permission to do anything. 

That’s the fact you are your own human being with your own thought process your own conscious, and you can make your own decisions. You don’t need somebody else to allow you or give you permission to do anything. So when somebody doesn’t, quote-unquote, allow or says you can’t go, because it doesn’t involve me. This is the one I’m going to say frickin run for the hills get out, go. Or if there are conversations about permissive activities, go. Or the last bit any dialogue or behavior, intended or not, that takes away from your truth or your freedom is control. Period. Number three is jealous, passive-aggressive behavior. My thing is like, Well, wait, I get jealous, right? Of course, I get it. I get it too. That happens. I’m not saying that jealousy, there’s really nothing wrong or toxic about feeling jealous. Right. And there’s a difference between envy, I want to make sure that you understand this too. Before we dive into this one about jealous, passive-aggressive behavior. Jealousy is fear that somebody else might take what you have. Okay, I want to be clear on that, rather than envy is something that somebody else already has that you don’t. 

There’s a difference between that. So make sure you understand which ones you’re feeling because sometimes those words are used interchangeably. And instead of jealousy, you might actually be envious. Though again, jealousy is fear of losing something or somebody taking away what you have already. Whereas envy is wanting or desiring something that someone else has that you don’t. Alright. Now, there’s nothing wrong with jealousy, there’s nothing toxic, really, with jealousy. It’s how you respond to it. Because if you’re human, I know that you felt jealous before. It’s what you do with that feeling that determines whether you make it a relationship or whether that relationship becomes toxic or not. That’s reality, it’s the reaction to this thing. So if you feel jealousy coming up, have a calm conversation. And it’s okay to ask questions. It absolutely is okay to ask questions. You know, but not in a way to where you’re attacking the individual or not in a way to where that individual is attacking. You know, maybe what they’re really trying to say and you’ve got to become aware of this is start to recognize and be aware in the moment what you’re feeling and maybe it’s just because you haven’t spent a lot of time with that person lately.

Maybe it’s because they haven’t seen you in a while. And then just saying, really by being jealous and coming down on you, which is a bad reaction to jealousy. Maybe they can just say, hey, you know what? I just want to spend some time with you can we put something on the calendar? I know things have been busy, we’ve had commitments, and you’ve had things you’re doing with friends and everything. And I don’t want to take away from that. Because remember, that’s number two, controlling without knowing it, right? I want you to go have fun, you make your own decisions, you control what you do, and the only person that controls you is yourself. I’m just saying this because I want to be with you a spend sometime with you. That’s an appropriate way to handle jealousy. Anything other than that is bad news. Number four, the sign of a toxic relationship is never taking ownership. This is one that really gets me going. And sometimes it’s hard for people to do because they actually have to get vulnerable in the moments. They actually have to recognize Oh, man, I really screwed up here. 

You know, and when I say taking ownership, taking ownership is not just apologizing. Apologies are great, right? It’s nice to hear. And sometimes this is horrible. Because some people think that all they have to say is sorry, or I apologize. And then that’s it, it’s put to bed, it’s like no, I want you to take ownership. I don’t necessarily want your apology, what I really want is a change in your behavior, a change in the way you’re acting a change in the way you’re doing things that’s taking ownership is saying I apologize are really more like I recognize it’s a better way to put it, I recognize what I did. And I am going to do better. That is taking ownership. Owning your issues is one of the most emotionally mature things that you can do. Make sure that whoever you’re with is emotionally mature. Number five, the last one for signs of a toxic relationship today is, you know, we all have bad days, I get that well, but hours bail, but you don’t want. You don’t want your bad hours to turn into bad days, you don’t want your bad days to turn into bad weeks, and you don’t want your bad weeks and turn into bad months. Or worse yet, your months turn into years. I know you’ve known people who have had this every time you’re around them, there’s always something negative that they have to say about how things are going always. Right. And it seems like even if you haven’t talked to them a while maybe it’s been three months, geez, last time I talked to you things were going pretty shitty to sounds like they still are, by the way, that you’re coming here. 

You’re not going to have very many friends around you. If that keeps continuing. We all go through winters. We all do. Okay, we all have bad days. But if your partner makes no effort to try to find the light, and always drags you into the cave with them, like the Woe is me. It’s like misery loves company. You’ve heard that before and hurt people hurt people. That’s what I’m talking about here. And they do this because you’re the closest person to them. That’s when it becomes toxic. Start to recognize these things and be aware because there are things that I’ve said here today. And I was never going to go this because we started out dark, right? We started out dark. Some things though, as I’ve talked through this, and that’s what I wanted to give you is like become aware of these things, and then giving you things to do about it. When you start to recognize these things now because I know that one or many or three, or whatever of these things really resonated with you today, I know that you know that they resonated with you. Now you can have those conversations. Because the toxicity can stop today. And I’m not telling you to get out of the relationship right now. It might be something that you eventually need to do. What I am telling you is you need to stop this stuff dead in its tracks, because it’s up to you to take action to do that. And why is it up to you because you’re the one that heard this today? If you want to share this with your partner, share this episode with your partner, share with a friend so that they know share with 10 friends so that they can start to see these things and start to become really cognizant of what is going on in their relationships in life and you’ll know whether they’re toxic or not and what to do about it.

Go ALL IN.