if you leave a toxic relationship and you jump into a relationship right after you go from experiencing toxicity and borderline abuse to starting to become toxic and the abuser in the relationship after yeah so it can switch to the other way as well that's how you need to be able to heal welcome to 12-week relationships this is your place for better relationships in weeks not years my name is pai i'm dr glenn this episode is about well eight signs on when to know to call it quits and we're specifically talking about romantic relationships so when
do you know that it's time to leave a romantic relationship before you get started mm-hmm i just want to say what we were doing a second ago i mean we promised realism and transparency and just saying like it is so yes a second ago i said uh glenn we forgot to bring the alcohol on set you know have a little drink yes what did you say i said i can't drink anymore because me and my wife are trying to make a baby and i did this yeah i did this that's my favorite part yeah i
can't drink anymore i was like why he's like you know the baby and i was like the doctor the doctor was like you need to cut your alcohol i was like okay so glenn is aggressively making babies yes awesome all right cool on that note on that note yeah let's let's just get into this does that bother you does that make you nervous should we cut that out that was an awkward transition but you know what is cool leave it in leave it let's be real awkward transitions is what we do it's been common for
a while but it's okay all right so look when do you call it quits and i think it a lot of these things are going to be similar for friendships and any type of relationship but i do think we should separate this out into different episodes and this one's specifically being focused on romantic relationships so a marriage a partnership whatever it might be but when do you call it quiz you had an obvious one we'll start with number one the most obvious if you're in an emotionally physically abusive relationship you need to go yeah the
weird the weird part about that is i the the physically abusive is easier to recognize obviously sure but the emotionally abusive side not so much yeah i mean you know there's there are signs though once it starts weighing on your physical health it's affecting your ability to function on a daily basis those are signs that it's it's time to go okay yeah um i don't think we need to give examples of emotional physical abuse well maybe maybe just an example we know physical abuse but on the emotional side what might be things you might hear
in an emotionally abusive relationship you know just just threat you know constant threats you better not do this or else that's really bad yeah that's really bad or you can't live without me or you're so dumb and just constantly being insulted and then basically making the premise that you know without that person if they start making threats to you like without me your life is nothing that's a sign that you need to go i'm fortunate to not have to have dealt with those kind of case studies and clients as of yet but i know in
social work which is where you kind of slide your teeth right yeah that was a big thing it was very common and then you had to deal with like adoptions and foster care and all that so you had like a whole relationships that were extremely toxic and you had kids as well yeah yeah okay so that's our obvious marker for it's time to go um don't worry the rest of these points are not nearly that obvious yeah but let's go on to number two because i think all these sort of compound and relate and one
of the things that you said was the sort of emotional drain so marker number two that i'm going to give is you know when the the cost the emotional cost of maintaining the relationship is far greater than the benefit of the relationship then you know you're kind of in a bad place and i'm not speaking about the temporary storms that all relationships go through i mean consistently there's a pattern of just always being drained yeah and so the cost is that you're constantly deteriorating mentally emotionally physically to the point that you're losing your ability to
function yeah and examples of this because i feel like too often we don't we don't equate the actual cost of an unhealthy relationship to real indicators and it's important to understand that an unhealthy relationship with the person that you're closest to of course it's going to negatively affect your emotional health it's going to affect your ability to be present it's going to affect your ability to be able to spend time with your children and to actually be with them it's going to affect your ability to focus at work to focus at school to do all
these other tasks that's the emotional side of that but what was crazy to me was researchers at the university of birmingham had actually showed that if you're in an unhealthy marriage that you are more likely to catch flu-like viruses yeah absolutely because it's compromising your immune system and your health that that was mind-blowing to me and they put a number on it they said you're 35 more likely to get sick and when you do get sick it's going to be more severe because i was in that exact place in fact when i read that statistic
i was in the middle of an unhealthy marriage and i was constantly getting sick the crazy part was despite reading it and knowing what was going on i still denied it yeah because yeah i mean because i think you got used to it you know the analogy of the frog yeah you throw a frog in hot water it jumps out because it knows that it's hot but you put it in cold water and slowly boil it gets used to the heat yeah and eventually it dies right so you're just used to that heat at a
certain point but it was compromising your your overall well-being well i was getting sick probably once every other week it wouldn't be like major you know flus and stuff like that that would happen several times a year but i would have a cold almost constantly like every other week i was not sleeping well i was constantly lethargic tired and i would you know drink more caffeine and i would do more whatever i got to do to like compensate for this and i read that statistic and i thought no i just have a not so great
immune system and uh when i was separated it stopped instantly it was like as soon as i moved out from that environment i stopped getting sick yeah and then you weren't living that dichotomous lifestyle anymore because you're able to function healthily away from the home right yeah and then you have to go back to this crazy space right so it's just this one extreme to the other how could your health not be compromised yeah it's wild from a logical standpoint to like look back at it and to think that but in the midst of it
you're kind of i i don't know what else to say other than just kind of have my head buried in the sand the other side of that cost too i mean the emotional aspect right so i don't feel like it's the weirdest thing and i want to relate all these stories to our audience like whenever i can't find i have plenty of we have plenty of client and case studies that we can bring into these but i feel like if i do have the experience personally it means a little more sharing it from that experience
which is why i i want to be very transparent about this but i have pictures i i think when i when i separated i moved out when my oldest was six so at that time i had tons of pictures of me with the kids and i look back at these photographs now right they're on my phone they're you know on my computer and i can't remember a single memory of those photographs like i can see myself in the photo i'm holding my son i'm doing something with my daughter but i don't remember what we were
doing beyond the context of the photograph and i don't remember that moment i don't remember that time in my life outside of simply the marital issues i remember all those and that was insane to me because now being on the flip side being you know close to four four five years into a healthy relationship i look back at our pictures and i remember every single memory i was there yeah i was present so that cost was massive yeah and ultimately you are numbing yourself right you're in such a traumatized state that you're displacing yourself and
separating yourself mentally and emotionally yeah so these are some of the signs and the indicators of being in a being in a relationship where the the emotional cost is far outweighed you know compared to its benefits these are the things that you kind of notice that you feel that you're not present that you're frequently distracted that you're getting sick often that your emotional energy you're always drained you're you know can't function at work you have difficulty mind at task and all of it well the other thing too is i think it's redefining what healthy is
right so like during that time you're in you said 14 years in that marriage right a lot of people would say you were resilient and you were you were coping well during the 14 years right and then you kind of had a break where you're like i had enough and i can't handle this anymore right so a lot of people would look at that experience and be like that's unhealthy that you had this break right on the flip side if you look it from a different lens you were really on to cope with it and
to handle it that long that was the unhealthiest that you ever were and once you had that break moment which people can observe and say like ooh you're not being healthy that was you becoming healthy because you can't tolerate it anymore and i think the bottom line with all of this is once you no longer tolerate toxicity in your life that is the break of healthiness and that's what you'll do once you have that moment like man i can't i can't even stomach this anymore that's a sign of health and it's time to move on
yeah the crazy part about that transition is that those that are in this situation if you are suddenly becoming aware of the toxicity and wanting to make changes you're going to be labeled as the person that has the problems because the people around you are going to want to maintain status quo yeah and you have to really protect your kind of sanity because you will feel gas lit by all of it yeah absolutely and that's why i always tell people that when they're in toxic relationships man once they break they're like oh i'm having a
breakdown i'm getting so depressed yeah you're becoming healthy yeah you can't tolerate this anymore this is a sign that it's time for you to go yeah congratulations one of and and we'll talk about this one in just a minute we're going to kind of move through point by point and that was number two is kind of that energy and always being in that state of drained you know like no emotional energy no physical energy and you can see those physical outward signs you know you're in a bad place so number three which goes to this
thing that you just said was being happier alone you know my yeah my uh why don't you go into that for one second and i'm gonna share just there's a sense of relief when you're not in that relationship or that person is gone for a little while yeah you're like oh i can relax because you gave the analogy that sometimes you can leave the relationship and you might perceive it as being unhealthy because you you're distraught about it right you you want the yeah it's almost like you're conditioned to the the toxicity the the drama
yeah and you crave it but there's a flip side to that which is instant relief and a calm and just like wow this feels good there's motivation that comes back yeah naturally yeah right you have all these emotions that are coming and that was my experience so from from my perspective i think i had probably mourned the loss of my relationship a decade prior to it actually ending so when it ended all i felt was relief in fact that was my my main thing was i felt like there's only one good reason to leave a
relationship and that is you would be happier and healthier alone i don't think uh you know for those listening that maybe you're considering leaving a relationship because there's someone or something better i don't think that's a thing because i don't think you're in a place mentally where you can even know what that is and let alone be able to judge it in someone else what i think you're seeing is you know the 5 or 10 thing that you're missing or maybe it's 50 of whatever you're missing but i think that's all you're seeing when you're
trying to make that judgment call from within a really toxic environment yeah so i don't know and the statistics back that up you know something insane like 99 of uh affair-based relationships end like it's it's they don't go because what you you can't perceive the the other person correctly in that state yeah so in my mind there's only one good reason to leave and that is that you're going to be happier and healthier alone and when i made that decision the first decision was let's just separate i just need to see if i stop getting
sick if i feel better if i'm and it was day one i didn't miss my ex and i thought maybe in a month i'm gonna miss my ex didn't happen i thought maybe in two months maybe maybe when i get sick for the very first time i'll miss my ex maybe when i have something catastrophic happen it was funny i would put these ideas into the universe and for some reason they would get answered like i said what if i get sick and then suddenly i've got the flu and i'm out for a week and
i'm alone in an apartment and i'm fine i'm happy i'm healthy when i see my kids i'm fine i'm good i want to be with them and i want to be present with them and now every time i spend time with them i'm happy and i and i get to plan activities and be the dad and then if something catastrophic happens i tear my achilles followed by almost dying from needing an emergency gallbladder removal oh man like all consecutive things yeah and each time it happened no i'm good there's not one moment where i miss
that life where i want that back and that to me was a very clear indicator of like that was super toxic and that was very unhealthy and now this is something much better so being happier alone and healthier alone yeah and that would have been the time that you would have you know craved that relationship back when you're like sick almost dying like oh i wish this person was here that's what i thought i thought maybe when i'm in those desperate moments i'll want it back and it wasn't the case and you bring up another
good point is it's good to do it because you just want to be alone you want to figure yourself out because on the flip side if you leave a toxic relationship and you jump into a relationship right after you go from experiencing toxicity and borderline abuse to starting to become toxic and the abuser in their relationship after yeah so it can switch to the other way as well that's how you need to be able to heal that was a that's a very interesting note because the next person that i had dated after that process and
it was a very short-term relationship um i think that was very much her experience was that i was the one doing things that were and i was very clear i'm not in like a great place i'm not looking for anything serious i'm and she was okay with it and bought off on all of it despite multiple kind of like warnings and whatnot yeah but when it came down to it what she wanted was not what she was saying and so me not being emotionally present and there for her basically flipped the dynamic it was like
and i could see it in her behavior because this this person was once a friend and all of a sudden the way that she was responding and reacting to me was as if i was doing something i'm like i'm not actually doing anything i'm just not getting into the relationship the way that you might want or maybe that you expect or maybe i've led you on or whatever it is that i'm doing yeah but it was it was crazy and i i cut it off within two weeks because i recognized what i was doing i
was like i'm i'm not only hurting you i'm destroying the friendship that was there you know so i i cut it off and uh and just took more time like like figure things out yeah which is really smart to do well or you torture relationship but it's interesting how that dynamic can flip so quickly it can flip so yeah if you don't heal first then you're gonna play it out because it's still unresolved that's a very common thing by the way interesting yeah okay i have here number four this is one of yours so these
are all again road signs to when to know you're in a toxic relationship right when you know that it's time to kind of leave uh your fourth one was constantly anxious yeah so usually in in this dynamic um you're constantly nervous and you're not even thinking about yourself you're just constantly thinking about what the other person wants you're it's almost like stockholm syndrome right like you're so consumed with thinking what they're thinking and trying to understand their processes that you've completely shut down your ability to be your own person well you have that one too
you have it as number four is constantly anxious number five yeah was always putting your needs aside to focus on theirs yeah they go hand in hand they go in hand because you're constantly thinking about the other person more than yourself there's there is no balance whatsoever yeah on the constantly anxious i had an example case study where basically one person was only concerned with the end of the relationship and was completely unwilling to work on the relationship unless they were guaranteed the relationship would work that was a very interesting thing to me because this
um this woman will give her a name we'll call her tina tina was constantly anxious about everything that her husband felt that you know he's gonna end the relationship that it's not gonna work that you know so it was so much in her mind that it took a hundred percent of her energy and in in my thought it's it's kind of like uh tina there's there's no way to guarantee there's no way to actually give you what you want nobody can guarantee that right that it's going to be okay yeah and for you to say
that i'm only going to work on it when i know this anxiousness can be removed is actually only going to kind of speed up the demise because you're not going to do the work and then it is going to end you bring up a good point so it could go two ways right so if you're in a toxic relationship um and then you're afraid of your partner you can be anxious that way right in this example it could possibly be and tell me if i'm wrong is that she had issues herself that she didn't resolve
and so she was constantly anxious in this relationship so she needed to not be in a relationship for sure but they were married so like oh okay but yes you're right that her her trauma her past issues that she was bringing into it was the sense of insecurity it was that that anxious attachment style where she's kind of she needs validation she she doesn't have worth in her own eyes yeah and it doesn't help the fact that he's the breadwinner and she doesn't have uh you know because in her mind she's like i wish i
had a job i wish i was providing i wish i was working so the way that she had built up her values of what she you know appreciates she herself wasn't living up to it so in her mind it's well it's just a matter of time before he leaves because that's the way because he should like so that that is a core trauma that needed to be addressed one thousand percent but even realistically like the way her lifestyle was set up she was so dependent upon him even financially mentally emotionally that it could break at
any moment correct right so yeah there's that one's an interesting one so the other side of this then was the always putting your needs aside to you know for the other person and and that could be for a variety of reasons maybe to avoid fighting maybe to avoid issues to avoid argument whatever it might be maybe just because you're that giver and you're a people pleaser and you just do it on your own yeah so i mean i think on one extreme if it's a toxic or borderline abuse or an abusive relationship and you're doing
that that's a sign to go right but on the flip side on the other end if you have issues that you need to work out and you're bringing that to the relationship maybe you need to pause yeah yeah do you have examples of like putting your own needs aside to just focus on what the other person wants in a relationship what how does that come to life so i had um so there's like a couple examples where like you know two two clients they're very successful in life so they're really like driven in business very
assertive uh but due to their like relationship history like how they grew up uh you know their father was not around in relationships they became very anxious and dependent and then so they would be bossy at work so they'd go on one extreme they're they're leading teams and they're creating all these you know incredible businesses but then at home they'd be so nervous to make a decision interesting and then they'd be like oh my god i don't know what to do and then they try to push themselves into becoming this kind of like stereotypical female
that they thought that they were supposed to be and a lot of that came from like trauma issues and abandonment issues that took place so they're playing it out and that's what i mean like it's dichotomous so they had this one lifestyle where they're you know at an emotional distance because work friendship is just emotional distance they're able to function in a healthy way and then once they became intimate those pains they could they're so strong and healthy they had so many resources they could choose anybody else but they choose these partners that push them
into this rigid hole where they become really anxious they give up their dependent they give up their independence and they're just in pain constantly yeah i've i've seen that play out a lot in the uh in the anxious kind of avoidant sort of relationship right so to define this the anxious person like we're describing is the person that wants constant validation and the the avoidant person is the one that's generally usually more narcissistic and more kind of like well i separate i do my own thing when i want to do my own thing um in
in conflict i spend time away and figure my own stuff out and i'll come back and you know whatever so i i see this played out a lot where the the person on the anxious side is the one that is basically doing everything on behalf of the other person and the other person's receiving only and so you have this one-way kind of relationship where one person's feeding the other one person gives the other person takes the way that i see this so that's that's the one of the signs for me is if one person's constantly
giving and the other person is constantly taking without without regard without sh without showing you know appreciativeness from that that's a problem the the way that it should kind of work is if you have two people that are highly you know highly driven let's say personally to [Music] do positive things for the other person they put their own needs aside for the other person then you see it being a two-way street so i might give up my own wants to serve my spouse but my spouse also gives up her own for me and it kind
of balances out because where i say do you need me to stay home and do this she says no you need to go and do this because you need your and i do the same thing honey you need to get out and get some personal time and this is so there should be that kind of healthy balance between looking out for each other's you know needs and and wants in the relationship yeah absolutely and you know you're pointing out like it's fair to say that whether you're at home whether you're at work whether you're hanging
out with friends you don't change yourself too much is this is that an accurate statement for sure you don't want to right yeah it's not you're just kind of who you are because all the intimacy levels in your life you're you're comfortable you're living your truth right but that also comes with time and your own development because you remember back in high school we all tried to be people that i mean i did even in college i was trying to be someone that i wasn't yeah no for sure because you're just trying to figure yourself
out yeah yeah but i mean once you figure yourself out like it doesn't matter the different areas of your life you're not changing or you're not veering too much as of a person correct you're staying who you are like the example i gave like more specifically this person his adult was a doctor or is a doctor her life is very successful but at home it's very chaotic and it's because in her most intimate levels she still has stuff to work out and so you know given this example she should leave but she doesn't because she
still has stuff to work out interesting you know yeah and people you know at a distance like why can't you just leave why can't you do that because she still has things to work out so it goes from extremely successful organized and then on the other flip side at home extremely chaotic and helpless yeah and that could be for a number of reasons you know people uh i've seen a lot of situations where couples are in a a hyper toxic relationship but then the personal trauma kind of shows itself in the way that they talk
about it yeah it's it's you know it's difficult but i can't be by myself it's difficult but there's no way i could provide this kind of lifestyle for me it's difficult but you know he's trying it's difficult but and so you hear the the past trauma work itself up and like you know or or yeah you know it's not the ideal marriage but i just can't think of anybody that wants to be with me so yeah i'm just grateful that he loves me yeah someone someone here cares yeah yeah number six we have conversations that
regularly go towards criticism so you're basically trying to just discuss everyday things and you can't get through anything because each conversation goes towards an argument criticism something yeah there's no middle ground there's no compromise it just becomes like self-preservation and whoever can argue the best ones yeah you know i'm going to bring up along with this one not only conversations going towards criticism but there's a what we've kind of defined within core value focused therapy is this lack of regard and that's kind of what you see with this this topic right conversations that go towards
negative negativity towards critique towards you know or even just like scoffing at something someone says yeah um even just being dismissive for example but all of it is a sign that points to a lack of regard in gottman's terminology it would be contempt in our terminology it's regard because we tie regard to attraction it's difficult to be attracted to anybody friend someone romantically any it's difficult to want a relationship when you lack the fundamental respect for that person and that's what regard is it's a it's that combination of respect and admiration and love and the
things that make you want the relationship but when someone's dismissive or when conversations constantly go towards that direction regard has been damaged if not completely removed and you can see it very clearly like this was one of the things i can see very easily from the perspective of a photographer right the couple standing next to me and i say let's go and do something we're going to go on the beach we're going to shoot and uh and he's kind of looking at the sunset and he's like honey look at how beautiful this is and she's
like yeah that's nice um but is my necklace okay like is this like does this look good does this look good and he's like honey just come back be present for a minute and she's like i got it it's fine or flip it around and she points out something and he kind of scoffs and he's like yeah but that's just what she does she's just what do you guys do for i had i had this situation where i asked you know what do you do for a living and he goes jokingly he goes she spends
my money and i was like it's said as a joke but i know personally that there is a loss of regard there and that there's truth to what he's saying and you can see the damage in the the respect that's already there and she kind of had this like awkward face for a second and then we went back to the shoot yeah those are all signs of this you know lack of regard this conversations going towards this place dismissive behavior that type of stuff which is a a big red flag yeah and then it's a
spectrum like that's more of a low-level spectrum and then on the other end if it's caught if the partner is constantly criticizing you i forgot who the author is but they talked about like emotionally abusive relationships yeah that is a starting point to abuse yeah every time you're getting dismissed and criticized it's going in that direction yes starts out really small with these like you know these little slides not paying attention being dismissive making half jokes that kind of stuff moves its way into why aren't you this why can't you this what's wrong with you
you're stupid you know you're an f an idiot blah blah blah i haven't heard those which is nuts to me that i know on the side of social work there's you've seen a lot of crazy stuff but that's another that's another podcast yeah that's another episode the 10 craziest stories that glenn has actually we might need one episode for each story all right i'm gonna go to number seven we have basically being criticized for being independent now what what do you feel like separates this from general criticism so just in general like any if you're
in a toxic environment or toxic relationship when a per for example like if you're in a toxic environment and then you're seeking to do better for yourself the group will go into what's known as group think they'll attack the person and say you're stupid and you're dumb for doing this because they're leaving the group and then so then it fuses the group together to remain toxic and this person becomes a target of all of their vitriol and anger because they're they're breaking away from the group same thing in toxic relationships right so once a person
feels like they're losing control and then this person is trying to become more independent they're becoming healthier they're going to go on the attack and they're going to go after this person and that's the place where you're going to feel gaslit that's the place where yes you're going to be told that you're crazy that right you know this isn't that big of a deal why can't you do it you know i don't get why you're destroying something that's so great you know it's all the words that would make you feel like your logic and line
of reasoning to doing something healthy and beneficial for yourself is wrong yeah and throughout this whole process i think it's redefining what a healthy person in a relationship is and bottom line if you're a healthy person the people that are closest to you in your life you're going to treat them the best right and then from there like outwardly like the less intimate it is it trickles outwardly right on the flip side if you're an unhealthy person you treat the people in your life that are closest to you the worst but then you treat people
at emotional distances you treat them really really well yeah it's the opposite it's the op that's how you you'll see people like they have like these crazy family lives but then they give money away to strangers and they'll do all these nice things unless there's a decent person in there yes but they're also toxic because they're doing that for people at emotional distances but when it's required to do it in a more intimate space they can't i mean it's it's completely flip-flopped it's flip-flops and the crazy thing is that there's a lot of sayings and
cliche statements that we use to back up that behavior as being healthy you know like family does shitty things to each other oh you hurt the people you're closest to like how many sayings do we have that kind of support this flip-flop dynamic of how it should actually be yeah and then the greater the pain because it's more intimate the more work is required and that's where you need to start and do your work yeah yeah okay so maybe one of the things that we can kind of again bring all these points back to one
place is that in in the at the end of the day you know the the relationship with this person the person that you are closest to it should yield i want to use a business term synergy it should be synergistic right the both people should be getting more emotionally and from an energy and from a health standpoint out of the relationship than they would by themselves or without the other person yeah both people should have that absolutely because it's promoting independency it's promoting growth yes and it feels good bottom line it feels good yeah so
when you have on the flip side when you have a relationship that's either consistently one-sided in that kind of energy and benefit exchange or where both people are being drained then you have something that's toxic and i i use that term carefully toxic because i feel like too often we're labeling things that's toxic when in reality people are just having a fight you're just having a storm yeah you know it's not toxic it's just this is this is normal yeah you have to go through that but toxicity would be when there's a consistent repeated pattern
when the ongoing emotional bank account is always negative yeah and it's just not a good space to be in yeah period okay yeah cool so that's it for us unless anthony did we cover all of our bases here i think we did this was actually this topic was actually anthony's suggestion so i wanted to make sure that we covered the basis here but when to know when to actually step away from a romantic relationship that's a it's a really important thing and hopefully this podcast this episode uh gave everybody some ideas on like some some
road signs just to kind of figure out okay what's normal what's past the point of normal and what is way beyond and should i be considering kind of moving past yeah absolutely all right so those that are listening we would obviously love for you to subscribe to the podcast you can find 12-week relationships on spotify on itunes we're on youtube if you want to watch and in the meantime if you guys need support we have an entire 12-week program for couples you guys get to meet one-on-one with dr glenn and you can sign up for
that at 12week relationships.com we have a free 15-minute consult where glenn is going to walk you through exactly what he's going to do for you guys and show you everything and that's it for us yeah thank you okay thank you see you guys next time you
