How do I know if my relationship is just hard or becoming toxic?
So, every relationship can be hard.
Every relationship can be challenging.
And I think if you don't understand why it is hard, if it feels confusing, if you feel like you don't understand what these fights are about, you don't know how they happen. If you have confusion and you feel lost, that's probably a sign that it's toxic.
If you feel like you are starting to feel more badly about yourself, if you start to feel like your self-esteem and like your concept of self is taking a huge hit, that could be a sign that it's toxic.
If you feel like you can't tell people about what's happening in your relationship, that's a sign they might be toxic, right?
I think the theme here with a lot of these is that hard, challenging is normal in relationships, but we usually understand like why it's hard, what's going on, what we might need to do.
It's not about me as a person.
It might be about what I am doing.
It might be about changes I need to make, but not because I am bad, but because I am doing something that isn't working.
Where toxic tends to be about isolation, degradation, confusion, unpredictability, those sorts of things.
If you find yourself in the middle of a fight and you have no idea what this fight is even about or if you feel like – if you try to talk to a friend about it, your partner is going to be really upset.
Those are things to look for, right?
All of us have the right to talk to our people about the stuff that's going on for us.
It's probably not a great idea to always go and trash your partner to your friends, right?
And if you feel like you cannot tell the people you are close to what's happening in your relationship, something is going on there, right?
If you feel the need to hide, if you feel the need to be secretive, something that is not okay is happening.
I want to clarify here that toxic does not always mean capital “A” abuse is happening.
It does not mean that somebody is evil or a bad person.
Sometimes toxic relationships happen because the way I do things and the way you do things are just the worst possible fit and neither of us are bad people, neither of us are being abusive, neither of us are doing those sorts of things.
It's just that how we are doesn't fit.
And the more we clash that, in order for us to fit, someone would have to cut off pieces of themselves and that's never a good idea.
And so, I think that when we're looking at something becoming toxic, can you still talk to your friends about it?
What do they say?
Can you talk to family about it?
Do you feel like you understand why these problems are happening?
Do you feel like both people are taking responsibility for their role in problems?
Do we feel like this is something that's able to be worked through or it's about like you as a person or them as a person?
Whenever it's about like them as a person, you as a person, what we are dealing with is either a message we've gotten that is toxic and unhelpful or a framework we are bringing that is toxic and unhelpful or an understanding of a truth that is unchangeable or unlikely to change.
People can change a lot.
I'm a therapist, I'm in the change business, I have to believe that people can change.
However, the kinds of changes people make and the size of changes people make is not usually fundamental to who they are as a person.
It can be, but that is pretty freaking rare.
And if the only way a relationship will work is if they completely change who they are as a person, that relationship should not work.
It's like when the AI companies come over and they're like, well, if we couldn't steal infinite amounts of copyrighted art and writing and everything, then we would go bankrupt.
We couldn't exist.
Then die.
Then don't exist.
You don't deserve to exist.
If your business only works when you steal, you don't have a business.
You don’t.
You have a criminal enterprise.
So, I think that similarly with a relationship, if the only way a relationship can work is if someone is a different person, the relationship doesn't work.
I think too that when relationships are becoming toxic, often there's a lot of implementation of rules, whether explicit or implicit.
When we move out of a stance of like boundaries and agreements where everybody is empowered, everybody gets a say, everyone has a role in this, everyone gets what they need, right?
And is taking care of themselves rather than asserting how other people do things.
That tends to be a healthier dynamic, not always, but tends to be.
Whereas a lot of toxic dynamics start to have these elements of control and coercion where there's only certain right choices and there's only certain things you're allowed to do.
Your partner is not your owner and even if they are, it's pretend.
Like it’s cops and robbers for grownups with your pants off.
So, if you feel like all of a sudden there are all these rules on your behavior that you don't really necessarily agree with, but that you can't really renegotiate, if you feel like you're being controlled, if you feel like the way for things to work is for you to exert some control over your partner, that's getting toxic, right?
Jojo is doing the most today.
Jojo is doing the most.
So yeah, I think that again, a lot of the line between hard and toxic is very difficult to say because there's not a single definition of toxic and there's not a single definition of hard.
I think that relationships are hard as like a general statement is not particularly helpful because I think relationships can have challenges, but your relationship should probably not feel hard most of the time.
Every once in a while, it might feel hard.
There might be challenges that create certain kinds of hardships at certain times, but if the relationship itself is hard, something is happening that is weird.
Something is not fitting, something is not going well.
So, I think that that's just a really important thing to look at, right?
Like, relationships can have hard times, they can have challenges, but they shouldn't be hard themselves.
If relationships are hard, maybe you need to learn to do relationships better.
Maybe your partner does or maybe this isn't a fit.
Zach. Okay, I cannot take credit for cops and robbers for grownups with your pants off.
That is a Dan-Savage-ism.
He's not the best, but he says some good things.
So, props to Dan Savage for coming up with that.
Yeah, again, I think toxic is such – it is a term I have a lot of hesitation around a lot of the time because something that I see happening a lot these days is there is this conflation or transformation of I don't like this thing or this doesn't feel good to me to this is wrong and unethical and bad and immoral.
Toxic, I think, is often a way of creating a judgment that can in and of itself be coercive and controlling because no one wants to be toxic.
And so, if you're like, “You're being toxic right now,” it forces them to either challenge you on that term or change.
And again, it creates this judgment and framework of their behavior rather than specifically talking about what the behavior is and what it's doing that's a problem.
When relationships are toxic, is it toxic?
Is it just not working for you?
Do you just not like it?
A lot of people would say that non-monogamy is toxic because there are breakups.
Breakups happen to monogamy all the time.
We don't say that makes monogamy toxic.
Can non-monogamy be challenging?
Absolutely.
Is it necessarily toxic?
No.
And so I think with these terms, it is always worth unpacking.
Like what is it that we mean for them?
What is it that we're looking at?
Are we saying that this relationship is harmful
Are we saying it's controlling?
Are we saying it is degrading?
What is it we're trying to say here?
What is the problem?
What is the actual problem?
Can we describe the actual problem?
Because resting on this like catch-all buzzy term can even prevent us from recognizing what that problem is and that can make it harder for us to figure out if it is something solvable or not.
So, I think, yeah, so the person in the chat said “ineffective” instead of toxic.
Great suggestion.
I think when we are using these very vague labels, it is worth looking at why are we using it and what do we really mean?
A lot of things that people label toxic are just like not working for me.
Some things people label toxic are actively abusive.
Some things people label toxic are controlling, right?
There's a lot of things that we use this one word for.
So, can we be more specific?
Why is this a problem?
What is happening here?
I think, too, that sometimes we jump to toxic as a way to justify a choice and make it something we can't take back rather than acknowledging that it's just a choice that we're making and that's okay.
The same way that like I don't want to read daddy little erotic material versus it is immoral and wrong and supports child abuse to read daddy little material.
What you are doing is creating a hammer that you can use to bash other people to align them to your preferences and thoughts rather than owning your preferences and thoughts as yours.
So, this relationship is toxic might mean I feel really upset by how my partner treats me.
It might mean my partner has called me on this stuff and that makes me feel insecure and I don't like that.
What is it that we are saying and what are we actually talking about?
I want so badly for so many of us to get better at saying, “That's not my thing,” rather than that is wrong, that is bad.
That is supporting child abuse.
That is supporting domestic violence.
That is supporting whatever terrible cudgel we're bringing to the fight today.
Can't we just say, “I don't like it,” and then go and leave and not do it?
I don't know.
That's my old person rant of the day.
Just don't like things.
You cannot like it and it cannot be bad and wrong.
It doesn't have to have a moral high ground that you're taking by saying you don't like it.
You can just say, “Not for me, bro.”
Star Trek.
People love Star Trek.
I've watched all of Deep Space Nine.
It was fine.
Do I feel a need to pull up and watch any other Star Trek?
Not really.
I don't hate it.
It's just not – it's fine.
It doesn't do the things for me that it apparently does for other people.
That's not me saying.
I could also phrase it as actually, people put all these progressive lenses on Star Trek and like it has some of that, but you're reading a ton into the subtext and I get that the writers wanted it to be in there, but it's not actually in the text and the more that you insist on this, the more that it makes it look like you're just like so attached to your head cannon and that's just simply the wrong decision to make.
Maybe it's not that deep, maybe I just don't like it.
It's not mine.
I don't like it.
I don't do rope.
I’m so glad rope exists for other people.
That's great for them.
Lovely for them.
I am not a rope person.
I’m not going to be a rope person.
Who knows?
Forever is a long time, but the odds of me becoming a rope person are so freaking low.
But that doesn't mean rope is bad.
That doesn't mean that I point to the problems in the rope community and say this is why rope is always bad and y'all should hate it and anyone who likes it is a problem.
What does toxic mean?
Why are we saying toxic?
What's the point there?
What's the hope with that label?
Why can't we just talk about what is or is not working?
Be specific and identify it.
Old person rant.
