Breaking Our Borders Episode 31- Coping with Unhealthy and Toxic Relationships

Welcome back!  I’m Dr. Michelle Border and today I’m going to talk about what we can do when in unhealthy or toxic relationships that we are not ready to or cannot get away from. Negative relationships can take a toll on our mental health and build pretty strong borders in our minds. So let’s get started talking about how we can cope with these relationships, how to break down those borders, and decide if it is something that we need to escape from.

Transcript

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Welcome back. I'm Dr. Michelle Border, and today I'm going to talk about what we can do when in unhealthy or toxic relationships that we are not ready to or cannot get away from. Negative relationships can take a toll on our mental health and build pretty strong borders in our minds. So let's get started talking about how we can cope with these relationships, how to break down those borders, and decide if it's something that we need to escape from. An unhealthy relationship is one that has poor communication or a lack of relationship skills. These types of relationships are typically one-sided. One person always gets their way, they are made the priority and have the control over the relationship, while the other person keeps the peace and allows them to have the control and power. There may also be dishonesty and a lack of trust by one person in the relationship. These relationships are all taking and no giving, mostly on one side. While these relationships are not beneficial to both people, they are not abusive, manipulative, or violent. Now a toxic relationship does involve negativity, manipulation, or deliberate harm that drains you and damages your mental and emotional well-being. Toxicness can occur on both sides or be driven by one partner's unresolved emotional issues. Because there are unresolved mental and emotional issues on one or both parts, they bring those issues into the relationship. They don't know how to have healthy relationships or how to manage their pain, so they inflict it on others. Communication styles in a toxic relationship include criticism, silence, and verbal attacks. They may make you feel nothing you do is right, that you are worthless, or the constant problem for their issues, and they may punish you by withdrawing from communicating with you for a period of time to have control. Behaviors may include gaslighting, guilt tripping, and manipulation of reality to make you the cause of all the issues. Toxic people don't accept responsibility for their behaviors and will place blame on others to deter anyone from knowing the truth about their own behavior. They project all of their faults on their victim, making the victim feel guilty, shamed, and have doubts about their relationship abilities. An unhealthy relationship has the problems of mismatch communication, unhealed wounds, or a lack of effort. Both partners may want to make it work, but simply lack the tools to support each other. These relationships typically have poor communication, lack of trust, boundary issues, and unsupportive habits. Because it stems from a lack of relationship skills rather than harm, it can often be improved with self-reflection, active effort, and counseling. However, a toxic relationship goes beyond the simple lack of relationship skills or poor communication. These relationships are actively poisoning your mental and physical health. Toxic relationships involve consistent manipulation, emotional inconsistency, gaslighting, and an obsession with blame or control. A toxic relationship rarely improves without a serious willingness from both individuals to fundamentally change their behavior or character. But unfortunately, toxic people are usually not willing to acknowledge that they need to change, let alone put forth the effort to change. So if we are in an unhealthy or toxic relationship, what do we do about it? The key characteristic in relationship is an emotional connection. An emotional connection is the deep, secure bond built on mutual trust, vulnerability, and a genuine relationship. It is the glue of a relationship that helps you feel truly seen and understood, allowing people to weather life's challenges as a team rather than as individuals. Humans are wired to desire emotional connection with others, and we willingly open our emotions to having these types of relationships. We basically crave these strong, fulfilling bonds and will embrace the reciprocation of those feelings from another person. When we become vulnerable with our emotions, we're allowing our thoughts and feelings to be influenced by the other person. In healthy relationships, this provides us with the qualities of feeling seen, understood, and validated. We feel supported and strengthened by the other person and provide the same for them. This is the goal and desire of all relationships. It's what we crave and expect. Most relationships start this way, but in unhealthy and toxic relationships, there is a quick shift so that only one person is feeling the benefits of the relationship. This usually leaves the other person experiencing emotional distress, unhappiness, and the building of borders in their minds. Our emotional connection to the desire to have a healthy relationship can keep us in unhealthy and toxic relationships for longer than we should. The emotional connection and influence in these relationships are what needs to change. To do this, we have to create emotional boundaries that can protect us from the unhealthy and toxic behaviors of others. Emotional boundaries are psychological limits that define your personal identity and separate your feelings, needs, and energy from those of others. They allow you to practice self-care, prevent burnout, and take responsibility for your own emotions without absorbing the stress or emotional states of the people around you. Basically, it is borders you create in your mind, but built for your protection against others' unhealthy behavior. The first step is to accept responsibility for your own emotions and recognize that you are not responsible for other people's emotions. This can be difficult if the person in your relationship is blaming you for being the cause of their emotional problems. It is easy to absorb others' feelings and views when emotionally attached to them. When creating a boundary, you have to separate the two. For example, my mother instilled negative thoughts in me that I was burdensome, worthless, and the source of all her problems. I now realize she was projecting her pain onto me and that none of those things are true about me. I recognized that she is the toxic one, and that I needed to view myself through my reality, not hers. By making this emotional boundary, I could control my emotions when triggered from her past abuse. When people criticize or attack my character, I can see it as their emotional issue, not as my truth. Having this boundary prevents you from absorbing the negative perspective and energy of the other person and causes you less emotional distress in the relationship. You have to emotionally separate yourself from their issues so that they cannot influence your thoughts and emotions. Understanding what the other person is doing and why can also help you better understand what is happening in the relationship. In unhealthy relationships, the other person may not understand how to have a positive relationship, how to give and take emotionally, and may just need some guidance in how to do that. In toxic relationships, it is more complicated because their issues typically keep them from accepting responsibility and working towards a more positive relationship. Knowing that they are stuck in their toxic behaviors can help ease the guilt and connection you feel towards making that person happy and help you not to take their abuse so personally. My experience has mostly been with narcissistic abuse. Narcissists have created a reality in their world that they are not ever the problem in relationships, and will twist reality to make another person the guilty party. Knowing that this is what they do has helped me to not take their verbal abuse to heart. I recognize that this is projection of their feelings onto me, as well as reflecting the blame off of them. It really has nothing to do with me. It is all their issues causing the problems. In some of my narcissistic relationships, they needed control and power over me. They decided what I would and wouldn't do, how I felt about a situation, and even what thoughts I should hold. This was again their issue, not mine. They need to feed their narcissistic ego by having control and power. This was caused by the narcissist's experiences with someone else that caused their pain, not by me. So while we may be the scapegoat for their trauma, we don't have to believe the lies that they tell themselves to feel better. It may help you to write down experiences, details of what really happened and was said, and then determine what your reality of that experience is. Did you do the things you were accused of? What is their reality of the situation and what is yours? What did you expect to happen in that situation? And is the other person capable of those expectations? Having others who support you in healthy ways can also help you accept what is lacking in your other relationships. Getting the emotional connection, healthy communication, and positive experiences with some people can help you see the unhealthy relationship's limitations. Once we have built boundaries that don't let the other person's issues affect our emotional state, we also have to limit how much access we give others to our emotional connection. If you know that a friend is going to talk the whole time you are together and not ask about how you're doing, then limit the amount of time you spend with that friend. If you know that discussing certain topics is going to anger your partner, then limit how much you discuss that topic with them. Don't allow yourself to become emotionally connected to that person about those things. You're not going to get the result you want. However, never getting our way about things can take a toll on the relationship. Again, the point of relationship is to be emotionally connected to each other, to give and receive. So we have to look at what is possible with each relationship and understand that it may not be what we hoped it would, and hopefully be able to make peace with that. For example, I have a coworker who is not very friendly, controlling, and sometimes disrespectful. I've had to accept that I will not be able to have a positive working relationship with this person, that I will not be able to go to this person for help with work issues, and that I cannot count on this person to support me in any way. It's not how I would like a workplace relationship to be, but I cannot change that person. I cannot completely remove this person from my life either because I work with them. But I do limit the amount of time I have to spend with them and try not to get emotionally connected to their negative behaviors. This was much harder to do with my ex-husband. We were together every day, and I had to discuss topics with him that he didn't like, and I could not limit my exposure to his negative behaviors. The relationship was strained, and I was not able to accept that this was how the relationship was going to be. I wanted more from that intimate relationship than he could give. So I had to make the decision of whether I was going to continue being unhappy or remove myself from the relationship. Look, it's easy to say you need to do these steps, one, two, three, to tolerate an unhealthy or toxic relationship. But actually ending a relationship while living with, working with, or being related to that person is not always easy to do. And some people are not able or ready to make that decision. Sometimes people have been gaslit and manipulated emotionally so much that they believe they are the problem and are just lucky to have the relationship. So they stay. Sometimes they still have the hope that the other person will improve. This is especially true if there are intermittent good times in the relationship. People can emotionally hang on to little scraps of happiness, kindness, or support, and believe there could be more to come. Another reason people stay in negative relationships is that they don't want to walk away from all that they have given to the relationship. After years of investing their time, energy, and emotions into a relationship, they don't want it to be a waste, to give up or to think it was all for nothing. Some people fear being alone or starting over. This can be especially hard if the relationship has led them to feeling unlovable or their self-esteem has been eroded in the relationship. Change in life and an unknown future without that relationship can be scary enough to make someone stay in an unhealthy relationship. And another reason some people stay in an unhealthy relationship is financial reasons. Some people cannot survive financially on their own. Some abusers control all the finances, so money is not available. And some victims don't know what resources are available to help them survive if they do leave an abusive relationship. If the relationship is one-sided and something you can tolerate, even though it may not be the kind of relationship you had hoped for, then perhaps you can use some of the suggestions I gave today for coping with negative relationships. But if you are being taken advantage of, manipulated, or abused in a relationship, then you need to think about dissolving this connection. And let me make this very clear. If you are being physically or verbally abused in a relationship, please find a way to end that relationship as soon as possible. You can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE, that's 7233, to get advice on what to do to end the abuse. If you're not sure if your relationship is abusive, you can learn more about this at the National Domestic Violence Hotline's website at thehotline.org, or you can listen to my episode about physical and emotional abuse. While it's not easy, the choice is up to you whether you want to continue with an unhealthy or toxic relationship. I have had and have ended both kinds. It wasn't easy, but has definitely been the smartest thing I have done. I have grown, flourished, and found true happiness in eliminating negative relationships because their toxicness could no longer weigh me down. I have been at a point of walking away from family, partners, and friends, with nothing to show for the time with them, other than the respect for myself that I do not deserve to be treated in negative ways. That alone gave me the strength to break emotional ties, plan a way to remove myself from the relationship, and how to move on without that person in my life. Ending unhealthy or toxic relationships has several benefits. These types of relationships can drain your emotional health and affect your self-esteem. Removing that relationship from your life allows you to regain emotional safety, control of your thoughts, wants, and feelings, and more happiness. Being in unhealthy or toxic relationships can alter who you are because they manipulate you into being what they want and what feeds their needs. In healthy relationships, you can be yourself, be embraced for who you are, and feel healthy love. I will put a journal prompt on my website, breakingarborders.com, that can help you work through the thoughts of tolerating or ending unhealthy and toxic relationships. There are also a lot of resources on the internet and social media that can give information and support on ending relationships. But it comes down to whether that is what you want to do. If you do decide that's what you want to do, I'm sure you can make it happen. Thank you for listening, and I hope you will join me again next week.