376 - Having a Good Relationship After Leaving a Bad One
What’s a good relationship?
When we talk about a good relationship versus a bad relationship in this context, we’re talking about relationships that exhibit these kinds of qualities and traits:
Good
Communication.
Honesty.
Mutual trust, respect, and support.
Equity and equality or conscious efforts toward equity and equality.
Shared decision-making.
Consent.
Shared values.
Bad
Abuse.
Incompatibility.
Extreme codependence.
High conflict/volatility.
Dishonesty.
Inequality.
Imbalanced decision-making.
Pressure/coercion.
Neglect.
Needs or wants not being met.
Boundaries constantly pushed or ignored, or a context where it’s difficult to uphold your own boundaries.
How trauma looks
Some of the negative behaviors or emotions that one might feel or experience when going from a bad relationship to a good one include:
General PTSD symptoms (flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts, severe reactions, avoidance, depression, self-destructive behavior, etc.).
Expecting the worst or running everything through a negative filter.
Emotional/physical reactions that are out of proportion to what triggered them.
Self-doubt and doubt of the other person.
Intense pursuit or intense withdrawal.
Anxiety or obsessive thoughts, even paranoia.
Excessive apologies or excessive defensiveness.
Conflict avoidance.
Walking on eggshells.
Wanting to avoid touch, eye contact, vulnerability, etc.
Overcompensating, or needing to prove that you are lovable and worthy.
Pessimistic outlook on all relationships or intimate connections.
Regarding non-monogamy specifically:
Strict adherence to a particular format of relationship (e.g. non-hierarchical, parallel, RA).
Rigidity and being hyper-boundaried.
Narrow set of speculations for potential partners.
When bad becomes normal
Sometimes, when we’re in bad relationships for a while, it can be off-putting to be in a good one. Here are a few behaviors that might make someone feel uncomfortable or be de-stabilizing if they’re used to unhealthy relationships:
Receiving honesty and direct communication without thinking there must be an agenda.
A partner who wants to tackle conflict head-on may be straight up terrifying if you’re only used to conflict being negative and painful.
Relaxation-induced panic.
Kind gestures or gifts might be seen as bargaining chips that will be brought up later.
Requests may be interpreted as non-negotiable demands.
A lack of conflict or drama can be seen as boring or uninspiring.
If there isn’t 100% instant intense physical chemistry and affection, then thinking it must mean there’s no future.
Tools for the toolbox
Some advice and things to remember when moving from an unhealthy relationship to a healthy one:
Be patient with yourself.
Take note of how you speak to yourself and adopt a gentler voice.
Find your own strength and individuality - do things that you enjoy and that make you come alive.
Enlist the help of a trusted friend or professional to take stock of what happened in the relationship:
This may include getting help from someone for taking ownership of your own behavior or negative habits as well.
It is also valuable in unpacking what pain, habits, or patterns may have been in place for you even before this particular relationship
It’s good to have someone who can give you a reality check. “Is this thing my partner said okay, or is this just my trauma brain making it sound worse?”
It’s okay to go slow when opening your heart up again.
Make a list of green flags and red flags for yourself regarding what you look for in partners and relationships.
When something about a partner’s words or behavior throws you off, ask questions before making an assumption.
HALTDDSS as much as you need.
Find a time (not during conflict) to talk with your partner about what’s happened in the past and how you can work together to facilitate healing (when you’re ready).
It can be helpful to symbolize or formalize a way to let go of the previous relationship, even if you know 100% you’re over the person or the relationship.
Come up with micro-scripts to rewrite old patterns.
Practice accepting love, affection, kindness, compassion, and worthiness from everyone around you, including yourself. It’s a constant practice.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about how to have a good relationship after you've been in a bad relationship or even several bad relationships. We'll be talking about how PTSD as well as other past baggage can show up in your current relationships, how otherwise healthy behavior can even feel unsettling or confusing if you're used to toxic relationships, and some actionable takeaways for recovering from trauma and building relationships.
Dedeker: We're doing this episode because a while back a listener reached out, wondering just specifically if we had any episodes addressing how to have a good relationship even after having a difficult relationship history or a traumatic relationship history. Particularly, they were asking about navigating healthy relationships when you have a history of being abused or specifically navigating healthy relationships when your particular flavor of neuro-divergence is PTSD as a result of past unhealthy or abusive relationships.
That's what we're going to get into today. I wanted to not just focus on specifically abuse or specifically PTSD. We are going to touch on those things, but I wanted to widen the scope a little bit because I think this is something that can affect a lot of folks even if you don't have PTSD, even if you don't have a history of being abused in a relationship. It's very easy for all of us to carry some baggage from a past relationship into our current relationships. That's what we're going to be looking at today.
Emily: First of all, what do we even mean when we say a bad relationship? There's a lot of things out there that might seem like a bad relationship, some of which we're going to talk about today. Here's a list of some things that are included but not limited to things like abuse or incompatibility, extreme co-dependence, relationships that have very high conflict levels or very high volatility levels, relationships where dishonesty is a cornerstone or inequality is a cornerstone. That may mean things like financial inequality or variety of other things, power imbalances if that's not something that you agree to within the relationship, things like that.
Jase: Part of that is also imbalanced decision-making from that inequality of one person being the one who makes all the decisions and the other not having that power. Along with that could be pressure or coercion to do certain things or to behave certain ways, or to terminate other friendships, or have different types of other relationships. Could also just be neglect of just not having someone paying attention to you, not having your needs being met or having someone caring about your desires or your wants at all.
Could be something like your boundaries constantly being pushed or ignored or someone trying to challenge you on that in a context where it's difficult for you to uphold your own boundaries and protect yourself, or it could have also been even a bad caretaker relationship from your family of origin or someone else along the way who's been in that caretaker role for you.
Dedeker: To clarify that, this doesn't just mean, "Oh, I had a bad romantic relationship and then that affects my future good romantic relationships." This could be going all the way back to, again, family relationships or parental relationships. We also have to clarify what we mean by a good relationship or a healthy relationship, and of course, there's going to be many, many different definitions to this, but these are the things that we're focusing on when we talk about that.
For us, a good relationship is one that's communicative, that's honest, where there's mutual trust, mutual respect, mutual support for each other, a relationship where there's a sense of equity or equality, or at least conscious efforts towards equity and equality and balance, also, a relationship where there is shared decision-making or shared decision-making power where both of you are able to influence each other and accept influence from each other. Of course, also a relationship that is based in consent and a relationship where ideally you are sharing similar values.
Emily: Now, like Dedeker mentioned at the beginning, we're going to talk a little bit about how PTSD shows up in relationships, but also what other behaviors or feelings might show up in a relationship as a result of negative experiences in past relationships that might not necessarily be PTSD related. In general, PTSD symptoms may show up if you've been in a super traumatic relationship, things like flashbacks, like nightmares, intrusive thoughts, severe reactions to something happening, avoidance or depression or other types of self-destructive behavior. Additionally, you may expect the worst or run everything that occurs through a negative filter, have the opposite of rose-colored glasses on.
Dedeker: This applies to so many behaviors that can show up when you're used to being in a bad relationship which not trusting the person-- It's just expecting the worst, expecting that it's not going to work out, "They're not going to take care of me. I can't trust them, I can't rely on them." This may be based on a script that you've been so used to running in order to protect yourself in these past relationships that were not so great.
Emily: You may have emotional or physical reactions that are a bit out of proportion to what triggered them. It may be a very intense emotional reaction whereas the thing that caused it, there may be a disconnect there. It may not actually deserve that large of an intense reaction. Also, you may have things like self-doubt or doubt of the other person, things like lack of trust. We talked about trust in our previous episode, in a very recent episode. If you tend to have extreme lack of trust just in general, that might show up in your relationships because of negative past experiences.
Jase: Another example of how this can show up is in self-doubt or doubt of the other person, related to trust, which we've talked about a little bit before, and we talked about last week. Not just a lack of trust, but also this doubt of like, "I don't even know if I can believe what I'm seeing." Both the self-doubt and the doubt of the other person can really show up.
Dedeker: I've heard some people talking about how sometimes there can be almost like a self gas-lighting that happens in a relationship, where maybe you have been gas-lit a bunch in a previous relationship or maybe you've just been hurt a lot, so that it becomes really hard to feel like, "Can I even trust my perception of someone? Because last time I thought they were a good person in the past relationship and then ended up being horrible and I got really hurt." If my brain is giving me the same message of, "Ooh, this seems like a good person," can I really trust that? Because I've made such poor choices in the past.
Emily: Yes, being unaware of reality.
Jase: It could have just been because you were high on this wave of NRE and totally missing out on all these red flags and so then you don't trust yourself afterward to recognize that or any number of things.
Dedeker: I will say I was looking through some old journals of mine recently from a couple of years ago probably the last time that I was in NRE. It was fascinating to read how much self-doubt I had because of the fact that I was in NRE and I was aware of it and I was just so like, "Oh my God, no, this is going to be bad. This is going to be terrible. I'm probably not making the right choice. Oh, I don't know if I can trust this. Oh, this seems I'm getting these green flags, but I don't know if I can do it." It was really fascinating to look back just how scared I was.
Emily: Do you think that that was because that was a product of your past traumatic relationships?
Dedeker: Oh yes. I think definitely-
Emily: That is what we're saying.
Dedeker: -because I've made some bad choices during NRE or have allowed NRE to really blindfold me against some red flags or to be really complacent or things like that, that, yes, I definitely, I think, have made that association.
Emily: There's also things like intense pursuit or intense withdrawal. That's really interesting. Pursuit behaviors is my specific type of, I guess, attachment style.
Dedeker: Pursuit of candy?
Emily: Yes, exactly. It's burned me a lot especially when I was young in my teens and my early 20s. I don't know. That goes back to family of origin as well and having a father that left and all of those things. There's so many reasons why you may be a pursuer or withdrawer. That's something really difficult to think about and it can burn you over and over again in relationships.
Dedeker: A lot of the stuff points back to just the basis of why we talk about attachment theory, is, often it boils down to, we were hurt in this very early attachment relationship, and the trauma and the pain of that influences how we then deal with future hurts or even the notion that there may even be a hurt on the horizon even if it hasn't happened. That can manifest as that, really intense trying to pursue someone or really trying to distance yourself and avoid and pull away.
Related to that, I've seen a lot of people enter into a new relationship and just have a lot of anxiety or obsessive thoughts maybe even a paranoia around, "When is this person going to betray me?" or, "When is this person going to hurt me?" or, "When is this person inevitably going to disappoint me?" That can actually be very intrusive, and really disruptive to one's well-being.
Jase: Also, excessive apologizing, especially if in your past relationship that was something that was constantly asked of you or you were always told that you were doing the wrong thing, can lead to this excessive apologizing especially when there's nothing to apologize for and the other person isn't asking it and even maybe telling you to stop apologizing, but just that compulsion to keep doing it.
Or on the flip side, this defensiveness about everything especially if in your past relationships or your family, there was that lawyering up, if you will, about if you admit any sort of wrong or apologize, it means you lost, that excessive defensiveness and unwillingness to give any sort of ground or compromise at all, because that is associated with losing and saying that you were the one totally in the wrong, and they were totally in the right.
Emily: This is one that I do a lot of; conflict avoidance. There's, I think, a time and a place for some conflict avoidance especially if it's a tiny little thing in a relationship. If it's to an excessive amount that you're conflict-avoiding so much that you're essentially fawning at your partner and not bringing up when there's something egregious that is going on just simply to keep the peace because you're worried about what may or may not happen, I think that's when it gets into territory that is not good for the relationship.
Dedeker: I had a partner in the past where the first time in the relationship we ran into any conflict, the first time it was like, "Oh, we need to sort something out. We need to sit down and have a serious talk and try to understand what's going on here," I remember he showed up so anxious and just extremely, extremely nervous.
It wasn't until much later that I realized or that he told me essentially that pretty much in every other past relationship, as soon as there was the first conflict where it was like, "We actually need to talk about something," it was a breakup conversation. It's just assumed, "Oh, we've hit that point. Now the relationship is going to be over." I think actually a lot of people have experienced that.
Jase: That's not uncommon.
Emily: Really?
Dedeker: That's not uncommon where any kind of serious talk or any sense of, "We're actually going to sit down and put our heads together on this," is interpreted as, "Something is very terribly wrong."
Jase: Right. Absolutely which leads to walking on eggshells and just trying to be so careful, or assuming that my partner is going to blow up at me for anything. There could be different reasons for it but that, being extra careful because anything I do wrong could have dire consequences; either my partner blowing up at me, or if we have any conflict, that's going to lead to a breakup.
A lot of that, I also blame on the cultural narratives that we rant about a lot of just, we're shown only NRE in our movies and our books and stuff and nothing past that. If anything's not happily ever after, that's it. Got to find the next one because this is the wrong one.
Emily: There's also doing avoidant behaviors like avoiding touch or eye contact or vulnerability, things along that nature. That can happen, I suppose, with neurodivergence in general but it can also happen due to PTSD or just having a shitty relationship in the past and being like, "I don't know if I feel safe enough to engage in behaviors that feel super vulnerable."
Dedeker: I think especially with the touch one, you don't even need to have a history of some physically-related PTSD necessarily behind this, but I've heard from a lot of folks who've been in relationships in the past where it's like, "I touch my partner and they immediately want to escalate it to sex. Because of that, I end up avoiding touch at all of a partner unless I want to have sex." It's very much a binary of either I'm going to touch you because I want to have sex or I'm not because there's no in-between.
Jase: Yes, and then feeling like, "I don't want that pressure to have to do that right now." Also, people will do something that I think is somewhat normal even if it's not always the healthiest thing.
Somewhat normal to do very early on when you're first meeting someone is to try to prove how lovable and great you are, playing yourself up a little bit, but that can also become this ongoing thing of, "I have to constantly do extra or overcompensate somehow, or even just be extra giving than I actually want to be because I've been taught one way or another that I'm not enough just as I am and that I'm not lovable enough as I am. I need to put this on somehow. I need to overcompensate for the fact that I'm just fundamentally lacking."
Dedeker: I think a lot of people have this. Bell Hooks actually wrote quite a bit about, specifically in their view, women being really socialized there, that you have to be good, you have to work for it. You have to demonstrate that you're a good partner and that you offer value, and then you'll be worthy .
Emily: That value thing, because it's like, so many men are socialized to find their value in their work and in how much money they make, so it is that a question of, what value does a woman have then? What do they have to give?
Jase: That overcompensating can look different ways based on that socialization, for sure shows up a lot.
Dedeker: I've seen a lot of folks, myself included, especially non-monogamous folks, or polyamorous folks, sometimes internalizing this sense of, "It's already such an ask to date me because I'm so inconvenient and I'm so weird. I really need to step up to prove that I'm a really good partner and I can provide all these things." Again, maybe that's not the worst behavior, but I think it can go overboard. It can get exhausting and toxic pretty quickly.
There's many, many other behaviors but the last one that we have here is, sometimes you can internalize a really pessimistic outlook on all relationships or intimate connections. I think this is quite normal, especially, let's say, you've just been rejected or you've just had your heart broken. Totally makes sense why you'd go through a period of being like, "Oh, my God, eff this."
Jase: "Everyone's relationships are doomed. Anyone that says they're happy is lying." Totally.
Emily: Break up with your boyfriend
Jase: I've been there. I've done it. I've felt that.
Dedeker: I think we've all been there. Honestly, I don't think that that's the worst thing. I do think though, that when it starts to extend, and you really start to internalize it, that becomes your more fixed worldview that "Anyone that I date, it's always going to be doomed." Or sometimes this can end up being projected onto particular types of people. The one that I think gets floated around a lot is "All men are trash and this is how it's always going to be. I'm always going to have a terrible experience dating men, for instance." That happens a lot too.
Jase: What about looking at some ways this can show up uniquely in non-monogamy? We've been talking about these things that are general. Within polyamory or non-monogamy, there's also this, I guess, shared experience of almost this community-wide trauma, whether that's a "t" or "T", can depend.
So many people are having this history of either bad non-monogamous relationships when they're starting out, or people in certain communities being really dishonest and trying to take advantage of this non-monogamous community as an easy way to get sex without having to care about anyone in this, or using something like the concepts of relationship anarchy as a way to justify really shitty behavior. There's lots of ways this can show up and can almost lead to both an individual, but also almost this shared sense of lack of trust in other people or an excessive need to punish people for any sort of violation or different things like this. We're going to talk a little bit about some ways that can show up uniquely in non-monogamy.
Dedeker: Well, the reason why I wanted to include this is I started getting complaints from clients. This started probably a couple of years ago. I don't think this phenomenon is that new, but this is when I started noticing it from clients. People who were relatively new to non-monogamy, maybe they were in the process of opening up their relationship, or maybe they were single and just starting to explore, they might run into a roadblock where they're like, "Oh my gosh, actually I feel jealous," or, "I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around my partner having sex with someone else," or, "I'm wondering about agreements. I wonder if this kind of agreement is okay or whatever."
They reach out to a community, usually an online non-monogamous community, and end up getting slaughtered digitally, essentially, the idea that the community just jumps all over them, especially when it comes to, "Oh my God, I'm feeling jealousy and I'm really struggling with this." People being really mean, at least that's what's been reported to me, really not caring. I have to have this conversation with clients.
First of all, of course, validating and empathizing because that's really crappy and a terrible experience to go through, especially for someone who's just wanting support and to not be alone in that particular moment, but I think there is this community-wide baggage around, "Oh, when I was opening up my relationship back in the day my partner also experienced some jealousy, and then used that as a hammer blow to me to control what I was doing or to make me feel bad about what I was doing or to veto the partner that I was seeing or whatever," and therefore-
Emily: They're transferring their experience onto another person?
Dedeker: Exactly. It's all like this transference and projection. Therefore, "How dare you come here and say that you're having a hard time with this?" This happens all over the internet, every single corner. It's not unique to the non-monogamy community, but it's definitely something that I have witnessed many times.
Emily: Other people tend to have a strict adherence to a particular format of a relationship like, "Non-hierarchical is the only way to go," or, "Parallel polyamory is the only way to go," or, "Relationship anarchy is the best thing to do and everybody else is less informed or less enlightened or whatever."
Dedeker: Just like we talked about when we did our Q&A episode with Kate Loree, that sometimes these past negative experiences can produce a certain rigidity that can be just as rigid as the way that some people clinging to monogamy, like really traditional monogamy, that based on a negative past experience it becomes this kind of obsession with like, "Oh, it has to be this particular format of non-monogamy."
Jase: That "This is what ends up working for me," so it has to be that way. There's, with that rigidity, maybe also being a hyper-boundary too or having zero tolerance for anything that makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable. Often ironically forcing other people to just deal with their own discomfort and you're not willing to do anything to accommodate them, that can be an unhealthy behavior that comes out of it.
I also was just having a conversation a couple of weeks ago with a friend. The friend is monogamous. She's been in a monogamous relationship for a long time, but she has a friend who's polyamorous, but he's not currently dating anyone. He's been having a really hard time finding relationships and he is in LA. I know it's not a lack of polyamorous or non-monogamous people.
Emily: No, they're here.
Jase: We just chatted about it a little bit over dinner, but one of the things that I brought up is I'm like, "Well, it sounds like he's new-ish to this and he's a single man who's straight, or at least mostly straight," talking to her a little bit about the collective trauma of guys showing up and trying to take advantage of these communities or trying to be dishonest, and that that's something that he's probably-- Especially, if he's newer to it and doesn't know the code words, how to talk about it quite right, and what wording is more acceptable to use, that's going to set off some warning signs for people because of that.
I think that that in itself is not a bad thing to have that kind of warning go up because there are a lot of people trying to take advantage of these communities, but it's also something to be aware of and realize that sometimes we can push people away or try to quickly judge them or put them into a certain category just based on that fear or trauma from a past experience.
Dedeker: That leads to the other behavior that I've seen folks carry from bad past experiences into current experiences, is people creating a very narrow set of speculations for potential partners, things like, "They have to already be partnered." "I'm not going to date someone who doesn't already have a partner," or, "I'm not going to date someone who doesn't already identify as non-monogamous," or, "I'm not going to date someone who's new to non-monogamy."
Usually, the newness is very hard to quantify sometimes, or, "I can only date someone who also listens to the Multiamory Podcast." I am not being cheeky. I have literally heard that one and while it's very flattering and I don't want to turn away a compliment-
Emily: For me that's not a requirement.
Dedeker: Not a requirement for sure. Now, those things that I listed, wanting to date someone who's already partnered, who has non-monogamy experience, I don't think it's bad to have those parameters for yourself necessarily when you're starting to date. I don't want to tell anybody that you can't have any of those standards or speculations. I just think it is important to examine where it's coming from for you and if having that standard in place is working, if it's actually effective for you.
Is it actually helping to protect you from heartbreak and discomfort, or are you having the same amount of heartbreak and discomfort as you would have if you didn't have that speculation in place? That's all individual. I just invite people to get curious about those things and just investigate where it comes from.
Emily: We're going to move on and talk about some research as well as actionable takeaways, but before we do that, we're going to give you some of our sponsors for this week, talk about those. If you would be so kind to check them out, if you see any that look interesting to you, if you go and use our codes for them, it directly helps out the show and then we can continue to bring you this content for free.
Dedeker: All right, folks, we're back. We're going to look at the research. This is a slightly different focus. This is going to focus a little bit more on PTSD and how that can influence romantic relationships. The reason for that being is that, at least from a clinical and scientific perspective, PTSD is something that I think is more measurable and has been measured versus something more amorphous like baggage, or, "I feel a little hesitant being in this healthy relationship after a bad one," at least from a perspective of finding what the science has a little bit easier to focus on PTSD specifically.
The first study we're looking at is called Weathering the storm? The impact of trauma on romantic relationships. This was published in Current Opinion in Psychology in 2017. This was actually a review of recent scientific literature, as in looking at studies on PTSD and relationships that was published between the years of 2015 and 2017, so that particular two-year period.
Generally, most studies conclude that post-traumatic stress symptoms like the ones we talked about before, like flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts, having severe reactions, avoidance, depression, the self-destructive behaviors, and negative mood, all those things, that those are usually associated with negative relationship outcomes. They specifically found that post-traumatic stress syndrome which is basically the same as PTSD that has an earlier onset, that PTSS undermines the perception of relationship quality and increases discord from both partners.
Another study found that veterans with PTSD and their spouses report overall lower warmth and greater conflict in particular in their relationship.
Emily: However, there are other studies that focus on the mere exposure to traumatic events or the experience of trauma-related stressors. The conclusions from these studies are less consistent and some even show better relationship outcomes after a traumatic exposure, which I find really interesting. The only thing that I thought of that was maybe similar to that is the fact that I've had maybe more of a coming-together during the pandemic with my partner because it is this trauma, giant traumatic event that we're experiencing together, and it's caused us to lean on each other in ways that perhaps we wouldn't have before because of it.
I can understand that even though initially upon looking at that, it might be like, "Really? What? Better relationship outcomes?" The researchers note that most individuals who experience a traumatic event do not develop high levels of post-trauma distress. Whether or not the event becomes PTSD, for example, depends on how the event is interpreted and the subsequent coping strategies of the individual.
Dedeker: That's a really interesting observation because, in my Somatic Experiencing training, a thing they keep coming back to is the idea that trauma is not in the event itself. It's what your nervous system does with the event. Especially, they're talking about the study, if your subsequent coping strategies are blocked or inhibited or otherwise interrupted in some way, chances are much higher that it's actually going to become PTSD as opposed to a stressful event that we went through and then recovered from.
Emily: I remember Bran talking about that on his episode. There are also some studies that demonstrate post-traumatic growth, which was associated with positive outcomes for relationships. More researchers found that people's post-traumatic growth was associated with increases in responsiveness toward their partner, essentially showing that they understand their partner and value their opinions or their values and that they care for them. This was noticed by the partner and ultimately resulted in him or her also experiencing increases in this post-traumatic growth.
Dedeker: That's really cool because they did find that often if two people have experienced a traumatic event together and if one of them displays post traumatic growth, chances are the other person will as well. That it's a little bit of a rising ship or a rising tide in ships. Something boats.
Emily: Movement in an upward trajectory.
Jase: Tide coming in, both ships go up, I think is the saying.
Dedeker: That's the one
Jase: Cool, cool, cool. Another study here. This is a study of army couples specifically. The researchers here found that the negative associations that were mentioned earlier in some of the studies we mentioned, the negative association between spouses' perception of their partners' PTSS or PTSD, and their marital quality was only significant when they had higher internal attributions about their partners' PTSS.
Another way to say that is that if they recognized that that post-traumatic stress disorder or syndrome was responsible for some of their behavior, they basically had more positive feelings about the relationship than if they associated those with just, "My partner's personality is making them be this way." Also having an awareness of the impact of trauma can go a long way in terms of the health and satisfaction and overall happiness in a relationship.
As a result of this, the researchers came to this conclusion that disclosure of the degree of trauma in a relationship can help alleviate some of those potentially negative effects. Basically, good communication, to go back to what this show is often all about, being able to communicate that. That's not always easy with trauma but at least being able to express how this has impacted you and that you have an awareness of it and maybe what you're doing about it can go a long way in helping them understand that it's not just your personality or something that's intrinsically part of you that's influencing the way you behave all the time.
Dedeker: I want to spend some time talking about, what are the hallmarks of a good relationship, or what are specifically behaviors in a healthy relationship that can actually be off-putting or destabilizing to someone who is used to bad behavior or used to unhealthy relationships? Now, this can sound totally wack to some people and sound totally counter-intuitive, but this is really common. It's not just quite as simple as, "Oh, I leave a bad relationship and then I get into a healthy relationship, and then everything's good."
There's a cumulative effect, especially if you've been in an unhealthy relationship for a very long time, especially if an unhealthy relationship was a very formative relationship for you, let's say one of your first adult relationships or maybe you've been with this person since you were a teenager all the way up through your 20s or longer, and it's been a not great relationship, and now this is your first time experiencing any other type of relationship. Just assuming that, because you were with a healthy person who treats you really good, everything's going to be fine, is not necessarily the case.
Emily: I remember having a relationship with Jase in my 22 I think and it was after being-
Dedeker: Gosh, you were a baby.
Jase: Really?
Emily: Yes, I was 22 when I started dating him.
Dedeker: Oh, my gosh. Babies, babies.
Emily: You were 28, I guess, then.
Jase: Yes, I guess so.
Emily: 27, 28.
Dedeker: Jeez. Gosh.
Emily: I was a mere little child, baby. I know that I talked to Jase about this because there were so many relationships that I had in college and in high school that had been super toxic and shitty and I had expected, just intrinsically, Jase to act the same way. When he didn't, I was like, "Oh, what? That's not how just everybody acts?" You taught me in a lot of ways that that wasn't how every dude was going to be to me, which was great. Thank you for that.
Dedeker: Healing power of Jase.
Jase: Gosh.
Emily: There you go.
Jase: Jeez. Oh, gosh. Let's get into some of these examples of these otherwise healthy behaviors that can feel uncomfortable when you're not used to them. The first one that we have here is that it can be really hard to receive honesty or direct communication without thinking there must be some ulterior motive. There's got to be an agenda behind this sharing. It can't just be genuine or honest.
Emily: That's a big one. Another one is that a partner may want to tackle a conflict head-on and that might be just simply terrifying. Dedeker pointed that out earlier with the person who said that every single time a partner wanted to discuss conflict, it meant that the relationship was ending. That might be extremely terrifying if you just are used to conflict being super negative and super painful or relationship-ending for instance.
Dedeker: Definitely, or if you're used to conflict as always a horrible, negative, uncomfortable experience, "I always get yelled at or insulted, or the person slams the door and runs away. That would definitely lead you to behaviors that make you avoid that at all costs.
Jase: To even see someone else wanting to address something as being unhealthy. It's like, Ooh, they want to do that thing that I've seen is so bad," not realizing that there could be a different way to do it.
Dedeker: In my SE training, I just learned about this phenomenon that people are studying that the scientists call relaxation-induced panic. Even more upsetting, it's shortened to RIP.
Emily: RIP.
Dedeker: In a nutshell, this is the idea that you get into a state of relaxation and the message from your nervous system could be, "Hey, the last time we were this relaxed, something really horrible happened. We can't relax," or maybe reaching this point of relaxation can be a trigger of "Oh, my God, something horrible is about to happen." This can happen in a small scale, on a large scale.
This could be as simple. I think for a lot of people is not being able to relax after they're done with work or it could be not being able to relax in a relationship, not being able to really sink into, "Oh, wow, this is a really nice secure attachment with a really loyal partner who's really kind to me," without feeling like, "Oh God, something terrible is going to happen," or, "They're about to hurt me," or, "They're about to betray me."
This can be a phenomenon that if somewhere in your history there was that message encoded of, "Oh my God, if you let your guard down, something really bad is going to happen," it can just become even harder to let your guard down around somebody.
Jase: Gosh, yes. That also reminds me of a friend of mine from college who had some pretty significant PTSD where for him, if he was reading a book, in reading the book, he would get super nauseous enough to go run and throw up.
Eventually, saw a psychologist for it, thankfully and it was that because of his PTSD, he was tied to having to be hyper-vigilant about danger of being killed at any moment, that for him, it was getting too focused on something that his brain would panic and be like, "You're not paying enough attention to your surroundings so I'm going to make you sick so you'd stop doing this thing." Just another variation on a similar idea of, your body identifies a certain state as dangerous, and so that's going to be a problem for you.
Emily: You may worry that kind gestures or gifts might be seen as bargaining chips that will be brought up later, kind of a tit-for-tat, like, "Well, I did this thing for you." I know my mom actually used to talk about the fact that my father would constantly say to her, "Oh, that watch that I got you ,or that thing that I got you, what do you think about that? Why aren't you wearing that? Don't you love that? Don't you love that I did this for you?" She would fucking hate it, obviously.
Dedeker: I've gotten that one a lot with-- I know I had a number of formative relationships where money that was spent on me or spent on a gift or spent on a meal or whatever was used as a bargaining chip later or was thrown into my face later. I think I've gotten better at it but still to this day, if someone wants to by me a more expensive gift or treat me to a more expensive night-out, I'm just like, "Ugh." Still feel really, really nervous about doing that, especially if I don't know someone very well quite yet.
Jase: Right. It's like, "What? Am I going to have to pay for this later?" There must be this ulterior motive. I think that's a theme that comes with a lot of these. Going along with that is things like someone making a request can be interpreted as, "This is a demand. This is not negotiable." Again, that one, I think makes sense if you think about, if I had someone who would express things as a request, but if I didn't do it, I would suffer consequences because of it, that it's going to make you not trust someone's request to just be a plain request that you could say no to if you wanted to.
Dedeker: For some people, a relationship where there's a lack of conflict or lack of drama can be seen as boring or uninspiring, or maybe, "This isn't the right relationship for me, or maybe it's not meant to be." That's a classic one.
I listened to an episode of Help Me Be Me, not too long ago, where the host talked about how sometimes when you're in a very unhealthy or very toxic relationship, it can take up your entire worldview where all you care about is like, "Is this person being good to me today, or am I on their bad side today?" The whole point is about me trying to be on their good side and it almost like makes your whole life like this very, very simple video game, essentially. It's just about, "Am I winning or am I losing right now?"
It takes up a lot of your energy. When that's not there, not only can it be destabilizing of, "Oh my God, this thing that I was focusing on is gone," but then it can almost feel like you're a little bit purposeless, or it can feel like, "Oh my God, now I have to focus on the rest of my life." That can be a little scary if I've been spending so much time just focusing on making this person happy, and then I have to focus on making myself happy. That can really throw people for a loop.
Emily: Dedeker talked about this one before a bit, but if there isn't 100% instant intense physical chemistry and affection, fireworks constantly, maybe that means that this relationship has no future. Dedeker put a quote from an article by Danny Morbach from Birdie written in 2022 called What People Don't Know About Love After a Toxic Relationship. The quote says, "Because Maxton and I had such a peaceful relationship, I worried that we didn't have passion. What I didn't realize was that passion doesn't equal chaos. The adrenaline spikes from arguing may feel intense, but the only fire they feel is drama not love. The passion I was really looking for, comes from trust, affection, and attraction, all things Maxton and I already had."
Dedeker: Whenever people use the word "passion", it always makes me a little nervous. I had someone, I had a colleague many, many, many years ago and this person, first of all, they freaking loved-- gosh, they're not called soap operas anymore, but they're just dramas now. I'm thinking The O.C. where it's not a soap opera, but it's a lot of still that same-
Jase: It's like that.
Dedeker: It's like soap operas for our generation.
Emily: Soap opera lite. For sure.
Dedeker: She was really, really into that. She was also in the process of dating and trying to find a partner. She talked a lot about, she really wanted a very passionate relationship and she was very specific about what that means, is there's a lot of chemistry and a lot of romance and also very intense fights at the same time. Thinking about how our media so romanticizes that all the time, the number of times in romcoms I've seen that pairing of-- the romantic passion is so intense and they hate each other sometimes and are really terrible, but we love that, that's all part of the passion, and I'm just like, "No."
Emily: It's very Mr. and Mrs. Smith, like, "We're so hot for each other. We're trying to kill each other."
Dedeker: That was when The Notebook turned me off. Is that when they're establishing their relationship-
Emily: I wish I had never seen it.
Dedeker: -they talk about the fact they freaking fought like cats and dogs all the time, and I'm just like, "I'm not horny for this anymore."
Jase: "I'm not routing for these people."
Emily: This is just red flag central. Nothing to get out of there.
Jase: Nothing about this is romantic.
Emily: No, totally. With all of this, are there any actionable takeaways? How can we communicate all of this to a partner and also change our expectations and learn to adjust how we show up in a relationship? It's a challenge. It can be for sure. First of all, being patient with yourself, trust the process. That's potentially the first thing to do. Give yourself some grace because as with many, many habits that are maybe not serving us, it can take time to really break them and change that narrative within ourselves internally.
I love this next one. Take note of how you speak to yourself and adopt a general voice. Oh, boy.
Jase: I think that's just a good note for everyone in general.
Dedeker: Just for everyone. I know it's a whole cliche floating around there.
Emily: I doubt people out there are just really nice to themselves in general. If you are, will you please say so?
Dedeker: Yes. Give us a sample of how you talk to yourself.
Emily: Maybe on Facebook or on the discord and just tell us like, "Yes, this is how I talk to myself and it's really wonderful." I'm sure you're really happy.
Dedeker: I think the classic example that people give is that whatever it is that your parents said to you or your caregiver said to you, that becomes your inner voice.
Jase: I've heard that before.
Dedeker: Definitely true in my personal experience, but I think if you've come from some toxic relationships, sometimes-
Emily: That also.
Dedeker: -what your partner has said to you or about you can become your inner voice as well. Just important to examine that and be aware of that. Sometimes it's hard to control those things, but there is work that you can do to proactively change that and change the narratives and change the voices that go through your head and not talk to you.
Emily: Another thing you can do is find your own strength and individuality. Do things that you enjoy and that make you come alive. I love that. That goes hand in hand, I think with personal autonomy and doing things that really make you happy and trying to find things that just brighten your day and that you can work on individually, that don't necessarily equal you needing to do this thing within a relationship, but that really enables you to come out of your shell and enjoy life in the way that you want to. Additionally, you can enlist the help of a trusted friend or professional to take stock of what happened in your past relationship.
Dedeker: I think that this can involve not only having someone help you take stock and sit down and take inventory of what happened, "What are the ways that someone treated me poorly? What was the behavior that I really shouldn't have accepted, but I did?" but also taking ownership of your own part in it as well, your own behavior, your own negative habits. Now, especially if you're abused, this doesn't mean like, "Oh, we need to victim-blame," or, you're the one who equally contributed to it.
It is really helpful to look at, "What was going on inside me that meant that I tolerated that behavior for as long as I did or that I sought out this relationship or that I missed this particular red flag?" There's no judgment to that. It's 100% in the service of helping you to get a better deal the next time around and to protect yourself the next time around.
Jase: Also, something to keep in mind, and Emily said this at the top of this section, and I'm just going to say it again, and that's that it's okay to go slow. Go slow when opening your heart up again. Often there is this, "Oh, I just got out of this bad thing. I'm going to go find a good one right away." Even if you did, maybe you're not quite ready for that yet or you're just going to need time. If you're in a relationship already communicating that, and if you're not just giving yourself that freedom and that time, that there's healing that has to go along with also building healthier relationships, that there's also a healing part of it and that takes a little bit.
Dedeker: I know it's a cliche for people to be like, "Oh, I'm going to take a break to work on myself first before jumping into a relationship." There's value to that, also, a good thing that you can have a therapist for. One thing that I wanted to make sure that we hit when talking about working with a therapist or a counselor or a friend or whatever, it can be really, really good to have someone who can help give you a reality check.
Let's say you've left an unhealthy relationship, you're in a much healthier relationship. It can be helpful to have someone that you can text or call up to say, "Hey, my partner said this thing and I had a really negative reaction to it. Was this a bad thing actually, or was this just my trauma brain from this past relationship making it sound worse?" It can be so helpful to have someone outside of you and your partner and outside of the relationship to help give you that reality check as you're still healing.
Jase: Another thing that can help with that, and maybe this episode can help you put this together, is to make a list of, not only red flags for yourself to look out for, but also green flags. What are some of these good behaviors and healthy behaviors? Find a way to write that down so that when you are questioning, you're able to look at that and go, "Oh, huh, that felt uncomfortable but I think maybe this is actually a good thing," or, "Oh, no. This looks like this red flag. This isn't just me thinking it. This is here."
I know that doesn't completely solve the problem because you're still having to interpret each thing that happens but having a list written down can just help give you some anchor points or some buoys to use as a reference to tell where this falls in the red-to-green flag spectrum as it were.
Another one is when something about a partner's words or their behavior throws you off, ask some questions about it. You might jump to this conclusion that, "Oh, they're doing this because they want this thing, or that's actually a demand." Many of the things we mentioned before is to ask. Just stop and ask those questions before making an assumption about what it means or what their motivation was for saying it. If that's not a safe thing for you to do, then that's an answer for you right there. If they react badly to that, especially if they understand you're processing some trauma, then, yes, okay, that's a red flag and you should probably get out of that relationship.
Dedeker: Related to what Jase is saying about going slow, we encourage you all to halt, haltddds, as much as you need when you're healing from something. Whether that's out and about and something triggers you or a relationship memory comes up, take a break, take a pause, do what you need to do to help regulate your nervous system.
Same thing in relationships, that if you're in conflict and let's say, you're typically very conflict-avoidant because conflict in your past relationships was very toxic, that it can be a very overwhelming experience even if your logical brain is like, "Okay, I know this person is going to treat me better than that. I know that this is going to be a healthier conversation," but your body and your nervous system can still be freaking out. It is okay to take a pause to go take a walk, take a breath, get some water, move around to help move that energy around in your body.
We really encourage people to find a time to talk to your current partner or partners ideally not during conflict if you can help it, about what's happened in the past and how you can work together to help facilitate healing. Of course, when you're ready, you will be the one to suss out, when is the appropriate time to have that conversation in your relationship? Like the research found with those army couples, that being able to disclose these things does lead to greater understanding and it leads to your partner being able to understand and empathize and be able to help you more in those particular moments when this baggage is coming up or these particular triggers are coming up.
I also really love encouraging people to embrace ritual. I think it can be really helpful to symbolize or formalize a way to let go of that previous relationship, and that's-
Emily: Oh, you talked about this.
Dedeker: Yes. Even if you know, "100% I'm over this person, I'm over the relationship, it was bad. I can totally see that," that sometimes there can be something a little bit magical. I don't know, not 100% magical, maybe 5% magical. I don't know, don't pin me down on the amount of magic, but there can be something that happened, some kind of deeper knowing in your nervous system when you do something symbolic to actually let go of that relationship and close the door on it. That's all I'm going to say.
The last thing that I think we want to send people home with is you can practice accepting love and accepting affection and kindness and compassion and worthiness, not just from your partners, but from everyone around you including yourself. I say practice because it is a constant practice. I know Emily's joking about people who do talk to themselves in a kind way. I don't know if you exist necessarily. I think that this is a day-to-day thing.
Emily: You're a fable.
Dedeker: This is a day-to-day thing that we have to come back to. I think our culture really encourages us to not accept these things, or to sometimes be a little scared, or sometimes downplay when people offer us kindness or compassion. It's a constant practice to build that muscle for accepting those things and to slowly start to internalize this idea that you are worthy of love and kindness and good behavior. Not only are you worthy of it, you should expect it. It's not like you're lucky to get it, this is the bare minimum. I think this is when we start to open up the really wonderful and truly magical part of relationships, how they can be healing for us. Gently, deal with that.
Jase: Higher percentage of magic on that one.
Emily: Yes, that's beautiful.