- Hi everybody, welcome to Sunday Facebook live.
First of all, I want to apologise
if you hear a little child in the background,
my granddaughter's visiting for the weekend,
so you might actually hear her in the background.
Hopefully it won't disturb us too much.
So today's topic is how to tell
if they are a healthy, emotionally mature person
before you fall in love with them.
It's a topic that I encounter in the counselling
groups all the time; men and women saying
they wish they'd seen the truth of the person
that they've been involved with early on, sooner,
before they'd invested all of their time
and effort and emotions in that person.
And I'm always interested to really listen to those stories.
Every story's complex and they've been on
an emotional rollercoaster.
Every single person who comes to me
with one of these stories has been
on a huge emotional rollercoaster.
But something that always, always, always emerges
is that the evidence was right there from the beginning,
they just didn't see it or they've
lied to themselves about it or they've ignored it,
made excuses for the behaviours that they noticed,
or didn't understand what they were seeing,
the relevance or importance of what they were seeing.
That's I guess what we wanna talk about today,
is how can you make sure that you don't
sort of inadvertently get involved
in one of these relationships?
So first of all, you have to understand
that there are two traits that a toxic person
will look for in a partner.
They deliberately will want to seek out people
who have these two traits.
One of them is that they think the best of people,
they want their partners to think the best of people,
look for the best in people, believe the best about people
and the reason for this is fairly obvious
because it means that you're not gonna be cynical
and you're not gonna be suspicious
and you'll tend to believe that people are
doing their best in the world,
and that people are honest and that people
will tell the truth and that
you don't sort of, I guess dig deeper
into behaviour that you see and just believe
that this person, you take them at face value
and you just believe what they're telling you
and that whatever they say must be true.
They tend to be very honest people
and so they expect the rest of the world
to be honest as well but unfortunately
when we're talking about toxic people,
they're rarely, rarely honest.
So the other trait that these toxic people will look for
is high empathy, so trying to understand
and feel somebody else's feelings
from their experiences,
so putting yourself into their shoes, if you like,
or trying to see the world the way they see it.
You'll feel empathy for people in tough situations
and you can see the humanity in people,
even the most damaged or off the rail people.
You can see the humanity in them.
They want this, toxic or disordered people want this
because you'll make excuses for their behaviour,
for all of their lousy behaviours,
which means that they just have to come up with a reason
or an excuse or a story good enough for you to believe
and you'll excuse their behaviour again and again and again.
Every time, there may be multiple stories
or it may be one story that they trot out
again and again and again, such as
I had a terrible upbringing, I was abused in childhood.
Now, I'm not saying that being abused in childhood
doesn't cause trauma and it doesn't cause
some of these toxic behaviours, it absolutely does,
that has been proven; however,
that doesn't mean that you should make excuses
for that behaviour in a relationship.
That person needs to go and get the help
that they need to heal from that trauma
so that they can show up in this relationship
with you in an adult way and a healthy way,
which is even more important.
Toxic people can operate on two levels.
Some are genuinely, they know,
they know what they're doing is wrong,
they know that their behaviour is manipulative
and controlling and they do it anyway
and they understand that the rest of the world
doesn't operate that way or that a good portion
of the world doesn't operate that way,
so they've also got the good sense
to try and hide what they're doing.
These people are quite deliberate and for instance,
psychopaths would actually fall into that category.
And then I think there's a far larger group
who are largely unconscious around their behaviours
and I liken these people more to being like a leech;
they latch on to somebody and feed off them
and then they drop off when the quality,
the blood or the food, the source of energy
or whatever it is that they're looking for from you
is no longer high quality,
it's no longer feeding them the way they need it to,
so then they'll just, they'll disappear.
So neither of these two types of toxic people
will take ownership for their behaviour.
They simply offer a story or an excuse
or they'll flat out lie and deny
that they're actually engaging
in any kind of toxic behaviour,
and they'll often do the switch
so they'll try and blame the toxic behaviour on you,
and saying that this relationship is toxic
and how dare you, this is you creating this,
when really what they're saying is,
you trying to hold me accountable
is making me very uncomfortable
and it's creating a lot of conflict for us.
So be aware that toxic people will often
try and switch that story back to you
so that it sounds as though you're the toxic one.
I've had many, many victims of this kind of behaviour
coming in to me and saying am I the toxic one?
Am I really the one that's unhealthy,
because that kind of gaslighting
can leave people quite confused.
Toxic people will usually keep
their worst behaviours under wraps,
especially until there's some kind of a commitment.
They'll oftentimes be on their best behaviour, if you like,
until say you've moved in together
or you've had children together,
gotten engaged or gotten married,
so some kind of commitment is often a trigger
for toxic people to escalate that behaviour.
Toxic people do like to be with somebody
who's not toxic or unhealthy.
They actually want a high functioning person by choice,
if they can get somebody who will agree
to be in a relationship with them
because that person's gonna cushion them
from the experience of having to deal
with their own behaviour, so they'll be high functioning,
they'll make sure that the rest of their life,
their world, is functioning,
and I've seen women who've been doing things
like managing medication for men
or guys who even down to charging
their partner's mobile phone,
all sorts of things like that where
the high functioning partner takes responsibility
for all the detail of running
the relationship and the life.
Obviously that's co-dependence
and that becomes very very unhealthy in the medium term,
but just be aware toxic people
do like high functioning people.
However, if you call them out on their behaviours,
if you for instance, become a mirror
to those behaviours, call them out
on things that are dysfunctional
or chaotic or inconsiderate, disrespectful, all that stuff,
they will often drop you like the proverbial hot potato.
They often only want to be with you
so long as you don't reflect their bad behaviour
back to them so whilst ever you're
making excuses for their bad behaviour,
absolutely adore you, want to have you in their life
but the minute you start reflecting
their bad behaviour back to them,
they head for the hills and they look for a new target.
This is why boundaries is your best defence
against somebody who's toxic,
because it sort of weeds them out very, very quickly.
So anyway, I'm gonna quickly do a list
of the top ten things to look for
so that you know if somebody is
emotionally mature and healthy in the early days
so that you don't make the mistake
of getting into a relationship with them
getting deeply involved and emotionally attached
before you understand what it is that you've seen.
So number one is look to see
if they've got their life in order.
So have they got a job, have they got a licence,
have they got a car, are they in touch
with their friends and family?
Do they have healthy and long-lasting relationships?
If they don't have any of those things,
then that's one red flag.
So for each of those things, no job, no car, no licence;
each of those things are potential red flags.
They're not operating in a healthy way.
Unless of course, they're an entrepreneur
and they've got a profitable business, okay?
Understand that there are some grey areas
but generally speaking, you're looking for
a train to your partner behaviour
and you would see several of these things,
not just one thing.
Number two, are their words and actions aligned?
They do what they say they're going to do,
they don't break promises.
If they speak about something then their words
and actions are aligned in that particular topic,
and that should be all the time on every subject,
not just on the things that suit them.
Number three, they tell the truth
even if it's not convenient or uncomfortable.
They're transparent and they're honest.
Simple; there's no grey area in that.
If they obfuscate, if they're not transparent,
if they don't want to tell the full truth,
they don't want to tell the story,
or if they outright lie then those are things
you do not want to ignore, even if it's a small thing.
If you hear them lying to somebody else,
this is a huge one.
So many people will say, oh yeah, I knew he lied
to his ex-partner, to his boss, to his mother,
to his brother, to whoever, best friend,
but I didn't think he'd lie to me.
I'm sorry, if he lies to one person
he will lie to any of you so believe it.
You are not special, one day you'll
be the person that he lies to.
He may well tell you that that's not the case;
however, let me assure you, it is.
And this is not gendered, I know I'm using
gendered terms at times but guys and girls do this,
this is not a gender thing.
Number four, they have plans for their future,
they know where they're heading, they have plans,
they know what they want from life,
they're actively working towards it.
It's a really simple thing you know,
they see a future, they know how to achieve it
and they're working towards it.
Very simple.
Number five, they treat everybody with respect.
Their ex-partners, you, their parents,
their brothers, strangers, the waitress,
especially the waitress,
they treat everybody with respect.
Number six, they don't deliberately or carelessly
do things to make you feel insecure or worried.
They care about your emotional wellbeing.
Let me say that again:
they care about your emotional wellbeing.
That's right from day one,
they should care about your emotional wellbeing.
That's only reasonable after all,
people who are healthy don't go around
deliberately hurting other people.
Number seven, they do not desert you when you're sick,
when you're emotionally struggling,
when you have an emergency.
So they don't head for the hills,
they don't disappear, they're not suddenly unavailable
or even if they're physically unavailable
they're not emotionally unavailable.
They are there for you when you need them.
Number eight.
The flip side of that one is they don't seek to rescue you,
so they don't swoop in on their white horse
and try to rescue you if they think
that you've got some issue in your life.
They respect that you're a grown adult
and you will sort out your own issues yourself.
Number nine, the effort in the relationship is equal.
It is reciprocal.
Both people have equal say, equal responsibilities
and both people do the work of
keeping the relationship alive.
So they're not skating by on somebody's coattails,
they're not letting somebody do all
of the maintenance of a relationship
and they're just sitting and relaxing and enjoying.
They understand the responsibility and the necessary work
that is involved in being in a relationship
and they are committed to doing that.
Number ten, they want to create an environment
where both of you are safe, supported and growing.
Safe, supported and growing.
Safety is huge; you can't grow
if you're not in a safe environment.
You can't grow if you've got no support.
They want you to be the best version of yourself
that you can be and they won't get in the way of that.
They want to support you in that
in whatever way that they can
and they won't stand in the way of you doing things
that are in alignment with your life goals.
They don't get jealous about those kinds of things,
they don't get insecure about it, they support you in it.
So that's my top ten things to look for
to know that this person's a healthy emotional
person to get into a relationship with,
so maybe write those down, keep it in mind
when you're dating, when you're out there,
maybe even weigh up if the relationship
that you're in currently demonstrates those things.
That's it for today.
Don't forget, if you've got any ideas for different topics
that you'd like me to cover in a Facebook live,
please pop them up in the comments
or you can private message me,
and thank you to the people who have been
private messaging me, I appreciate that.
You can follow along on YouTube,
so that if you want to share with your friends
at some other point in time, you can do that.
This is also available on podcast, on SoundCloud
and you'll find articles on both my blog and my website
which is liminalcoaching.com.au
and also you'll see them on Facebook,
obviously, and LinkedIn as well.
Have a fabulous week and I'll talk
to you all again next Sunday.
I'll look forward to it.
Bye.
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