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Sara 00:00
empowered people make informed decisions that lead to living a life without regret. This is Sarah Khaki and Shawna woods from Atlanta divorce law group. And this is the happily ever after divorce podcast. All right, we’re back with another episode of The happily ever after divorce Podcast. I’m Sara Khaki and joined by our managing partner from Atlanta divorce law group. Shawna. Hey, Shawna, how are you?
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Shawna 00:28
I’m great, Sara. How are you today?
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Sara 00:29
I’m good. I’m excited about this conversation. Because you and I talk about this off topic quite a bit. It’s one of those things like the fine obscenity, I know it when I see it. Right. Right. And that’s what we’re talking about toxic relationships. It’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it, usually from the outside. But today, we’re gonna talk about how do you know you’re in a toxic relationship when you’re on the inside? Do you have a formula for how you know you’re in a toxic relationship?
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Shawna 01:21
I don’t think there is a formula for how you know you’re in a toxic relationship. I think there’s a lot of times, like you said, you can see it from the outside, or you can see it backwards looking in Yes. But I think that one of the things that when people talk to me, you know, when we have clients or potential clients that are coming in, and they start talking about their relationship, a lot of times, I’m just kind of reflecting back to them. So is this what you’re telling me is going on? And once you start reflecting it back to them, they start recognizing for themselves, Oh, this isn’t a healthy relationship. This isn’t what I want to be in a healthy relationship. So as far as identifying it, I think talking to other people about what’s going on, whether it’s a marriage counselor, whether it’s really good friend, whether it’s you know, your your family members who you depend on, and just talking through and saying, I’m feeling something here trusting that feeling, you know, that gut that says something about this isn’t right.
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Sara 02:08
Have you ever been in a toxic relationship? or friendship?
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Shawna 02:11
Absolutely. I both, you know, I think when, and I’ve been very open, and you and I are very open about our childhood, and all of the different things that we’ve come through. And I think when you grow up in a very dysfunctional family like I did, you don’t recognize toxic relationships at first, because those are the only relationships you had.
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Sara 02:34
Right, right. standard for what a healthy relationship is, is quite low.
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Shawna 02:36
It really is. I’ve been in a couple of different toxic romantic relationships had some toxic friendships. And I think the key for me when I’m looking at it now is do I like myself in this relation? Yes, yes. Yeah. If I’m not liking myself, then there’s something wrong in this particular relationship.
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Sara 03:00
Like that is. so Shawna, and I do not come to this podcast, having discussed what we’re going
to say ahead of time, but that is literally what I had written down. For myself. It’s like, how am I
showing up here?
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Shawna 03:10
That does not surprise me whatsoever, Sara.
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Sara 03:15
That does not surprise me whatsoever, SaraBut if there was to be a an identifier, right? Wouldn’t that be one of the best ones?
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Shawna 03:20
It really would. And, you know, do I like myself? Do I like what I’m doing? Is this the person I
want to be in this relationship?
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Sara 03:27
Because it does take an agreement to be in a toxic relationship, unfortunately. So it takes one
person to invite you into the toxic relationship, and then for you to accept being in that toxic
relationship. So it comes to so at that point, both people are being equally toxic, if we’re to be
take a sense of ownership, and accountability for it. Because that’s the only I mean, we’ll have
another episode where we can talk about how to get out of one. But it starts with recognizing
and taking responsibility, doesn’t it?
August 17, 2022
19 min
