Episode 22: Managing Toxic Relationships You Choose To Stay In

s Sara Khaki 00:04

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. Welcome to another episode of The happily ever after divorce podcast, I’m Sarah khaki with the Atlanta divorce law group, joined by our very own managing partners, Shawna woods, Shawna, today, we are continuing the conversation on toxic relationships, we can’t get enough. So we’ve talked about how do you identify one, we’ve talked about how to set boundaries, and one. Today we’re going to talk about managing one. And the reason for that is we are avid believers here at Atlanta divorce law group, that we can all be empowered individuals that make choices for our own lives, we do not have to be victim of circumstance. And one of the things that I think is really important, is accepting the fact that some toxic relationships, we make a personal choice to not get out of it. That may be because it’s a family member, that you just do not want to cut out of your life for other reasons, that is a personal value of yours. Another big one that happens to our clients is in a custody arrangement, right when one parent has to co parent with another toxic individual. Shawna, why don’t you talk a little bit about that scenario?

s Shawna Woods 01:31

Absolutely. And obviously, if you’ve decided you’re going to leave the relationship, you’re not having that personal, right, the husband, wife, the wife, wife relationship with this person anymore, but you have children. And you do have a choice, whether to co parent with this person or not. But that choice A lot of times is you walking away from the children. And very, very rarely does anyone want to do that. And I have seen that happen a couple of times, very sad situations. And a lot of times what happens when we’re talking about toxic relationships, and we’ve talked about the triangle and the victimhood and the rescuer and the persecutor. You see, and I’ve seen this so many times over 19 years, a pattern that forms it, it is traditionally the wife, the female in the relationship, who is comes into the relationship, first of all, either from having experience with trauma, and then is re traumatized in this toxic relationship.

And you have somebody on the other side, typically the husband now again, this isn’t always but this is very typical kind of dichotomy that is set up, who probably a high earner, right did probably very well liked out in society probably presents extremely well, but has victimized this person in their relationship, either physically, emotionally, mentally, to the point where they can say one word, and it can trigger the button of that other person, right. And they’ve set up these buttons throughout the relationship. And in these traditional kind of the relationships we’ve talked about, the wife typically stays home. And the husband typically goes off and is the bread earner. And what I’ve seen continuously is when they go ahead, and they’ve divorced, either during that first initial divorce process or in subsequent litigation, and we’re talking toxic individuals who are in litigation for years, constant litigation from the day they divorce until the kids turn 18. Where the higher earner the person with the the personality that everyone likes until they’re behind closed doors kind of turns the children into a power play. Right, right. And the person who has been victimized throughout their life or in particularly in this relationship continues to react to the buttons that the other person is pushing in this coparenting dichotomy because the court is not in general going to let you cut this person out of their lives. They actually could be a very good parent to the children or they could be perceived which is a lot of times as the better parent because every time this the male on was gonna use this it pushes the females buttons. She looks crazy, right? She looks like she has lost her mind you she can’t handle her trauma. She can’t get herself, we call it crazy maker, the crazy maker and I have had to have a lot of conversations over the years with some of our clients. And I’ve had both sides See, if the typically the one person who looks like they’re going crazy, and they want to tell their court their story, right? And they want to say no, no, this is why I look crazy. And the hardest part for me is to tell them, I understand the trauma that you’re talking about.

The courts not looking at your trauma, they’re looking at your actions and how it affects the kids. So regardless of the fact that he’s pushing your buttons, therefore you’re acting this way. They’re not caring about what he’s doing, they’re caring about what’s going on with the kids. So learning how to manage a toxic relationship, so that you a don’t feel crazy all the time, you’re not reacting to this trauma all the time, you’re not being re traumatized. And then it’s not affecting your ability to co parent right with this, this person. And to actually parent right with the children. One of the worst cases that I’ve seen was I actually represented the father, who the parties together had a really toxic relationship. And we’ve talked about this, they it’s not just one person who’s toxic, the parties together had a very toxic relationship. And coming out of that, the mom did not work on herself, she did not get the necessary help that we’ve talked about to make herself Whole Again, coming out of this relationship. The father did. He worked on himself, he became a better version of himself, he remarried, he had a structured life. And she continued to spiral until the children were placed in his custody by the courts. And at the end of the day, she ended up cutting off all contact with the children. And they were young, they were 8 and 14, when she did this, cutting off all contact with the children, because she couldn’t stand to see them happy with him. And it was extraordinarily tragic, not only for her, but also for the children, because they never got a version of the mom that she could have been if she had gone through this.

So we’re talking about managing toxic relationships. If you have to be in a relationship, where the person is toxic, or the two of you are toxic, together, is absolutely essential that you take that extra step back, even if that means Hey, I might need to go away for a month, you know, I might actually need some deep healing therapy, you have to take that time to really work on yourself, because it is not about the two of you anymore. It’s about the children, right. And what the court is looking for is not how you got there, what’s going on right now. And how’s it affecting the kids.

s Sara Khaki 08:05

So a couple of things that I heard in, what you just expressed to us is, first, making sure that you’re clear with yourself, that you’ve made a choice to remain in this relationship, because as you said, this is not a good choice. Not a choice that any parent ,most parents would ever want. But there is a choice to walk away from your children. I mean, you could still if you’re going to look at this in a very spiritual way, there is still there is always a choice. And I think you have to tell yourself that and you have to see that in order to feel empowered to then make the next move. Because if I go into let’s say, for instance, you have a family member, you don’t want to cut out of your life, but you have an you know, an ex spouse that you can’t cut out of your life because of a custody arrangement. If you say I have no choice but to deal with this, you right away disempowered yourself from the next thing, which is possible solutions. Absolutely. But when you come at anything with a sense of empowerment that I am making this choice, I am making this choice to stay connected to this parent, right that is toxic for me or stay connected to this friend, who for whatever reason is toxic for me or stay connected to my ex spouse that is toxic to because he’s the father of my children. You can first make that clear understanding in your head that you’re still making a choice, then watch yourself be able to see solutions because when you say I have no choice but blah, blah, blah, you’re stuck. And when you’re stuck the creative solution, wiring processes of your mind are not operating

s Shawna Woods 10:01

Absolutely. And plus, you’re still stuck in that victim role, right? If you say I have no choice but to sit here, right that you again, going back to the woman who made the choice to say, I’m going to cease contact with my children. I see as incredibly sad, she may have seen it as incredibly empowering, right? Right. That’s for her and her therapist, and her well being to make those choices for herself. Most of us would not make that choice. But some people do.

And you mentioned parents and and I have to draw real strict boundaries. That’s another episode, we’ve talked about boundaries, with my mom, who is still a toxic individual to me the right, I do choose to keep her in my life. And I have chosen not to keep other people in my life.

So it is a basis on how I choose to allow her to affect me at any point in time.

s Sara Khaki 10:56

Okay, so that’s the next part, which is the self management, because really, what we’re talking about is not managing the toxic person. In order to remain in this relationship. It’s self management in order to remain in this relationship. I have kind of a tough example of this. And it’s going to sound cold hearted, but I think it’s important for people to hear it. Because when I first heard it, I was like, Whoa, one of my personal coaches that I’ve used for my personal life and my business development, both Hisham and I have is David Nagel. And we love to soak up as many of his events and seminars that we could and once we were at one of his events, and gentleman went up to the mic and asked, asked this question, I’m had a lot of issues in his life, that when David was asking him more and more questions about it, it really came both boiled down to he had a lot of issues in his marriage. And when he went further, he was describing his wife as a very toxic person in his life. And David said, Well, you have a choice to make. Do you want to stay in this marriage? Or not? Do you want to stay with some married to somebody who is toxic? And he said, For the sake of my children, yes, I’m not getting divorced, I’m staying in this marriage. And David said, then you have no more right? To complain about all the problems and blame it on her. You’ve made a choice, you are self aware that you are in a toxic relationship, that this person is toxic. And then when the next option is Do I stay in this or not, you are choosing to stay. That’s a based on a value system that you want to do, because you want to stay put for your children.

That’s what you can live with. And that’s great. But then you can’t after that, Let go of all the frustrations that you’re carrying with you like a ton of bricks. Because they’re you’ve made this choice. And I think half of the room saw it as Whoa, that’s cold hearted. They love out of other people thought about, wow, that’s really freeing.

s Shawna Woods 13:22

Actually that was the word I was thinking when you said that that is free. I’m making this choice to either stay or leave. And if I make this choice to stay, that’s my you take your power back at them, right?

s Sara Khaki 13:36

Take the power back, you take that sting of all those buttons that this person has created. All these buttons that you mentioned that they created throughout the duration of the relationship, the trigger buttons, and it’s setting you up for the triggers. You take all that out, you wash it all out. Yes, we are not good for with each other. Yes, you create toxicity inside of me. But yes, I’m staying because of XY and Z that has based on a personal value of mine that matter more to me than these issues that comes with this package.

s Shawna Woods 14:12

And by doing that, and by saying that you almost unplug those buttons. Yes, they may still bother you, but they’re not going to get to the heart of you anymore because you recognize them. With mine, it’s almost become a running joke when my mom will do certain things that it’s kind of makes me laugh now because it’s so obvious what the buttons that she’s trying to push are no longer connected to me. Wow. And that’s empowering. That’s freeing. And it’s not always that easy when it was a marriage to luck.

s Sara Khaki 14:50

David would call that what you just described with your mom the hook. She had a hook in you and right and we usually that first hook that somebody has in us is our parents and right what David explains it as as the umbilical cord that never really we let go of like the doctor cut it off. But we still let the parents hold on to that hook. And once we cut it off from the parents the hook, we walk around and find somebody else to plug that hook in. And the plugging is pretty much unhooking taking that hook off, right. And once you take that hook off, you may actually be able to self manage yourself around that person Much, much better. I mean, there are people in my life that, you know, by how he described, they do invoke toxicity inside of me. And I’m aware that I’ve made a choice to remain in these relationships or remain in this in those dynamics. And instead of working on how do I change this person, I am very, very self aware.

And every time I text message, get on a phone call, or I’m around these person, I just observed myself so much and just so aware of where are my trigger buttons? And what are my patterns? And am I playing into them?

s Shawna Woods 16:09

And that takes a lot of energy. It does. And it’s really hard to be around these people. And I recommend and I think other people would recommend limiting your contact for sure. But again, we go back to the fact that you’re making this choice of how much you let them in and out. Right. And co parenting. In particular, there is a book that I do recommend to our clients. It’s co parenting with a toxic ex what to do when your spouse tries to turn the kids against you.

And that happens a lot and parental alienation cases and is by Amy J. L. Baker, who has a PhD. And Paul R. Fine, who is a licensed social worker. And I think it is a really good reference point for anyone who is trying to continue to be in their children’s life when they have a toxic relationship with a co parent.

s Sara Khaki 17:11

Fantstic, Thank you Shawna,

s Shawna Woods 17:13

thank you.

s Sara Khaki 17:15

Thanks for listening to the happily ever after divorce podcast. If you’d like to learn more, go to Atlanta divorce law group.com forward slash resources