Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Ready to lose 40 plus pounds without giving up happy hours, weekend brunches, or date nights. Then it's time to uncover the hidden link between binge eating and toxic relationships. And finally break free from both. Welcome to the Hungry for Love podcast with Jillian Scott. Y' all ready? Let's go.
[00:00:24] Hey. Hey. Welcome back.
[00:00:26] All right, so since this week's earlier episode was pretty long, I figured I would pop in, though, and just record a short, little, brief episode, almost like a rant.
[00:00:37] But I was talking with a friend last week, and she had brought up this concept, I think she heard from Mel Robbins about how when it's a really overtly toxic relationship, it's easier to walk away. It's easier to know what to do, it's easier to end things, to see it for what it really is, versus if a relationship just feels confusing.
[00:00:54] And my initial thought was like, oh, no, Confusion is a massive red flag that there is covert emotional abuse happening. If there is any confusion in a relationship, that is my go to thought.
[00:01:07] However, it wasn't always that way. And so I get what Mel was talking about and why it felt like for a long time. When it's confusing, typically that's because sometimes it's really good. It's not that it's all bad, and that's how a lot of people will justify staying. It's how a lot of toxic people will justify and try to blame you or guilt you into staying. Because look at all these good things that they do. Look at how amazing they are. And that's often why we stay, is because it's not all bad. It is harder to walk away because there are some positive aspects from the way that we see it.
[00:01:44] And really what I have come to learn, though, is in the last couple of years in particular, is anytime you are confused, it means there is emotional abuse happening. And I've shared this with clients, and it has been really helpful for them to see because it's not just in marriage or dating relationships. This can happen in the workforce, like in your place of work. It can happen with friendships. It can happen with family members, like parents or siblings, often because it is covert, because it flies under the radar. It because it feels confusing, and sometimes things are good.
[00:02:20] That is why we have that harder time walking away. So while now at, like, at the stage that I'm at now, I can see it as, oh, if it's confusing, I gotta run. Like, I've got to leave. And it's gonna be really hard to leave even knowing that if you are still getting Emotional needs met by this person. So that's why we have to really figure out and identify what are the emotional needs we are trying to get met by someone else or something else, and then learning how to meet those for ourselves. That way we can leave these dysfunctional patterns and systems behind because we just keep playing into them when we stay. When we get into these relationships, we stay. We don't walk away. That only just keeps the pattern going, but that's what we get to control.
[00:03:01] And so the reason why it feels confusing is often because there is hot and cold behavior. Sometimes it's like you're amazing and you can do no wrong and you have hung the stars and moon and sky.
[00:03:13] And then other times, you are the scum of the earth and they tell you that to your face. It's like these big extremes about how much they love you and how amazing you are, and then also how awful you are and you're not enough and you're never going to be good enough. Right? It's these extremes where it's like, that doesn't make sense. What they're saying is often at opposites. And then what they say and how they treat you don't align. So it's when words don't match up with actions that is also a big sign and part of what contributes to the confusion. Because it's like he says that he loves me, but then he blows up and yells or screams or cusses at me or she seems so nice to other people. And then when we get home, now I'm her verbal punching bag. Because this can go both ways. It's not just men, it's not just women. It's not just in romantic partnerships, right? This seeps into every part of life. And as we are waking up to dysfunction often in our marriage, we then can look back and see it in childhood. We can see it in different friendships. We see it in different work environments. It's like we are a narc magnet because we know how to show up and operate in these systems to keep them going. We know the role that we need to play. We have been trained, we have essentially been groomed to fit this. Need to fit into this little bucket, into this hole.
[00:04:32] But that's why it feels confusing, is because sometimes they treat me really well, and then other times they don't. Sometimes they say that they love me, but then they don't treat me well. They don't treat me that way. They say it's our money and we're going to make decisions together. But Then they give me an allowance, or then they tell me I can't spend money, or they take the credit card away. What they say versus what they do are conflicting. And that leads to the confusion. And when we don't know and understand all of the aspects around abuse and the different forms of abuse, we just haven't put all the pieces together yet. We don't know what we don't know. So we're in this dynamic. And because we grew up with it, typically that's why it feels familiar. We know how to operate, we know what to do. It's that subconscious kind of default response.
[00:05:18] And so the more that we can see that, and I would say for most people listening to this podcast, most have woken up and they've become aware of why things were so confusing, what was really happening, that there really was this emotional abuse happening when things were really confusing. And it did not make it. I would say in the beginning, it did make it hard to walk away because things were sometimes good, because things worked. We were fine. We had these good moments. It did make it harder to leave. It made it harder to figure out what to do there, I would say, the first time around. And then it gets progressively easier as I was thinking about some of the confusing relationships that I've been in. It took me nine years to wake up to what dysfunctional relationships really look like in romantic partnerships. And then it took a solid year of waking up and really wrestling with this concept to then be able to say, no, this does not work for me. I need to leave. And then getting into another dating relationship where within the first couple of months, things were confusing and they didn't make sense, but he was meeting my emotional needs. And so it was like I was overlooking that. And I would say part of the confusion aspect, there was also, I felt like he was lying. There were some things where it was like I thought he was lying. Other people could see he was lying, and I wanted to keep believing because it didn't make sense. It was very confusing. Why would he do this? Why would he say this if he actually does love me, if he actually does care about me?
[00:06:45] And it was really hard to accept the fact, no, he actually does not love me. He says the words, but words are the lowest form of value. He does not show me with his actions. And in fact, he's showing me the opposite. He's showing me he does not love me. But because he was meeting emotional needs, because there was some love bombing that felt so amazing and so good because I hadn't Quite learned to meet that for myself. I didn't fully step into owning my responsibility, like my emotional responsibility for myself and feeling good. I still kept looking for that outside of myself.
[00:07:18] This is why we can divorce a person, we can break up, but we also have to divorce the patterns within ourselves. That becomes the work. But part of the confusion with this guy was catching him in a lie. And then he would just lie again. It was catching him in more lies and he would lie about stuff that he didn't even have to. It's like, why would he even do that? That makes no sense.
[00:07:39] This is what you would call a pathological liar or a sociopath.
[00:07:44] They live and walk amongst us and they wear some really good masks. They look like your average normal person. You don't always realize what you're getting into. And I was watching a little clip from Eliza Schlesinger.
[00:07:58] Schlesinger. I'm totally butchering her name. She's a comedian and I love her stuff. She's so funny. Every now and then I'll go through and I'll find a clip of hers and it always brightens my mood. And so I was watching something where she had post about what it was like to date a pathological liar and how it's like in the beginning you're fairly trusting and you're like, okay, things make sense. There's a little bit of truth in the lie and that's why you want to believe them. But the other part of why you want to believe them is because of how you feel when you're around them. It's how they make you feel. It's just like when you break up so often you don't miss them. You don't miss, miss the way you felt when you were with them. You missed how they made you feel or what they did to make you feel a certain way.
[00:08:43] That's what we really miss. And so as I was listening to her tell this experience of when she had a very short lived dating experience with this pathological liar, I just found myself thinking like, oh yeah, it makes a lot of sense right from the outside we could look in and be judgmental. But when you're in the moment and you're used to giving people the benefit of the doubt, seeing the bright side, feeling connected and also wanting to be kind and compassionate and forgiving and all these aspects come in and that's so often why we stay, it's why we stay in these confusing relationships. I really just wanted to get on here and emphasize that if you are Confused in a relationship, any type of relationship, that is a huge giant flaming red flag.
[00:09:28] It is time to run, it is time to leave. And it's harder if it is a co parent, if it is maybe one of your own parents. And things feel confusing just noticing there may not be an easy leaving of that relationship. And so you can decide what you want that dynamic to look like moving forward. But I hope that we all can start to see and recognize that if you are feeling confused, there is emotional abuse happening. That is a clear sign it's time to leave. It's time to create some distance so that you can break out of that confusion.
[00:10:03] Let's not sit in the confusion and wonder. Let's not just look on the bright side, let's not look at all of their positive traits because that's the big thing too is like you're not going to want to feel guilty. They are going to want to throw all of the good things that they do in your face and then try to make you feel bad for walking away, for setting a boundary, for enforcing a boundary when really they are creating this really big problem.
[00:10:26] You can't control them, you can control whether or not you stay. So my encouragement to you is to be able to walk away and walk away faster from anything that feels confusing. If you feel like you have to walk on eggshells, if you're afraid of how the other person is going to respond because it's typically going to be your fault, right? They did this, they said that they threw this because of you or something. You did, you said, you didn't do, you didn't say right? Because they were stressed.
[00:10:54] That is not, that's not healthy, that's not normal.
[00:10:57] Just a little friendly PSA here.
[00:11:00] Anytime you're confused in a relationship, know that is a big sign of it's time to leave and it's safe to leave. And one of the things that I decided in my marriage was I was willing to be the bad guy. And I had to also decide that with dating. I was willing to be the bad guy, I was willing to be seen as the villain. I was willing to be misunderstood, I was willing to be judged. I was willing for people to think negatively of me. That's hard. That is hard coming from this people pleasing state where I a general human natural response and reaction is we want people to like us. We want community, we want friends, we want family, we want this connection.
[00:11:38] I have now found so much more peace and solace in being on my own. I can actually enjoy being single I don't have to be dating somebody. I don't have to be going on a date. I can enjoy my nights at home, my quiet time, just as much as I can enjoy time with my son. As I can enjoy time going out with friends, as I can enjoy time being on a date, there's still going to be ups and downs. And I know for me, working remote and being by myself mostly during the day, I do need to make sure I get in enough social interaction, but it doesn't have to be attention from men. So there's been a huge shift in that, and that's going to make it so much easier for me to find my person.
[00:12:19] And we are also coming on the heels of the announcement of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce getting engaged, which is so fun and so exciting. I'm so happy for them. I had a client, she sent me a message and was like, I thought of you as I was reading this about Travis and Taylor. Because the key was that they didn't need one another. They chose one another. They want to be with the other person. They don't need the other person. They don't need them to fill a void, to make them better. They don't have to change who they are to be loved and accepted and valued. It's like such a beautiful example of what that looks like. And I'm sure that both of them have been through a lot of heartache, a lot of struggle, a lot of strife in getting to where they were and yet not letting that hold them back, knowing that they get better and stronger, and they have their own identity, their own career. And to be honest, I think of Travis as the guy who's dating Taylor.
[00:13:15] But they each had their own kind of fame. They were known, and they had their own brand. They had their own people, their own audiences, just on their own as individuals. And so it's like they are equals now coming together. They don't need the other person, and the other is not trying to be good enough to come up to their standard and up to their level.
[00:13:36] So it's really cool. I was listening to a little story about how Travis went to one of Taylor's concerts and she didn't have the time of day for him at that point. And I don't know if he was a little miffed or, like, how that all went down. I'd have to go back and reread the story. But he was kind of like, what the heck? Doesn't she know who I am? But I think that made him even more intrigued and like her even more because she's like, I'm a badass. I may not have time for you right in this moment.
[00:14:01] Not to be mean or ugly, but more of she's on a mission. She has her sides focused on what she's doing and she's creating. And I think he was really inspired by that and that confidence, that air. And we can just, we feel so much emotion, though, throughout all of her songs. So it's just, it's so fun. So anyways, I'm just gonna throw that in at the end here, but that was all. I just wanted to pop this little reminder in. If you feel confused, that's not a good sign. And if you are really questioning this, come talk to me. Schedule a consult, send me a message, reply to any of the emails I send. I check my own inbox. This is something that I want to help you work through. If you're feeling confused in a relationship and you're like, but I really, I'm feeling torn on whether I should stay or whether I should leave or maybe you feel like, okay, I've been confused or I recognize this is not the right fit, this is not the right relationship for me and I'm having a hard time leaving or I don't know what the right next step is.
[00:14:56] Schedule a call and let's talk and work through it. Because this plays into our emotional eating. This plays into our stress hormones and our water and fat retention and how our body naturally operates even into our sleeping patterns and how well we're sleeping.
[00:15:11] So this goes hand in hand with weight loss, emotional eating, binge eating, and we want to be addressing this just as much as we want to be looking at food and hunger and satiety.
[00:15:22] All right, y', all, that's it. I hope you have a fabulous weekend. Here's to creating the life and body you crave.
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