How Toxic Partners Make You Feel Like YOU Are the Problem

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Hey guys, welcome back to the channel.

[00:00:02]It has been a few weeks since we have posted a video. Usually around this time every year, I kind of stop and pause, get together with my girls, my team, and we do a little reset. We kind of look at like the channel, we look at social media, we look at what you guys are interested in, how you're evolving, and how I'm evolving, what are the things that I'm going through, what are the struggles that I'm having. And there are just like universal topics that I think all of us kind of go through. And we want to understand these topics and we want to understand ourselves so we can not only get better but protect our peace, make sure that we're keeping ourselves sane as we deal with people who are not well in life and really just get the things that we want in life.

[00:00:38]Like learn how to selfmotivate, learn about our own mental health, learn about self-paring, like all the things. So this week I want to tackle a topic that I know we have all struggled with. And there's two parts of this. One part is of course the understanding. It's the psychology. It's the let's figure out why this person does what they do. Why do I do what I do? And then obviously let's get some real tools and things that we can start to work on the next time we are in these scenarios or these situations with this person. Have you ever been in an argument or discussion with someone and they completely twist your words? Have you ever had your words completely misunderstood and now this person refuses to let the argument go? They don't want to let anything go. They actually want you to own up to something that maybe perhaps you didn't even do or say or a version that they're believing. Meaning they're taking your words and they're misconcurring them. They're misunderstanding what you actually meant. They're taking them the way they want to take them without your explanation as to maybe what your interpretation of what you said or what you did was. and they refuse to either listen or let it go. And when you're dealing with someone who really has doesn't want to actually resolve the conflict, just wants to stay in the drama, you're never going to get anywhere with this person. So, unfortunately, you might want to move past this. You might want to like, let's put that off to the side. Let's figure out what the next steps are. But this person doesn't want to do that. Healthy people have a few things. One, they have self-awareness. So they understand when they are triggered or what they're requiring or needing from you has to do with themselves and less about you. So they have a lot of self-awareness.

[00:02:26]Number two, healthy people want to resolve conflict. They want to figure out what is the resolution to this problem that we're having, whatever it is. A person that becomes fixated on either what was said or what was done and they're they they don't want resolution. They want an apology. They want you to admit something that you didn't do or they want you to own something that you said that maybe you didn't mean what they're taking your words to be. There's no conversation of trying to understand each other. There's just I'm right, you're wrong, this is good, this is bad. And really what this actually comes down to is control.

[00:03:05]Having an argument with someone who really is deeply wounded and has a lot of triggers, has a lot of pain, has a lot of trauma is the most difficult thing that you can possibly do. It's impossible to actually get any kind of resolution from this person because they are so deeply wounded and they are going to get triggered, which they probably obviously already are. And once that happens, there's no real going back because what ends up happening is now like you see red and you know depending on who the person is and how unaware they are of themselves, it can get actually really scary to be around a person that you've had a disagreement with or an argument with. It can be very intimidating because this person is so much seeking control that you again you start seeing red which basically means this person is has lost all logic.

[00:03:58]They're completely erratic. They're emotional. They're probably not making any sense. They're fully in attack mode.

[00:04:06]And if you're here, whether there was a misunderstanding or a disagreement or whatever the the issue was that you guys were going through, uh that can be very unsettling to a person that genuinely wants to just figure out what are the steps to kind of move forward. So when you are sitting in that space of wanting to move forward and figure out a resolution and how can we work this out and all of the things and this person is not in that space because they are so deeply triggered. It's a very unsettling place to be. Now I will bet that you have probably apologized. Maybe if you have a lot of self-awareness and you've very much know this person or worked on yourself, you've probably even validated their own feelings, but they're still not letting it go. So now you kind of feel like your hands are tied where you're like, I don't really even know what you exactly want from me now because I'm trying to understand where you're coming from and I can understand how that's frustrating, but we're not really coming to a resolution still.

[00:05:05]You're not accepting anything that I'm saying, which again means that you're not dealing with a person that wants resolution. You're dealing with a person that is very uncomfortable and is projecting all of that onto you. So let's start with first understanding like why does this person even do what it is that they're doing? You're talking about a very reactive defensive person. Now, if you're very reactive, that means that everything that you feel is facts and everything that you feel needs a response to. So, you and I have felt uncomfortable, we've felt sad, we felt frustrated, all the things. But we don't let ourselves like fully imsh in that feeling. We have a little bit more whether it's self-awareness or strength or logic or whatever where we don't go so far deep into our emotions that we do something or say something that's so far out of character where we become erratic ourselves. Maybe perhaps you've actually been there and you've done that and you know the feeling where you almost felt like you didn't have control over yourself because you were so imshed in what it is that you were feeling. So in that situation where you did that, your feelings equaled facts and so you just kept feeding those feelings and kept that story kind of alive which kept you reactive. Now if what you did or said made them feel either rejected, judged, abandoned, any one of those things, they're going to feel that trigger.

[00:06:26]These are their internal struggles.

[00:06:28]These are the things that they're struggling with deep inside and they're unaware of it because they don't know what their stuff is. And 99% of people out there do not know what their stuff is. They don't know what their wounds are. And they don't know that when they get triggered, this is how they react.

[00:06:43]And everyone reacts, I want to say probably two or three of the same tactics. And what I mean by that is when you're uncomfortable, what are the things that you do? Do you withdraw? Do you get defensive? Do you shut down? Do you give a silent treatment? Are you passive aggressive? Like you what is it that you do? Do you get enraged? Do you are you verbally abusive? Like when you are uncomfortable, what are the things that you do? The same goes for this person. So what it is that you're getting now are the same things that they do when they are uncomfortable.

[00:07:12]When the brain is essentially traumatized, they're going to take the scenario that you were in with this person and they're going to take what you did or what you said and they're going to con construct a different kind of reality than the reality you were actually living in. And that reality matches the feelings that they feel when they received what it is that you said or did. In a healthy dynamic between two people, two people, regardless if there was a misunderstanding, a disagreement, whatever it is, at some point you kind of say, "Okay, you think this, I think this, let's come to a resolution." But in this situation, trying to fix that or trying to get anywhere with this person is not going to happen. They don't want to move on. they don't want to resolve the issue because they are still sitting in the trigger that they feel. When someone feels triggered and they're very reactive to that trigger, now it becomes a little bit about not necessarily punishing you in a way, but it it could be very well, but it's more so about control, which could equate being, you know, punishing you. Now, why do they need control? First thing, if they admit that everything that happened was just kind of like a misunderstanding, that means that now they have to own the behavior that they just gave you, which was erratic, which was unhealthy. So, unless you're dealing with someone who is more of like a psychopath, most people can take a step back and days later and say, "Wow, I was really upset.

[00:08:39]I really like went off." Or, "Wow, I was really angry." But remember, just because they have self-awareness that what they did was extreme, they don't have that self-awareness to to know or be able to own what they did, they're still going to put it on you. So, it gives them justification for what they did. So, if they admit that there was a misunderstanding and then they kind of self-reflect and they look at like the yelling, the screaming, the verbal abuse, the whatever it is that they did that was a little erratic, they have to own that now they're at fault and now you're the victim. So now they're bad and now you're good. By forcing you to admit something, whether you did it, whether you actually did say it, but maybe it was just taken out of context, it still is a power move. They get to stay the victim and you're the bad guy.

[00:09:25]It also completely justifies their behavior in their own mind. A lot of times when people are unaware of who they're dealing with, they will admit to something that they didn't do. They will say, "I'm sorry for something that they should not be saying I'm sorry for." And then it kind of basically keeps this problem going. No, no resolution is going to come. Even if you actually do admit to something even if you didn't do it or not, it has does not matter whatsoever. No resolution is going to come. All what you're doing by apologizing is just allowing them to justify their anger, their bad behavior.

[00:10:01]When someone refuses to let the conversation go until you kind of give in, what they are using is something called emotional leverage. And that is the power move where they see that you're exhausted. They see that you want to like move on from this, but they it doesn't matter. You have hurt them. You have triggered them and they need this in order for them to be able to move on.

[00:10:18]So, let's start with the probably most important thing that you yourself have to work on when you're dealing with this person. And I always say like look, know thy enemy. Like you have to know everyone in your life. The people that are really unhealthy, the people that are maybe not that unhealthy, but just understanding what do people do when they are uncomfortable. It allows you to have more control when you're in situations with this person where when they do get uncomfortable, this is what they do. And it allows you to be less emotional and reactive to them and more in control of yourself, which is what we want. Being non-reactive is extremely difficult when you're dealing with this type of person. And again, it depends on the type of relationship that you have with this person. Maybe it's not that hard to be less reactive with someone that you work with, but maybe your romantic partner, maybe a parent, maybe a family member, maybe a really good friend that you've known for a majority of your life. It's hard to not take offense to what it is that they're doing because of course you're taking it personally. But this is not a personal attack. Everything that they're doing and saying, how difficult they're being has absolutely nothing to do with you.

[00:11:19]It has everything to do with how uncomfortable they are and the way that they exude their uncomfortableness to other people. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to take it, but it does mean that you should be self-aware of it. You being self-aware of it means that you will be more in control when it happens again. And then this allows you to start working on your boundaries with this person. So, how do we break the argument loop? this cycle that you have been on with this person where every single time you get on the phone with them or you're around them, maybe you guys start like, well, this person starts rehashing something and it just kind of like can just pull you back in and you just so very much want to get off the ride. Your only goal in everything that [clears throat] I'm about to tell you is that you are no longer participating in the illusion.

[00:12:01]What is the illusion? The illusion is that this person is going to behave. The illusion is the story that they've made up of you, of the situation. So, you're not fighting back. You don't need anyone to agree with you. You don't need to tell your side of the story. Like those things absolutely have to stop. And to be honest, those are things that a beginner will do where they're fighting back and they want so desperately this person to like hear them and see them and, you know, agree with them and and understand like what it is that they're trying to do and that you're a good person and that you're not the bad person. That's that's a person that's just starting this process, but you are a veteran and you understand that we're past that now because you know if you keep arguing, you're just feeding the loop with this person where you're trying to convince them of your side and of course it just keeps this drama and this dynamic going. So in order for you to get off the ride, you have to let go of any ties of this person seeing you agreeing with you, you know, trying to play nice in the sandbox, actually want wanting a resolution, no matter what they say, but they want a resolution.

[00:13:00]and they don't want the drama to, that's a lie. When they want you to admit to something or own something or confess to something or apologize for something, you have to be very, very grounded in your own self. Like, you know your reality. You know who you are, you know what your intentions are. And if someone doesn't want to discuss to better understand each other, then you have to just wipe your hands of that relationship and possibly that person.

[00:13:22]So since this person wants something from you, perhaps an apology, perhaps a confession, whatever the case is, they want you to basically believe in their distorted reality of what actually happened and they don't want resolution, they just want control, you're kind of at a dead end. Continuing to talk any further past that dead end is only going to cause you exhaustion. So now, this is where we're going to draw a line in the sand and we're going to end this conversation. The reason that they're needing this so much from you, aside from just like control, it's their ability to soothe. So, if they get this from you, then they will feel soothed.

[00:13:56]They'll feel validated, they'll feel seen, they'll feel heard, all the things. And that's not your responsibility to self soo someone who doesn't want to also take responsibility for themselves. So, their uncomfortableness, no matter what it is, is their responsibility. if they want to have a conversation to understand each other, understand you, understand what happened, also self-reflect on themselves and what they're feeling and their own triggers and everything, then you can have a conversation with that person. But chances are, if you're going this far deep into this, that's not the person that's going to be able to do those things. So, now it's a matter of walking away so you can actually feel peace and start setting some really firm boundaries. Now, this is where it gets a little tricky in terms of making a video because boundaries are going to look different depending on the situation you're in, the person that you're talking to, you know, all the things.

[00:14:46]So, is this a boundary where maybe you cut this person off and you don't have a relationship with them ever again?

[00:14:51]Maybe. Is this a person where you just set a boundary that you no longer want to have this conversation and you kind of like let it go and you disengage right then and there? Maybe. Is this one of those relationships where you know you are going to see this person at some point again? If they try to bring it up, you have to squash it right then and there. And you might have to do that over and over again for them to finally accept that you will never have this conversation again with this person perhaps. So the boundaries get a little wishywashy depending on the situation that you're in. But of course you can always click on the link down below. You can book a session with me and we can walk through exactly what you're going to say in real time. And the good thing is is that you want to get to a point where you don't need to write scripts when you're talking with people that you feel so comfortable and calm and in control of your own self that when you're talking to anyone, you know how to bring yourself down when you start to feel yourself getting a little triggered. And you also know how to have dialogue with people. That is a huge part of coaching with me is learning how to feel calm and confident within your own self that no matter what the scenario is, you can protect your own peace and set your own boundaries. no matter who you're actually speaking to.

[00:16:01]So, I hope you guys enjoyed this week's video and if you are interested in working with me, I will link it down below and I'll see you guys in the next one. Take care.