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hey this is Leo for ash lies dorg and in this episode I'm going to be talking about relationship red flags how to avoid dysfunctional intimate relationships I honestly feel like bad or dysfunctional intimate relationships is one of the biggest hurdles and obstacles that prevents people from self actualizing and living up to their full potential life people waste decades of their life in terrible toxic relationships that are going nowhere and they know that they're going nowhere and yet they're trapped in these relationships and they can't break out and because of this they waste so much of their energy these these relationships can become so abusive and so dysfunctional and so toxic and they just screw with your emotion so much that you're not able to accomplish anything of lasting value in your life you're not able to focus on personal growth you're not able to focus on your health you're not able to focus on your life purpose on your business on your career or even on creating a great family or creating a healthy relationship so what I wanted to do is I wanted to help you to avoid this this is a long list I sat down I started writing up all these different red flags for how to identify if you're in a dysfunctional relationship and the list just kept getting longer and longer and longer but I think it's important to go through it so here we go let's just get right into it the first red flag very obvious is substance abuse so alcohol drugs smoking alcohol abuse terrible your relationship is going to fail if your partner is a digit to any of these kinds of substances right so be very careful about this keep your eyes open as soon as you see any signs of this overuse of alcohol I mean a little bit of alcohol is okay but overuse of alcohol and then accepts of smoking and any kind of drugs really you should ditch that relationship another one is if your partner is asking to borrow money from you this should virtually never happen never ever ever should this happen if it happens and your partner makes you feel like it's normal it's okay or well this is just an emergency so in this situation it's cool then that's still a really huge red flag your partner should respect you enough never to have to borrow money from you and especially if they try to borrow money from you under pressure so it feels like they're in an emergency and you know they need the money right now they need the money in the next 12 hours or something really bad is going to happen like these kind of high-pressure situations nah that's that's a bunch of [ __ ] that should not happen in a healthy relationship another one is a history of cheating stealing swindling or arrests or even jail time so as you're getting to know your partner and by the way here I'm talking about both guys and girls so these red flags some of them apply more to guys some of them apply more to girls but it could be a mix right so when you're getting to know your partner as you're dating them really be asking them about their history be asking about their history of relationships be asking about their history of a business of work of friendships of their life of their backstory as you're finding all this stuff out you're going to be able to see what their character is like and it's gonna be very hard for them to hide everything about themselves right so stuff will slip out so be on the lookout for situations where your partner's telling you some sort of story and he tells you about how he cheated on subtest when he was in school or how he stole some pencils from the from the office you know little things I'm not talking about like he robbed a bank I mean that's obvious if you robbed a bank then don't be with him but even if it's little things like he cheated on a test in college or you see that he stole some pencils or some staplers from his office or maybe he's kind of a swindler / con artist type and he likes to kind of con people out of deals through various trickery or manipulation techniques any of this kind of stuff immediately tells you what the character and integrity of this person is whether it's a guy or a girl and of course if this person has any records of arrests or jail time that tells you everything that you need to know people like this who have a history like this they're not going to reform overnight all right and you don't want to be sitting around waiting for them to reform and these kind of people usually get you into a lot of trouble money trouble trouble with bad friends bad influences drugs like all sorts of stuff is going to go wrong here not to mention that if they have this low level of integrity just think about what's going to happen when it's going to be applied to your relationship right a cheat is a cheat is a cheat everywhere if he cheats on a test he probably won't think twice about cheating on you and he probably won't think twice about lying to you or manipulating you in some way as long as it serves him so just keep that in mind right judge people by the consistency of their character another really good red flag real tip-off here is if the person runs a shady business some sort of half illegal business I mean if it's a totally obviously illegal business like selling drugs huge red flag immediate disqualification for a relationship but if it's kind of borderline and shady maybe this guy's selling damaged used cars or he's a I don't know he's swindling people out of money in stock deals or he's selling some of shady stocks or you know whatever is happening the business that's kind of shady that's a huge red flag because a person who runs a shady business also runs a shady life and that comes directly from his or her lack of integrity so make sure you ask the person like what kind of business are you running what are you doing at work what kind of products do you sell how do you service your customers like this kind of stuff you should be asking these kinds of questions over the course of the relationship just to get to know just in case you know is everything aboveboard they're shady stuff going on that's semi-legal and in that case huge red flag okay another one is a history of short relationships so as you know this person asked him about their relationship history you don't need to go into all the painful details and have them tell you all about their previous sex life and stuff but you can find out what their relationship history was like did they have a history of relationships that lasted four years or was their longest relationship like six months that's a huge red flag if that's the case also if they've had very very few relationships like one or two that could also potentially be a huge red flag so watch out for that and also of course if they have a history of very many relationships like 20 or 30 relationships that should also tell you that probably something is off there another red flag is if they're evasive about their past relationship history so every time you kind of try to bring it up and you try to ask them all like you know tell me what your first you know relationship was like or tell me who you fell in love with when you were in school and they just kind of like completely avoid and change topics and they're very evasive and sketchy about the whole thing and you can see that then that's a huge red flag because they're hiding something now maybe they're hiding something embarrassing or they're hiding something that they haven't coped with themselves so it's not a complete and 100% disqualifier you know people can have legitimate reasons for being evasive about stuff because they might even be denying it to themselves because maybe it was a traumatic event or something they wish they didn't do you know they're feeling guilty about it but generally you need to be able to have them open up to you especially after you know a bit of a time in the relationship they should be opening up to you and if they're always evasive about it then that's a problem speaking of evasive this the next red flag is are they evasive in conversations in general not just past relationship history but you know maybe you're asking them about their business and they're kind of evasive about telling you about their business that's a red flag or maybe you ask them about their parents and their their early family life and their evasive about that that's a flag right there red flag too so how do you tell evasion well usually the person just kind of like hand wave something away or gives you a glib response or just a vague generality is being very abstract kind of shifty eyes maybe looking downwards doesn't look you in the eyes maybe a shaky tone in the voice this sort of stuff so watch out for all that stuff because they're concealing something they're hiding some sort of skeletons in the closet and the fundamental problem is that they're not being honest with you they're not opening up to you which they should be doing in a legit relationship the next red flag is that this person can't hold on to a job so find out about the person's job history like oh when did you get your first job and how long did you have that one for and how many jobs have you had in your whole life and how long were you at your previous job was it like three months is that as long as you can hold the job is for three months that's a problem it's certainly a problem if a guy can't hold on to a job because the guy's primary value in life is to have a job and to work but for girls to you know I've dated girls who have had difficulty holding on to jobs and that shows something about the person that shows that this person is irresponsible they're not dependable they're not consistent they don't have persistence and perseverance they don't have a results-oriented mindset or they can't get along with people at work you know all these things are just obvious clues to deeper psychological problems that this person has which will come back and bite you in the ass in your relationship it's not just a money issue I'm not saying here that you need this person to hold the job because you want them to pay for you all the time or to support you know for example if I'm with a girl I don't expect her to support me at all but if she can't hold on to a job that means she's gonna have her own money problems I'm gonna have to deal with that [ __ ] in the future she's not going to be happy about her life how can you be happy if you can't hold on to a job you're going to feel worthless you're going to be depressed you can be miserable and more along those lines another red flag this was a big one is if your partner is losing friends meaning that friends are leaving your partner or if your partner has no friends at all zero friends or like one or two friends now maybe your partner is extremely introverted and therefore doesn't have friends or maybe they just moved into town and they don't have friends and those are legitimate perhaps reasons for not having many friends but especially if you can see that actively friends are leaving and not talking to your partner anymore that tells you that something's going on there somehow in some way those friends are not wanting to associate with him or her and therefore that tells you that you probably shouldn't either another big red flag is when your partner expects money gifts or favors from you are they hinting at the that the fact that you should be giving them all sorts of fancy clothes and fancy cars and fancy jewels and this and that if they are if they're kind of pressuring you if they're trying to do some sort of bartering exchange in the relationship like oh you buy me a diamond necklace and then I'll do something nice for you tomorrow this kind of thing if there's this kind of transactional nature to your relationship that's a huge red flag big problem another red flag is chronically showing up late once or twice is okay but it is happening repeatedly or if your partner is completely standing you up that's a big problem shows a lack of respect also shows that this person is not very responsible another red flag is flakiness and forgetfulness so a lot of times girls can be very flaky like you schedule a date or you schedule this or that and then they just completely forget or they just pretend like they're running through life like a leaf blowing in the wind like schedules don't matter to them they don't adhere to schedules they don't like schedules I don't like this I don't like that they don't keep tie they don't have a watch you know this kind of stuff all excuses for being flaky and for being forgetful um that speaks to a deeper character flaws within this person how are you going to depend on this person longer into the relationship right to have a successful long-term relationship you need to be able to depend on the person you be able to trust this person this person needs to have some saikal psychological foundation that will allow them to create success in life these people are losers if your partner is a loser why are you tolerating that next red flag is if your partner is possessive or jealous trying to control you trying to watch her every move asking you where you're going who you're hanging out with maybe he's a insecure about the fact that you've got male friends if you're a woman and maybe vice versa the woman is insecure because you've got female friends as the guy they're trying to control you and monitor you all this kind of stuff um that speaks to deep insecurities within them that they need to resolve another red flag is that the person is very clingy and is always on call and is always there to answer your phone calls answer your text messages and to be there at your doorstep whenever you want this might sound like a nice quality to have a partner who is completely loyal to you to the point of being clingy but this gets real old real fast and the deeper problems that it speaks to insecurities within that person a normal healthy psychologically healthy man or woman will not be clingy and constantly on call a healthy individual is independent has his or her own life going has her own job her own business um her own schedule you know she's going to the gym and she's got this to doing that to do so she's not going to be always on call for you she's not gonna be always answering every one of your text messages within five minutes if she is that tells you that she's way too clingy and that's going to come back and bite you real hard in the end the the next red flag is that if this person needs to see you more than three times per week and demands to see you almost every day or every other day or has to call you or has to text you every single day and expects the same from you otherwise they get pissy and upset and worried and insecure if that's going on then this is another symptom of clinginess and insecurity that this person has basically what this says is that this person doesn't have an independent life of his or her own and therefore this person is completely trying to merge their life with you and into this relationship and they're trying to get all their fulfillment and love from the relationship and this this creates codependency which is very dangerous and it will come back and it will destroy this relationship in the long run so watch out for that the opposite of this red flag is the red flag that is like this that this person is too busy to see you at least once per week so they give you excuses like oh I'm working too much and you know I've got school and I've got this and I've got that and you know I've got a business and I've got to do this and I've got to take care of this and all this stuff I mean I've got such a busy life so I can only see you once a month or twice a month that's way too little if a person is not willing to invest at least one day a week to see you and to hang out with you for at least a few hours per week then why are they in a relationship in the first place that means that they're placing this right relationship at such a low priority in life that they're probably not willing to invest any energy into it they're not willing to fix any problems that come up which will of course inevitably come up as they do in all relationships so this is not a person that you can have a successful relationship with also you're probably gonna be frustrated because honestly if you only see a person once a month or twice a month you know you probably want to see the more you want to build something deeper than just something like that so keep that in mind beware of their excuses especially busy workaholic people give you a lot of excuses don't put up with that you deserve better the next red flag is that this person is unwilling to learn better communication skills this is a huge red flag and I see a lot of women that succumb to this red flag so what happens is that a guy usually for example their husband or their their boyfriend I doesn't want to learn how to communicate better and he's terrible at communicating and he refuses to do anything about it and so he's just kind of stuck in his own place in life and the girl has to put up with this and she wants better communication and they're important issues in the relationship that need to be discussed even the guy knows they need to be discussed but he just doesn't want to work on communication now listen I'm not even telling you that the guy doesn't want to communicate I'm saying not only does he have to want to communicate he has to want to improve how he communicates why is this such an important point because you cannot have a successful long-term relationship without really high quality communication because [ __ ] will come up guaranteed problems will come up and one of the things that kills relationships the most is lack of communication stuff gets swept under the rug for so long that a few years down the line it's impossible to do anything with that relationship they become so toxic and so dysfunctional because nothing is getting communicated and then it builds up and it's too late not only that but then there's this habit established of well we don't communicate and we're not going to learn how to communicate better you want to start right from the very beginning of your relationship to have very clear authentic communication channels open and also you both need to agree to the fact that hey you know we're a team we got to work on the teamwork here teams work on teamwork you can't be a successful team just by looking out for yourself the other person looks out for themselves and then there's no cooperation cooperation has to happen the person has to be willing to invest energy and time and resources into that is the person willing to read a book on communication is the person willing to take a seminar is the person willing to get some coaching or to watch a video on YouTube with you or whatever if they're not then I would suggest ditching this person because this is not going to go anywhere good also an additional point on this is that if the person is unwilling to learn about relationships how intimate relationships function if they're unwilling to watch videos or read books with you or go to seminars or listen to audio programs or discuss with you how to improve the relationship if they're not willing to do this kind of meta relationship work then release relationship will not last and it will become a really toxic and dysfunctional relationship in the long run right a relationship is like a car you need to maintain it maintenance need to go into it just like anything in life it deteriorates with time unless it's maintained and even actively improved so if this person has no desire whatsoever to do personal development work on the relationship itself and to learn how relationships function because most people have no idea how relations function if people are not willing to improve themselves in this area then there are very bad candidates for long term relationships so that's a huge red flag another red flag is lies to other people so do you see that this person lies to others maybe not to you but to others like maybe you're sitting in a restaurant with your partner and then the waitress comes by and she asks him something innocent and he gives her a lie now I might seem like a little white lie is not a big deal but the way that this person interacts with others is how they will interact also with you if you know that your partner lies in business and lash his friends and lies to co-workers and lies to random strangers on the street then guess what he's doing with you guess what she's doing with you exactly the same thing this is a really good way to judge character and just see how this person interacts with others another red flag is if this person likes to lie by omission so this is a special case here because sometimes what people do is that they get very technical they get very kind of sneaky about it and it's like well you know honey I told you the truth but you know yeah I just held back this one critical fact that changes the whole context of what I told you so maybe factually what I told you is true but then the context of it was somehow hidden or somehow set in a way that made that other person look uh you know innocent when they really weren't so these are kind of like lies by omission or kind of very manipulative use of truth like I can be truthful in a very manipulative way or I'll tell you certain things but that all meant other things and then this gives you a perspective on the situation that's very different than what it normally would have been if you see this person doing it with you or even just with friends or other people then that's a huge red flag because what this tells you this purpose this person has a fundamentally manipulative personality he or she likes to manipulate others and guess what they're doing with you they're manipulating you it just has to be that way has to be that way you can't really fake noble character you can't fake integrity if a person has strong character and strong integrity uh that's like an honest signal what they call an honest signal is a signal it's very difficult to fake because they actually have to have that integrity right so it's very easy to spot people who have low integrity if you just watch them for a little bit you know for for a couple of weeks a couple of months if you see them interacting you'll see it you'll see it just be self honest with yourself about the fact that they are doing this and you know be objective about it don't just fall head and over heel and love with this person and then just kind of think that they're perfect they have no character flaws that's maybe the only place where you'd go wrong with that another red flag is that this person is always in an emergency situation there's always something going wrong there's always they're in a car accident then they break their foot then they then you know they get fired then they run out of money then it's this that it's that it's like never-ending emergencies with this person watch out for that that's a huge red flag tells you that this person is is unstable ungrounded that they don't fundamentally know how to steer their own life and it's a it's very it's very miserable to be in a person in a relationship with a person who's always in these emergencies because then he stresses you out or she stresses you out you get anxious they're always coming to rely on you you have to go fix all these emergencies for them it's just a real pain in the ass another red flag is a perfectionism is this person hyper critical of everything are they critical when they're driving with you in the car all the time are they critical about every little thing that every person does to them if they are then guess what they're also hyper critical about you maybe they tell you and they throw it in your face in that case it's real obvious you know they're hyper critical of you but a lot of times maybe they're kind of like a quiet perfectionist where they're critical of everybody else but then with you they don't really tell you anything critical and you might think oh well that's okay he loves me or she loves me but actually deep down inside they're criticizing you so much they're going to destroy their image of you and any possibility of a good relationship except you're not going to know about it so you have to be very careful about that and a perfectionist he or she is never going to be satisfied with you that's the problem they're never going to like settle down with you they're never going to make a commitment to you because they're always gonna be looking for something better out there and as soon as they see it they're going to go for another red flag is is this person cutthroat in business maybe you're dating a guy and this probably applies most to guys maybe you're a girl and you're dating a guy and this guy's like the you know the corporate CEO type you know Titan of industry Wall Street broker something like this and this guy's just cutthroat he screws everybody over you know he's a real hard nosed negotiator he makes everyone bends over backwards and you know he screws people out of deals and he just puts the pressure on them he's very litigious you know he Sue's people he's very quick to threaten people in business this kind of stuff um that's real dangerous I wouldn't date a guy like that because this guy will turn on you what you're dating is basically easier dating a a vicious dog and this vicious dog it seems like all is it's pretty nice to have a vicious dog because he's biting everybody else but eventually a vicious dog comes back and bites the owner too and that's the problem so watch out for that is the person you're dating narcissistic are they overly driven by money power and fame if they are that's a huge problem first of all because they're never going to be happy in life by pursuing money and power and fame at the expense everything else also if they are pursuing money power and fame at the expense of everything else including their integrity then guess what at one point in the future and it might not be too long they're going to sacrifice you and they're going to sacrifice this relationship in order to acquire more money more power and more fame so you need to be a good judge of the values of this individual what did this individual value do they actually value relationships do they value intimacy do they value love if they don't then what are they doing in a relationship if their top values are money power and fame that's not going to go anywhere good and their life is going to be in shambles within a few decades if you stick around so don't stick around another red flag is that this person is completely oblivious to the opinions of other people now this is mostly a problem for guys so if you're a girl and you're dating a guy and you think this guy is really macho he's a really confident you're just so in love with him because he's got this uh like granite like confidence that nothing perturbs him at all he doesn't give a [ __ ] about anybody people criticize him he just doesn't care and because this he looks very confident at first but be very careful because like guy like this he's lacking compassion and he's lacking empathy and that's gonna turn around and bite you in the ass really soon because guess what he doesn't care about anybody else he also doesn't care about you this is kind of like what a narcissist is right so be careful about that your guy should have a healthy respect for other people he should still care about opinions of other people he should be open to feedback that's important don't just go with a guy who literally doesn't give a [ __ ] because he certainly will not give a [ __ ] about you the next red flag is if the person is calling you foul language names or is he yelling at you and raising his voice or her voice at you so are you being called names like [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] this kind of stuff any of these kind of names watch out because that's getting into verbal abuse you should not have any arguing to the point where you two are yelling at each other if it ever gets to the point of yelling and shouting matches already that's like a that's a foreshadow of death to this relationship it should never get to that point you two should have a healthy respect for each other and you should have very open lines of communication so that it never gets to this point if you are in the situation then guess what you're in a dysfunctional relationship and you're going to have to leave this relationship sooner or later or it's going to blow up in your face another red flag is does this person snap at other people do they have a hot short temper like maybe the waitress brings you guys some food and the order wasn't quite right and maybe your man gets pissed off at this waitress and calls her a bad name to her face or something like that gets real hot tempered with her for something rather innocent this reveals a lot about your man in this situation all right or you woman whatever it is so guess what if they have this hot temper it's going to be reflected back on you probably sooner than you think does the person that you're with break things throw things do they smash doors do they punch holes in walls do they throw vases and and flowerpots at you or at the wall this kind of stuff this is completely ridiculous if this ever happens to you even once in a relationship even once immediate disqualifier guaranteed dysfunctional relationship guarantee that this is not going to end well this should never ever ever happen in a healthy relationship does the person that you're with threatened you by telling you they're going to leave the relationship so maybe you come and you communicate with him and or with her and you tell them something you're like hey baby I want to work on this I want to do this or I have this grievance or I want you to fix this or have some criticism about how this is going I'm really upset here whatever and then the person says well if you're upset about it I'm just going to leave threatening the relationship is an immediate red flag immediate disqualifier even if it happens once it should not happen even once be very careful about this because what's gonna happen is that if the person leave threatens to leave and then you get scared and you back down because of that then what is going to happen is that that person will then use that against you for the rest of your life because they will know that you backed down and that you're a more afraid of losing this relationship than they are and so they'll just keep threatening you and threatening you and end up bullying you for the rest of the relationship and it's going to go real bad right um be very careful about that one that's a subtle one that one happens more than you might think and most people will kind of tolerate that because I think like oh it's not too bad it's not too bad that they threatened me no it's quite bad another red flag is if this person blames you for everything so maybe you come to this person you say hey you know honey I have this problem in early in our relationship let's work on this let's work on that and the person just points his finger at you and says no it's it's your fault you did this and you're doing that and it's all this and it's all that and all my problems are here you know are your problems it's all because of the way that you're acting it's all because your behavior all because of your character flaws and defects then um that's a big problem you and your partner both need to take 100% responsibility for your half of the relationship that means that instead of blaming your partner first of all you blame yourself not blame blames a bad word but more like take responsibility yourself always take responsibility yourself always resist blaming the other person and the other person should be doing the exact same thing if those barriers break down and you start blaming each other this is probably one of the most common causes of destroyed relationships is a mutual finger-pointing and refusal to take responsibility another red flag is psych medications is the person you're dating on psych medications medications for depression for anxiety for schizophrenia for bipolar disorder this kind of stuff find out that's hugely important for you to know if you're man or woman has psychological problems if they're seeing a psychotherapist and/or a psychiatrist at a pharmacologist whatever and they're loaded up on these drugs these drugs create a lot of problems ah I really wouldn't be dating a person who's on these kinds of medications it will screw up their emotions they will not be clear thinking it also shows me that they're not really willing to work through their problems the hardware the hard way they're looking for shortcut solutions you know know if it's a little very temporary thing like their you know their father just died and they're depressed and they need a couple of months of medications to kind of hold them over that and that's okay but if they've been on psych meds for for quite a while then that's a huge red flag another red flag is long-distance relationships be careful about this one I'll shoot a whole video on this in the future but what I'll say about it now is that if you're in a long-term long-distance relationship and the person is unwilling to move near you or you're unwilling to move near them and you're you have a plan for closing that gap then that tells you that there's a huge problem somewhere in there both of you are insecure on some level because otherwise you'd go date people that are closer to you both of you are probably needy maybe both of you don't want to invest energy to this relationship or maybe one of you doesn't like maybe you want to move closer to him or to her but she doesn't want you to well that's a huge red flag long-term long-distance relationships do not work they don't last so if you're gonna have a long-distance relationship for six months because you two are separated because your guy or girl had to go and you know work overseas for a short period of time for the company's sake okay that's fine because there's a plan that six months later you're going to close that gap but if there's no plan and you're doing this long-term indefinite relationship thing that's a huge red flag and lastly if the person tells you I want to continue seeing other people quote seeing other people if they ever tell you this this is a huge red flag too this basically tells you that they're not committing to you they are not really in love with you they are keeping their options open and they want to not be guilty about doing it so watch out the for this one a lot of times guys will do this to girls so if you're a lady keep your eye open for it and don't put up with it because you probably don't want that and you probably deserve better all right so a pretty long list now at this point you might wonder okay Leo so my partner isn't perfect do you expect me to have a perfect partner otherwise I'm going to be lonely and miserable my whole life what should I do and the answer is uh it's really not too much to ask you might be thinking like well Leo you're asking for too much I mean I can't just ask for all you mentioned like 40 things I can't ask all these 40 things of my partner you know inevitably he's going to check off one or two of them right or she will and the answer is you know some of the red flags I mentioned here are not 100 cent deal breakers a lot of the bar honestly a lot of them are and it's not too much to ask that a person can hold down a job and doesn't cheat and doesn't steal and is willing to work on you with communication skills and you know doesn't constantly show up late and stand you up and isn't narcissistic and power-hungry and cutthroat and business it's not too much to ask for these things and at the very least this person I'm not saying that this person has to be flawless but at the very least this person has to recognize his or her flaws and be willing and open to work on them so if you come to your partner and say hey you know honey I think it's a real problem that I feel like you know you're very power-hungry and eventually it's gonna lead to the destruction of this relationship and the person says oh [ __ ] you're right I think I am power-hungry ah I need to fix that I'll work on fixing it I'll make a plan I'll buy some books I'll I'll get some coaching I'll watch the videos whatever if that's the discussion then that's fine you know the person can work on their their flaws in the relationship that's good you can grow together but if what they do is they just they just say no I'm power-hungry what are you talking about you stupid [ __ ] you know if that's the discussion that's going on there then that's um that's a huge red flag the person has to be willing to grow in a nutshell so what do you do if some of these red flags are checked well basically you cut this person out of your life that's the right option cut this person out of your life and don't think twice about it your life is too short to piss it away on dysfunctional relationships that you know are dysfunctional and are not going to work out it's nerve-racking it's apps your happiness and energy it might lead to some really nasty things in the future like abuse ah you losing a lot of your money all sorts of bad stuff like you don't even want to go there the fact that you would even consider the possibility of leaving yourself open to some of these really nasty consequences already tells you that there's some deeper issues within you that you need to work out insecurities perhaps low self-esteem a lot of times low self-esteem is a real big cause of of staying in toxic relationships but I think the biggest reason that people are afraid to cut their partner out of the relationship and just to flat out leave is because they lack options with the opposite sex so this means you create more options you'd have a reasonable chance to land a new guy or a new girl otherwise you're going to get very clingy and insecure in any relationship that you're in if you feel like if you leave this relationship and then you're never going to ever be able to meet a new guy or a new girl or it's going to take you another 10 years or anybody that you find is going to be even worse than this person that you're already with if you have any of those kinds of thoughts then that tells you that you lack sexual options you need to be meeting more men or more women whatever is right with you and you need to commit to creating more of those options this is not an accident you can actually take control of how many men and women you meet per month in your life and the more of them you meet then the less clingy and insecure you're going to feel and less need you're going to have to stay in this dysfunctional relationship people who stay dysfunctional relationships they stay there because they feel like there's no other alternative that they're never going to find something better so what I want to do here now is I want to wrap up with an exercise for you I'm going to give you four sentence completions stems that will help you to be more conscious and aware about what's really going on here in your relationship right so take out a piece of paper and a pen and write these down and you're going to do is after you write each one of them down is you're going to generate 10 answers for each one of these sentence completion stems so here's the first one it goes like this if I were totally honest my partners red flags are blank if I were totally honest my partner's red flags are blank then you fill in the blank and what you need to do is generate ten answers from the top of your mind without over analyzing them so literally they should take you two minutes maximum you just ask the question and then whatever pops into your mind immediately you write that down without analyzing it or filtering it this exercise helps to get wisdom out of your subconscious mind all right don't be too calculating about what your answers are just write them down is kind of like a mental dump alright so going to do that then write down this next step it goes like this the biggest thing I fear about leaving my partner is blank the biggest thing I fear about leaving my partner is blank and again you're going to generate ten answers real quickly without filtering yourself whatever pops into your mind so you read the stem and then you write down the answer you read the stem again you write down the second answer and so on and so forth the third stem is as follows if I took 100% responsibility for my relationship I would blank if I took 100% for my responsibility for my relationship I would blank okay and again you're going to generate ten answers real quickly without over analyzing and then the final stem is the following twenty ways that I could create more sexual options are blank 20 ways that I could create more sexual options are blank and for this one instead of 10 you're gonna generate 20 answers so really sit on this one you can sit for a little bit longer you can actually brainstorm and really think deep about ways that you could improve your attractiveness to to the opposite sex or to the same-sex if you're into the same section or whatever I don't care how could you increase your attractiveness how could you increase your exposure so that you're meeting more people how could you be dating more whatever that takes right down 20 ideas they can be little ideas they can be huge ideas maybe moving to another city that might be one idea maybe getting a new haircut new idea uh maybe losing 20 pounds new idea maybe going to AA to a networking event once a month new idea you know come up with 20 of those and then sit back look at all your answers reflect on them all think about all these red flags be very self honest here don't lie to yourself about what your partner's weaknesses are you know your partner your deepest intuition knows if this relationship really has legs if it really has a chance all that I did here is I kind of helped put you in touch with that all right so act on it don't deflect it don't sweep it under the rug if you've got a toxic dysfunctional relationship fix it now and you know what your first step doesn't have to be to go cut this person out of your life the first step honestly should be to go talk to this person about it and see if they're receptive to fixing the problem are they willing to work on communication skills are they willing to work on relationship skills with you those are two key things right there if they're not willing to do those things then that's when you cut but if they're honestly willing to change then you can give them that chance and see if they're going to change all right that's it I'm signing off go ahead please click the like for me share this video with a friend post your comments down below and finally come sign up to my newsletter right here at actualize that org it's a free newsletter I release new videos on self-actualization topics every single week I really want to help you to understand your own psychology and the psychology that's necessary to master life think of what your life could be like if you really commit to excellence and growth and personal development in every aspect of your life from relationships to your finances to your mood to your career and everything else this is what life is really about it's about learning it's about growing yourself it's about taking yourself to new levels pushing your comfort zone and doing that as a challenge so ash lies that org is here to support you in that effort emotionally the biggest challenge with it is it's emotionally difficult it's hard you fall off track you forget you procrastinate you backslide you have resistance you have fear all this kind of stuff you come up with excuses you know I go through all that same stuff myself as I'm self actualizing so what I do with actual I settle because I try to point out the obstacles that I encounter that most people encounter that I encountered my research as I research all this psychology um and helping you to see those obstacles giving you some tips and techniques and solutions to overcome those obstacles to get you to your highest potential in life what I want to do is I want to help more people tap into the highest pleasures in life the higher consciousness pleasures and you can't do that unless you understand the principles by which your psychology works so if you're on board with that idea which I hope you are sign up to the free newsletter and I'll see you soon with more episodes you