HealthyGamerGG - The TRUTH behind Red Flags

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Dr. K dives into the ideas of red flags, using relationships as band aids, why you make excuses for your partner, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The truth of the matter is that red flags are complicated, and they can't be boiled down to these, like, simple things. So the first thing to understand about red flags is that people think that there are red flags. Right. So there's this assumption that in a relationship, there is this thing called a red flag. And what is the purpose of a red flag? The purpose of a red flag is to give you a signal of something that's a problem in the relationship so that you don't waste your time. So the red flag is built on the hypothesis, the fundamental hypothesis, that a future problem in the relationship can be predicted by a behavior in the present. Okay? That's the idea of a red flag.

Then what happens is when people sort of come up with like, then people sort of like, are like, okay, so these are red flags. These are warning signs of problems that presumably, by the way, are also unsolvable, right? That's the other assumption with a red flag. is that it's unsolvable. Then what happens is we have like people who come up with articles like this one. You know, so okay, seven red flags and dating you should watch out for from like psych to go.net. Right? So it starts with a quote with Aristotle and then they like start to learning how to the recognize these signs early in a relationship won't work out or that someone is just too incompatible. It can save us a lot of pain and regret down the road. So this is, there's a kind of presumption that red flags are deterministic, that if there's a red flag, it won't work out. Okay? And then they sort of come up with

things like this. They always agree with you. They hide things from you. They don't prioritize you. They're dismissive of you. They easily get jealous. They make you second guess their feelings. Make you second guess their feelings or your feelings. I don't even know. They talk badly about their exes. These are red flags. So like, let's just think about what is the logical argument that this article is making. If you recognize these early signs won't work out, you should break up with them. So, like, what, if this happens a single time, like, if they make you second guess their feelings once, does that mean you should break up with them? If they talk badly about their exes, that means you should break up with them.

If they easily get jealous, you should break up with them. They don't prioritize you. like, what exactly does that mean? Does that mean that if you text them and they don't respond right away, that they're not prioritizing you? How do you define prioritize? They hide things from you? So what does that mean? Does that mean that if I want to, if we're on our seventh date and I want to look through your phone and you say no, and I want to see who you've been messaging, that means they're hiding things from you and we should break up with them? Like, do you notice your partner avoids talking about their feelings.

Like, oh, so, like, if they're avoiding talking about their feelings, like, that's a problem. It's not like we should give them space to, like, have their feelings and come to terms. So, like, if you've had, if my partner has been sexually assaulted and they're not willing to talk about it and they're avoiding talking about their feelings, I should break up with them, doesn't share too much about themselves. So if I'm just, like, generally speaking, a private person or do they keep you away from their friends or family? Maybe their family are toxic assholes.

they always agree with you. How do you define always? I want tie for dinner and so you're okay with eating tie for dinner? Great. I want to do this and you want to do this? Great. We both want to play video games all day. We want to veg out.

Great. Break up. Break up. Break up. So this is like, I don't understand where these are coming from. I don't even understand how to define this. Like, how do you know how to check this box? How do you know how to check this box?

This is what happens. So why do these articles get published? Because our experiences in dating resonate with some of these feelings. Right? So like when you read this, if you've been in a relationship with someone that doesn't prioritize you, you read this and you're like, damn straight, they didn't prioritize me. I should have seen it earlier. These are emotionally engaging statements that you can't base any kind of predictive model

around. Like, do you all get that? They're dismissive of you. So what about, okay, so like, how do you know if they're dismissive of you or you just feel dismissed? Does that make sense? If you feel dismissed, does that mean they're dismissive of you? Is there any contribution from you in any of these things? They easily get jealous.

Well, yeah, like my partner, they get jealous so easily. I went to a party. I got hammered. I slept in the same bed with my ex. I swear to God, I only took all of my clothing off except for my underpants. The penis stayed inside the shorts the whole night. They get so jealous. Like, what the F?

So there's like, this is the basic problem with red flags. Is that there is no appreciation of your behavior as a contribution to these red flags. This assumes that a red flag is entirely within. in another person can be seen flagged, and then you kind of break up with them. So here are the problems with red flags, okay? The first is that there is like no relational component to a red flag. So this is something that we know through the science of relationships is that a relationship, I know that's going to sound weird, involves two people.

Two people. And that maybe their jealousy can be influenced by you, right? Maybe the fact that they agree with you very often or they don't talk about their feelings much is because you don't know how to validate feelings or you problem solve all the time. And you're actually not a good listener. All of these red flag kind of perceptions are based on like this idea that another person and their behavior are like not related to you in any way, shape, or form. That's problem number one. problem number two is that red flags are deterministic. So this sort of assumes that like if someone does something,

like they talk badly about their exes or they don't communicate with you, right? They're not honest about their feelings. That that is something that cannot change over time. Whereas like, I hate to break it to you, but like no one's perfect. And the whole point of a successful relationship is about feedback and getting someone else to like change to accommodate you to a certain amount. and you change to accommodate them to a certain amount. Do you all get that? Like, you can't.

But what all these frigging articles about red flags are doing is they're creating this idea in our mind that there that there's a perfectly formed human that exists out there. I just need to find it. And if I can find the perfectly formed human, I will be happy. And if there's any kind of imperfection, there's no sense of like growth or progress or change. It's like, you got to get 100% out of the gate or you're gone. And the more that we see these kinds of like relationship red flag articles, the more it like reinforces these ideas of like deterministic relationships.

Okay. So that's like problem number two. So problem number one is there's no like contribution from you into anything that goes on in the relationship. Right. Like it's not it's not you. It's like, oh man, they get jealous so easily. I keep on texting my ex and they're sending me dickpicks. But this part, oh look like they like psych to go.

dot net said that they get jealous easily, so F them. There's no individual contributions. Second thing is that red flags are deterministic. Okay? And then like the third thing that's a problem with these red flags is that they're not just not based in science. And they're not like measurable in any substantial way. It's like these summaries of crap that like resonates with you a little bit.

And like, so you read it and it gets views. But it's not like based in that you don't know, I don't know how to measure it. They always agree with you. Like, what does that even mean? They're, like, not measurable. They're not scientific. They're not, like, even based in science. These are the three problems.

So, let's, like, take a look. So then I was like, okay, so, like, if this is kind of BS, you know, like, is there actually science about it? It turns out that part of the reason that this is hard is because the science on it isn't actually great. So I did something silly. I typed red flag and relationship into PubMed. And these are the results that I got. Red flag screening for low back pain. Nothing to see here.

Move along in narrative review. COVID-19 and periodontitis, the cytokine connection. Diagnosis of wild type transtheretan amyloid cardiomyopathy in Japan. Red flag's symptom of clusters and diagnostic algorithm. Red flags to screen for malignancy and fracture in patients with low back pain. Systematic review. Oral curcumin with papyrine is adjuvant therapy for treatment of COVID-19, an RCT. Verico seal, red flag or red herring.

That sounds super interesting. So I was like, all right, let's try Google Scholar. So I tried like red flag and relationship in Google Scholar. Here's that red flag or red herring article. Pretty cool, right? Back pain. Verico seal is up again. If you guys don't know what varico seal is,

it's when you have a fluid filled something in your testicles. Is laughing at the expense of victims and offenders a red flag? Humor and secondary traumatic stress. Seems like we're getting a little bit closer to it, right? Oh, look, this is interesting. Raising a Red Flag on Dating Violence. Evaluation of a low-resource college bystander behavior intervention program. Is animal cruelty a red flag for family violence?

Investigating co-occurring violence toward children, partners, and pets. So, okay, like we're getting a list. So it does seem like, and then we even get this kind of stuff. The relationship between applicant experience and hiring. Human capital versus Red Flag Predictions. This is about management, right? So, like, is a employer, how can you figure out what red flags are? So like, and it turns out that there is some interesting information out there.

So this is part of the, I didn't read all 200 of these pages. So it's great. So thank God that Richard White, Dr. White, never met the dude, but absolute boss, wrote a freaking dissertation about red flags and relationships. This was sort of like the mother load. So thank God Dr. White published this crap. And it's like it's a dissertation, which is really where you have to look for this kind of information. Okay.

So it's really cool. Like, they really dug into this, and the dissertation's fantastic. And then, like, we can look at a couple of other things, like from dating to mating and relating. Predictors of initial and long-term outcomes of speed dating. Cool. Dating in the fast lane. How communication predicts speed dating success. Cool.

Predictors of romantic relationship formation, attachment style of prior relationships and dating goals. Cool. So there is some evidence out there. We know some stuff. the problem is that like it doesn't say anything like this. Right? So like if we look at some of these things, the first thing is that, you know, red flags in a relationship have to do with things like attachment style. So this is this fundamental idea that like depending on what your attachment style is, how you relate to other human beings can determine what red flags are.

something really awesome that Dr. White discovered is that there's like all kinds, let me go to, let's go to page, I think it's 52. So like Dr. White discovered all kinds of cool things. Like, for example, that red flags are gender dependent and age dependent. So like a red flag for a man is not necessarily a red flag for a woman. So the truth of the matter is that there are some. things that are considered red flags. So, for example, animal cruelty, Dr. White determined that deviant behavior is evidenced by things like substance use, violence, prior criminal history, depending on which gender you are, having kids, discover that there are things that are

red flags. But the problem is that when you look at red flag research, it's really complicated. it's not like this thing is a red flag. So depending on your gender, so for example, like men that are viewed as non-masculine, women rate that as a red flag. What does that mean non-masculine? That means things like not having, you know, not being financially independent, living at home, whereas men will not view that as often as a red flag for women. So they're like gender-specific, subjective things. The other problem with Dr. White's research, the way, it's all subjective. It's not, it doesn't actually look at what leads to a successful relationship. It's all about perceptions of red flags. Okay. So like, the truth of the matter is that

red flags are complicated and they can't be boiled down to these like simple things. The other issue with red flags is that I've seen a lot of relationships that are very successful that include red flags. So, for example, as an addiction psychiatrist, I work with a lot of people who have been addicted to heroin. And like, I think we can sort of say that a lot of people will consider addiction to heroin as a red flag. I've also done things like work with people who are in jail. And so I've, like, worked with, like, people who are criminals. People who are felons have been convicted of a felony. And they actually wind up with, like, successful relationships. So even if you have a red flag, it's not deterministic.

So if you talk about your exes too much, maybe that's because you had like two really bad traumatic exes. And over time, a human being, I know this is going to sound kind of weird. It's going to sound kind of weird. Human beings can actually change. Like, I get that psych2.gownat.net or whatever, or like a lot of people who talk about red flags in a relationship, don't really acknowledge this. That people can change. it's like it's possible and so there are a lot of things that

so for example like when I started dating my wife like I checked a bunch of red flags I was like 25 and like had no job and was like being financially supported by my parents and like on at noon on a workday I'd be sitting on my computer on the internet which I'm still doing by the way and now that I think about it

right and even playing games during the workday right so like this is the thing where like red flags sort of presume that people don't change, whereas they do. So this is like the big problem with red flags. So then like, you know, I'm sort of sitting here and I'm sort of tearing apart this concept of a red flag. And so what people I think are like, then I was kind of thinking about this.

And I was like, well, then what the hell do I say? Do I just say the concept is stupid and leave them there? No, actually. So we're going to tell you what to do about red flags. But there's a big thing that I realized working clinically with people who struggle in dating and sort of really struggle with like finding something. successful relationships, who will do things like ignore red flags. And what I'd love to do with you all today is talk a little bit about why we fall victim to

red flags. Include a little bit of that relational component and give y'all some clues not in the other person, but in yourself, what can you detect that can sabotage relationships? What makes you vulnerable to a red flag in the other person? because there's a relational component. Okay? So we're going to talk a little bit about that. So the first thing, the first thing that leads to, in my opinion, so this is not like

based on research. This is based on sort of like clinical work, right? So I've worked with a lot of people who've struggled in relationships and things like that. So the first thing, the first thing that leads to like lack of success in relationships is when you try to fix something in your life through a relationship. So if there's something that's deficient in you and you try to fix that through a relationship, that relationship is less likely to succeed. Number one, when you use a relationship to solve your problems.

And what does that mean your problems? Any kind of problem. So let's say that I lack confidence in myself and I have difficulty loving myself. If I'm using a romantic partner to fix that self-love, doomed to failure. I mean, it's not really doomed to failure because nothing is quite that deterministic. But in my experience, it's like you're starting off with a handicap. If I'm using a romantic relationship as a means of financial support, independence, housing, things like that, more doomed to failure, right? Not 100% doomed to failure.

And I'm not saying that romantic relationships can't be like, you know, financial support and stuff can't be a part of those. what I'm saying is if you're using it as an antidote to that problem, if I'm homeless, and the reason I enter into a relationship is to like find a place to live. And I've seen all kinds of weird crap happen, which is like, for example, in the United States, we have to pay for health insurance. And so I've seen couples get married so that one person can provide someone else with health insurance. And at the time, it seems like a good, reasonable financial thing. But like, now the two y'all have been dating for six months and you've gotten married for the sake of getting health

insurance. And now the two of y'all are married. And like, that comes with other strings attached. There are all kinds of things that we do in relationships to fix something within us. I stay in a relationship. Here's another cardinal one. I'm lonely. And so I'm staying in a relationship. to combat loneliness. Because as long as I'm with this person, I won't feel that crushing amount of loneliness. But then what happens is I become more dependent on this relationship as an antidote to loneliness.

It doesn't become about the relationship anymore. And it's not about this thing where the two of us are building it together. It becomes about meeting my emotional need. And this is how you get these people who are stuck in relationships. Because they can't leave because they're afraid of what will happen

when they leave. I have nowhere to live. I'll be alone all the time. Who's going to love me? Right? Like, when your relationship becomes the primary source for meeting your personal needs, that's when things become a problem. And this is different from someone building a relationship where, like, as part of the

relationship, you can absolutely assign financial responsibility to, like, one person. Right? You can do that. Like, that's okay. Like, you all decide together. So we're one unit, and as one unit, we're responsible for all these different things. So the very classic example is like child rearing versus like earning financial security. So these are two needs that we as a relationship unit have.

Our kids need to be taken care of, and we need money. So how are we going to divide this thing? Some couples choose that I'm going to focus entirely on child rearing. You're going to focus entirely on money. Other couples will choose we're going to do half and half. Unfortunately, some couples choose I'm going to do both of them and you're going to do nothing. Right? Like that's sometimes what ends up happening.

But I'm not saying that a couple can't divide things in a particular fashion. It's just you've got to be super careful. Are you in this relationship to satisfy a personal need? Or are you in this relationship for the sake of the relationship? And this is, because this is what causes you to ignore the red flags, right? The other thing is that it's not like people don't know what the red flags are, right? Like, we know what, like, if you're with a partner who talks about their exes all the time and hits animals, like, you know that that's a bad idea.

Come on. But why do you ignore it because of this kind of stuff? Because you feel stuck in the relationship because this relationship becomes, you start to get a secondary gain out of the relationship. And then it no longer becomes about the relationship. So red flag number one, within yourself, is if you're trying to fix something in you through the relationship. And once again, I'm not saying that the relationship can't help you grow.

That's ideally what it should do. But that growth is still your responsibility. It's not like the relationship is an antidote to your personal growth. It's not a replacement for that or personal deficiency. Number two, you find yourself making excuses for the other person. This is the second relationship red flag that you should look out for in yourself. So I've seen this like time and time and time again. If you want to know like what really challenges a relationship,

it's when one partner makes excuses for the other partner. So I'm a little bit biased here once again because of the background with substance use, right? So like one person has a drinking problem. And what does the other partner do? Makes excuses for them. Oh, it's not that bad. So if you've like, if you're in an abusive relationship, oh, it's like, it's not their fault. I upset them.

Right. Or like, oh, yeah, they're like, they're really struggling. Like it was our anniversary and they spent all night playing games with their friends the night before. And so they like missed it. And like, you know, they're depressed right now. so, you know, like, I got to cut him some slack and I want to be like a good boyfriend or girlfriend. So like, you know, if you find yourself making excuses for your partner, that is a red flag within you. Right?

There's like the flip side of that, which is that your partner doesn't take responsibility. So we could make our own article that says, here are red flags. Your partner doesn't take responsibility. That too is like, how do you measure that? So this is what I'm talking about is like, you can, you can. you have to be a little bit careful about cognitive bias because we're always prone to blame other people for a particular problem in a relationship. And that's very emotionally validating, which is why these articles are successful.

They're always talking about what your partner is doing wrong, right? So we're going to sort of try to balance that a little bit by sort of thinking a little bit about what you could be doing wrong, how you could be contributing to this equation. Because here's the other thing is that you can't control your partner, but you can absolutely control you. So if you find yourself making excuses for your partner, that's a red flag. Now, this doesn't mean that things are deterministic. I'm not saying you should break up with them. That's probably where you need to do some kind of work and have some kind of conversation.

Oh, yeah, like, you know, our friends invited us over for dinner and I find myself making excuses for you all the time. Like, what's going on here? I'm covering for your ass and, like, I can't continue doing that. or I don't want to continue doing that. What are we going to do about this? Red flag number two, you make excuses for your partner. Red flag number three, there are lopsided compromises. So compromise is a really, really important part of every relationship.

Because no two human beings are perfectly the same in terms of their capabilities. No two human beings are perfectly the same in terms of their desires. So when there's a capability gap and there's a desire gap, we're not saying, quantifiably, we're saying qualitatively. Right? So I want to play video games. That's all I want to do. You want to go hiking all the time. That's all you want to do.

There's a gap between what you want to do and what I want to do. And so naturally, the right move is like some kind of compromise. That's going to leave both of us not perfectly happy. It's the nature of a relationship. What you're signing up for is a life that you have to give crap up for. and hopefully the advantage outweighs what you sacrifice. There are also lopsided capabilities. They're also lopsided capabilities.

So, like, my earning potential may be higher than yours. Your ability to cook may be better than mine. And so sometimes there's, like, some amount of compromise there, too. We're not saying that one person has to do all the cooking and one person has to do all the working. Like, that just depends on the individual relationship. but generally speaking, there should be some kind of compromise. A red flag in a relationship is when there is a lopsided compromise. When there is something that you are accommodating or they are accommodating.

Because this could be like you could be both sides of the table, right? So if I'm sitting at home, if you're cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids and working, and I'm sitting at home being depressed, drinking all day and playing video games, that's a lopsided compromise. And we're not saying that one person is at fault there. Both people are at fault. Because one person is enabling the behavior. One person is doing the behavior.

You'll get that? So the more lopsided compromises you see, the more of a red flag it is. And that's where, like, you've got to figure out, okay, why are we making this lopsided compromise? Because the lopsided compromise requires two people to make. You can't lopsided compromise yourself. Right? Like, it requires your partner. to like hold the other side.

So if I never do the dishes, it sort of requires my partner to do more of the dishes. Or we just live in a messy place, in which case it's no longer a lopsided compromise. Right? So these are the three things

that you should look out for in terms of red flags. It's not just about the other person. And they don't do this, and they don't do this, and they don't do this, they don't do this. If you are thinking that way

that I need my partner to do A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. and this is deterministic in nature. If they have any of these red flags, screw them. That in and of itself is like a red flag internally. That's going to lead

to you being less successful in relationships. People who are hypersensitive to red flags, especially vague-ass, emotionally conceptualized, non-scientific red flags are the ones who are staying alone, learning about red flags, and like not able to form healthy relationships.

Who is really? reading the article about red flags. Is it the person who's in a healthy relationship? Absolutely not. It's the person who keeps on dating the wrong person. And if you keep on dating the wrong person, maybe, like, what's the common variable there? Right? Like, it's actually you. So it turns out that a lot of the reason that we keep on having problems with red flags is not in the other person. It's actually because of your perceptions and the way that you approach the relationship. Because if I need to date for the sake of like someone doing my laundry, I'm going to compromise and ignore different things that I probably shouldn't ignore. So just to kind of try to balance things a little bit,

the three things that you should look out for if you're concerned about red flags, like by all means, like there's actually some evidence-based stuff that we looked at, right? So we'll go into more detail at some point once we do a more thorough literature search, because interestingly enough, reading 200 pages of papers is not sufficient. That's just the start. So there are some things like cruelty to animals, which are a red flag. But here are the things that you should watch out for in yourself. First of all, don't try to fix problems in here through another person, right? If you have crushing loneliness on the inside and you enter into a relationship and you don't want to leave the relationship because of the crushing loneliness in here,

you're going to create some weird kind of codependent unhealthy relationship. You'll also stay in relationships far longer than you should. because as red flags keep popping up, the thought of being alone is so crushing that you just tolerate that crap. Because a lot of us wonder, why on earth is this person in this relationship despite so many red flags?

It's because the relationship is meeting particular needs that I have. It's the price I pay to stay in the relationship. It's the benefit I get for staying in the relationship. Second thing is if you find yourself making excuses for the other person, right, representing the other person making excuses for them in the way they trait you, making excuses for them on their behalf with your family, with your friends, with their family,

with their friends. The more you find yourself making excuses for someone, like the more there is rot on the inside of the relationship. Not saying it's not fixable, but you've got to start holding people accountable, including yourself. And like covering for your partner is, a great way to enable bad behavior. We're not saying that it shouldn't be done some of the time. That's part of what a relationship is, is you cover for them and they cover for you. But if you're doing a lot of covering and like the covering isn't temporary in nature, that's another

big thing, right? Because if you're covering for them, it's okay to do that for some amount of time. But at some point, the other party needs to start taking responsibility. And sometimes when you cover for your partner, one of two things will happen. Either they'll do it more, or they'll realize that they shouldn't be doing it, and they'll do it less. So which pattern are you in? Third thing is lopsided compromises. Where generally speaking, a relationship doesn't have to be 50-50. In fact, most of the studies that I've read show that most relationships have lopsided

power dynamics, which is actually okay. Not everything in relationship has to be 50-50. In fact, the people who try to enforce 50-50 in a relationship tend to be relatively unhappy. It's okay for a relationship to be 60, 40. No problem. But when you're making more and more lopsided compromises, that's a red flag. There's something going on here that needs to be addressed. So this is our initial take on red flags.

And in terms of like, if you're struggling to find success in relationships, what we really recommend is that by all means, beware of what the other person is doing, but also look in yourself because these are the things that you can change. You can stop making lopsided compromises. You can start making fair compromises. You can support another person, but you don't have to consistently make excuses for them. And we'll see this for years or decades, right? A lack of accountability on one partner's part. And the other person just enables that behavior. And the third thing is we oftentimes use relationships to fix or almost bypass fixing problems

within ourself. As long as I can find someone to financially provide for me, I don't have to become independent myself. As long as I can find someone to do my laundry, I don't have to do laundry myself. So those are the three things that y'all should watch out for. And I think if you start to work on those things, you will have better success in relationships. How do you measure compromising 60, 40, 70, 30? Great question. Pause on Trails. Here's the problem with measuring compromise. Is that the unit of measurement is going to be biased. So there's like, a very like classic sort of scenario about dishes in the sink. So every dish in the sink that your partner cleans for you,

you don't weigh that benefit as much as what you weigh when you do a dish for them. So there's a lopsided measurement. And so that's where like I don't think that enforce 50-50 is good, or even 60-40 or 70-30. Over time, like, I don't think the quantification of it really matters too much because there's just the instrument of your measurement is going to be prone to cognitive bias. So I think I'm, so this is where like, you know, there was a priest who once sort of gave some advice to a couple that was getting married. And they were saying that, you know, marriage is a 60, 40 kind of thing.

You give 60 and you get 40. And your partner gives 60 and gets 40. And that's what marriage feels like. Can people with different worldviews last long? Adrianus Apples is asking 100%. You can have a very successful relationship with people who have different worldviews. The key, though, is reconciling those worldviews. So you both don't have to agree with things.

You can have a successful relationship between someone who's religious and someone who's an atheist. It just involves communication. And this is part of the problem, is that we assume that people with similar worldviews will get along better. And there may be some advantages to that, don't get me wrong. But we have Christians divorcing Christians. and we have atheists divorcing atheists.

We have Hindus divorcing Hindus and Muslims divorcing Muslims. We also have Muslims divorcing Christians, Christians divorcing atheists, and Muslims divorcing Hindus. I'm not saying that there may be like a greater amount of divorce between particular groups that are different. I'm not saying that there's no impact on it. I don't know the actual data. But we sort of assume even the question of like can people with different world last long, presumes a deterministic nature. It presumes that there's nothing you can do. So that's where, like, there are going to be all kinds of different worldviews. And some of those

may, you may not be able to get a compromise on. But some of them, like, through communication, you can sort of decide how you want to raise your kids. So if I'm an atheist and you're a Christian, like, we can come to some conclusion about how we, how we're going to resolve that. So if, as a Christian, you're like, they've got to go to church, they've got to be baptized. everyone who's an atheist is going to hell. Like, that's going to be hard to resolve. You know, like, so that's where there's like some amount of compromise. Duck, duck, ooh, is there always red flags in a relationship and can you completely avoid them?

I don't think that that's a good strategy. So there aren't always red flags in a relationship because earlier we were talking about, like, how do you measure them? Who knows? So this is what I'll say. No one's perfect. and the solution to people not being perfect is to not try to find someone else who's more perfect. The solution is like instead of like avoiding red flags, which I'm not saying you shouldn't set limits on who you're willing to date, like especially if we're talking about animal cruelty and things like that.

But this is where just remember that this is the other assumption is that the solution to red flags is to avoid them. Whereas like there's another solution, which is that you can work on them, right? you can give someone an opportunity to like grow and change. You can say, hey, I know you're addicted to heroin. I can't be with someone who's long term like that. So like, I really care about you. I really love you a lot. But I need you to get sober. For this relationship to work, like, I need to be with someone who's sober. And if you're not ready to make that decision right now, that's okay. I can't stay in a relationship like this at the same time. Like, I want to give you the opportunity to let you know how I feel and then you decide. And then the other person has to make a choice, right? They can say, oh, you're asking.

me to change who I am. This is what I love. It's how I relax. I don't want to change. In which case, y'all are not willing to compromise and you part ways. Or someone says, yeah, I know it's a problem. I've really been struggling with it for a long time. I haven't been able to do it so far, but I really want to. Will you please help me? And that can result in a super happy, healthy, long-term relationship. So that's where, like, I don't think problems in life necessarily need to be avoided. I'm not saying you should pick them up at every opportunity. But problems can be fixed. Avoidance is not the only answer.

Would you provide covering for your partner? Yeah. So like, provide an example of covering for your partner. So simple example is like, I don't want to go to dinner with our neighbors tonight. I just want to sit at home and play Dota. So like that's okay, I think,

if it happens occasionally. Right? So there are times that I know at least in my relationship, I cover for my partner and I appreciate doing it. it because I love her and I care about her. So I really like, you know, like, I'll take one for the team. It's like, yeah, like you relax, you have a good time. I'm going to go, like, I'm going to take the care of the kids. I'm going to like, you don't have to worry about anything for the next 24 hours. I'm going to be like super dad. I'm going to go to the grocery store. I'm going to do laundry. I'm going to work.

And I'm going to put our kids to bed. And I'm going to wake up with them and you can just take a day off. That's covering for your partner. But if I do that all day every day, that's unfair. Right? So it's okay to cover your partner. I actually really enjoy it from time to time. Right? Like it's really cool to think that, oh, like this crappy task needs to be done.

I can spare this person that I love from doing this task. That's awesome. Because I love her and I care about her and I want her to be happy in life and I can help her be happy at the cost of myself. I'm actually okay with that. Presuming it doesn't happen all the time. Right? And presuming that it's reciprocated in some way.

So I'll be super dad one day and do everything. And then a week or two later, I'll go and play D&D. And so I'll leave at noon and I'll come back after the kids are asleep. So we watch out for each other. It's about reciprocation. How about other people instantly assuming something is a red flag about me? That's a great point, diffuser. So that's where, so if you are someone who is like a felon or you use heroin or some other thing that other people think is a red flag,

you sort of can't control their impressions, right? So if someone decides I'm not willing to date someone who's a felon or someone who is unemployed at the age of 25 or like, whatever their red flags are, this is my point, is that everyone thinks about red flags. And we have a society that is like more and more sensitive to this concept of red flag. My assertion is that the concept of a red flag, and especially the way that we engage around it, is fundamentally flawed. Right? It's like this vague stuff that we can't really measure that may not be based in science. I'm not saying that they don't exist entirely. But the way in which we internalize these red flags is based on like our own emotional experience.

Oh, I had a partner who didn't prioritize me and it hurt. So now I'm going to be hypersensitive to people not prioritizing me. And sometimes what that can mean is like if someone is busy and has other stuff going on and I'm feeling emotionally like needy in that moment, it's going to trigger all of this past trauma around like people not prioritizing me. And then what happens is like, I project onto a situation a lot more severity than is deserved. And so like it's challenging, but that's what we're sort of trying to combat. So if people instantly assume a red flag about you, that's where I would, I would say you may be able to work on it some, right? So if, for example, the red flag is like you're unemployed or if it's like you use heroin or if it's whatever.

You know, if it's that you are a particular race or ethnicity or whatever, like, who knows? You can work on some of that stuff. So you can work on becoming more financially independent. You can work on becoming sober. So you have to decide for yourself whether that red flag is fair or not and also like what you can do to change it. You are kept G is asking, how do you deal with a very dependent person who's getting more and more dependent as time goes by? If I try to fix fights by taking a small break and reflecting on things and trying to make myself better, it makes more issues. because the person can't take it being away.

Yeah, that's where, like, I think conversation is really, really important. And sort of talking to someone who's growing more dependent. So here's like the cycle of dependency. So you notice that the person you're dating is getting more dependent. That burdens you more. And so you try to pull away. And as you pull away and try to foster their independence, they start to panic.

their emotional energy increases, as their emotional energy increases and ramps up, you usually end up caving. And as you cave, it reinforces the dependency. So then what happens is like you're kind of reinforcing that like, if I start to pull away and I'm forcing you to be independent, what you're training your partner to do is to like ramp things up emotionally, make you feel guilty. And then what happens is the relationship gets worse and worse and worse and worse,

because as they ramp up emotionally, they get the right behavior from you. They get the support that they want, which in turn, like, reinforces the dependence. Because if I try to, like, push away or pull away and, like, try to make you independent, you start to fall out, like, your partner starts to fall apart more, more and more and more and more. I can't do anything. You see how much I'm suffering. And then you come rushing back because you feel guilty. And what are you doing in that moment? You're actually reinforcing that the more dependent they act, they have to like escalate their dependency to get you to stay. And so it like makes things worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. So how do you deal with it? A couple of things.

The first thing is you have a conversation about it, hopefully non-judgmentally. You can say, hey, here's what I'm noticing on our relationship. Like what's going on? What's your experience of it. When I start to pull away and I don't like answer your tax for a day, how does that make you feel? Right? So you have to like understand, y'all both have to understand what the dynamic is. Then what you've got to do is ask them like, do you want to change this? Like, yes or no? Because like this is becoming difficult for me. And then what you sort of do is you start to, as you start to like set your boundaries, you've got to keep them. So that's where like as the emotional dependency kind of like escalates, you've got to be able to, you know, hold fast.

And a big part of that is like having predictive conversation. So telling your partner, hey, like this feels like I need some space, but oftentimes we're not concrete about what that is. So it's really hard for partners to manage. So if I say like, I need some space because you're becoming too emotionally needy, the other person is like panics, right? Because they don't know when that's going to end. So oftentimes setting limits around it is really important.

Hey, I'm going to take a weekend to myself. It has a duration. I need you to be able to hold it together for a weekend. Right? So it's time limited. That's really, really helpful for people who are emotionally dependent. And then come Monday, you sit down together and you're like, how was the weekend for you? Was it really, really hard?

Do you think you can handle that? Do you think it should have been shorter? Do you think it could be longer? I'm trying to understand. It was really helpful for me, by the way. This is what I felt like some degree of relief. I was able to recharge my battery some. I care about you.

I love you. I want to be able to support you, but like I feel like I'm running on empty. I don't think you're a bad person for that. I recognize that you have emotional needs and we need to figure out some healthy way of like working on this overtime. Because I am committed to this relationship.

I want to stay committed to this relationship. But some of that involves like managing some of my emotional needs, like is attention with your emotional needs. What are the other solutions that we could think about? There may be something like therapy or something like that involved. But I think a big part of it is that we sort of reinforce the dependency without realizing it.

So if a kid wants to watch TV and I say no, and they throw a temper tantrum, and then I give them the TV to calm them down, what is that reinforcing? That's actually reinforcing temper tantrums get me the TV. And so over time, what I'm going to see is more temper tantrums, not less. Even though in the moment, I'm trying to stop the temper tantrum. Does that make sense?

So the same thing can happen with emotional dependency. So as they escalate and you feel guilty and you cave, you're actually creating more emotional dependency down the road. So Gun Down is saying, what do you do if that escalation leads them to panic or anxiety attacks? Great question, Gun Down. So let's look at this question very carefully. What do you do if escalation leads them to panic or anxiety attacks? So here's the question. whose responsibility is their panic attacks and their anxiety.

So in that question, you will understand what the answer is. Because oftentimes what we do is we accept responsibility for someone else's mental health. And the moment that you do that, if you're accepting responsibility for it, then it's your problem and you've got to control it. The problem usually in emotionally dependent people is that that dependency requires you to like, agree to it, right? Where like their anxiety is actually not, I mean, should you support them 100 percent? But ultimately, like, their mental health is their responsibility. Or it should be more their responsibility or it should be 50-50 responsibility. Right. So I consider, at least in terms of like my relationships, I consider myself somewhat responsible for the mental health of the people

around me. I have a duty to try to support their mental health. But I can't do all of it. Right. They have to accept responsibility too. And what happens in dependent relationships is that the person who they're leaning on accepts 80% of the responsibility, 90% of the responsibility. If it leads them to anxiety attacks, it leads them to anxiety attacks. How are they going to manage that? That's where the two of y'all can come up with a plan. Okay, if you can't take a weekend off, if I can't take a weekend off and it leads you to anxiety panic attacks, over the next month, you need to start seeing a therapist.

Let's do that. And that's when if they don't do that over the next month, that's when you need to have a conversation about like, I'm willing to do my part, but I need you to be willing to do yours. And I don't know how this is going to work if you can't, like, I can't carry this relationship by myself. And that sends them into a panic attack. And that's where like, I'm sorry. And then you've got to like pull away. Right. So because in that situation, what's going to happen?

They're going to have a panic attack. You're going to cave. Oh, no, no, no, no. Okay, you see that? It's tricky. It's super tricky. Dr. Kay, oh, this is great. Houdant-T is asking, what can I do if I am the dependent part of the spectrum? You can start to accept more responsibility. You can even sort of like recognize. So I think a big part of the big part that people who are dependent miss out on is the time limitation of the boundary. So this is the kind of thing where it's like, you know, even if you think about, you know, a kid who's afraid of the darkness.

As a parent, I don't want to say, hey, you need to learn to be okay with the darkness, and I just abandon them. I tell them, hey, I know you're scared of the darkness. I have to go to the bathroom. So I will be back in 60 seconds, and I know it's going to be a little bit scary, but I'll be right back. They can handle that. It's going to be a little bit uncomfortable. Then it's like, I have to go change out the laundry. I'll be back in two minutes.

They can handle that. And so as the dependent person, what you can actually do in that situation is like, if you feel yourself becoming too dependent? You can have a conversation. By the way, do you feel like I'm dependent? What do you think I could do to change that? Like, what are some, like, what's some amount of independence that I can handle? Okay, let's take a weekend where I'm not going to call you. I'm not going to text you. It's going to be terrible for me. Please don't call or text me. Like, let's just spend one weekend and see if I can handle it on my own. It's going to be super hard. And they're going to say, oh, you don't have to do that. No, no, I want to do that for my independence. But please,

can we meet up on Sunday evening for dinner? So you sort of like, you're, you're, leave the mothership for a little while, right? And you handle it on your own, and then you come back to the mothership. That's okay. How can you know the right period of separation? Like, is it a weekend, a week? With practice, right? So how do you know what's the right amount that a kid can, like, handle darkness?

So you start super small, and then you ramp up. Ha ha, ha. This is such good questions. So gaming comics is asking, how do you ignore thoughts of are they okay during the break? You don't ignore the thoughts. You acknowledge the thoughts. Right? So you can acknowledge to yourself, hey, wow, am I so worried about them? So worried. I want to check up on them. I want to check up on them. I want to check up on them. Can I find the trust and faith in them to not check up on them? Can I tolerate my own anxiety? That's the antidote. It's not to ignore the thoughts. That's going to have the opposite result. If you ignore the thoughts, they're going to grow and grow and grow and they're going to break through your attempts at ignorance. So what you've got to ignore the thoughts. So what you've got to. to do is acknowledge, wow, this is really hard. Can I survive another 24 or 48 hours? How am I going to

survive another 24 or 48 hours? Let me watch a movie. Let me go for a hike. Let me do this. Let me cook. Let me let me do laundry. I've got to occupy my mind. And then like, you know, you'll manage it. The tolerance of anxiety is a very, very important skill to develop. And it's the same way that a child tolerates the anxiety being in the darkness. You have to tolerate your own anxiety.