Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Toxic Relationships

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

This week, with the help of special guest Dan Savage (relationships advice columnist and host of the Savage Lovecast), Isa and Amanda are talking about cults of one: toxic relationships. How are toxic lovers (and friends and bosses) similar to cult leaders? What cult-like tactics do these “charismatic” abusers use to lure people in and make them stay? This illuminating episode proves all you need to understand followers of groups like NXIVM and Scientology, is what it feels like to fall in love…   Follow Dan on Instagram: @dansavage

This is Sounds Like a Colt, a show about the modern day colts we all follow. I'm Issa Medina and I'm a comedian. I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book Coltish, The Language of the Nationality. And we're just two pals who are obsessed, not just with colts like Nixxiom and QAnon, but groups that put the colt in culture, like this week's topic, the Colts of Toxic Relationships, which we'll be discussing to answer the big question. This group sounds like a colt, but is it really? To join our colt, follow us on Instagram at soundslikeacoltpod.

I'm on IG at Amanda underscore Montell. And I'm at Issa Medina. Now let's get into it. Yeah, listen, I have anxiety about this episode because it's so personal. It is. It's a little bit serious. I'm going to be talking in a lot of like metaphorical situations. Yeah.

Not naming names. Yeah. I feel quite comfortably removed from a lot of the colts that we tend to discuss on the show. I'm not like Issa who keeps finding herself like slipping in and out of the Colt of Soul Cycle and Greek life and CrossFit and whatever else. But this is a colt that I very much identify with, that I have been a member of, that I've defected from, thank goodness. So it's stressful to talk about.

Yeah. Oh, I can imagine that. I was also kind of laughing when we were like prepping for the episode to myself. I feel bad because you were mentioning something serious and I was like giggling. No, that's the vibe of this entire podcast. Giggle at the pain. Because I was also thinking about what you always say about me, which is that I have commitment issues.

And like it's going to be very clear with this episode because I'm like, oh, relationships. Oh, surprise. Never really been in one. Yeah. It's like, this is the Colt for me, but not the Colt for you. I'm excited though, because we have a very special guest coming on later, Sex and Relationship Advice columnist, host of the Savage Lovecast and friend of the pod, Dan Savage, who I think literally gave us both giant epiphanies about our own lives

and our own relationship histories. People often ask me what was the most jarring or surprising thing that you learned while writing your book? Did you go in with preconceived notions about the type of person who might wind up in a cult? And the answer is yes. I completely went into the project thinking like, I'm a super skeptic. I grew up in a house of critical thinkers.

I would never fall prey to the charms of a charismatic guru. And so my antenna have always been up whenever I've seen someone preaching at a group of people, positioning themselves as an authority figure. It's always seemed sus to me, but my antenna were not up when it came to one-on-one power abuse. But what I found is that the techniques of manipulation that work in a cult atmosphere to get people to join a group, to stay for longer than make sense to anyone else, are very similar to the techniques of manipulation that a toxic lover or friend or boss uses. When we say toxic relationship, we mean all kinds of relationships like professional

relationship, family relationships, or love life as well, and just the power dynamic between two people. I found that a toxic relationship is really just a cult of one. Yeah. When I was a senior in high school, I started dating someone who was pretty power abusive. He was 11 years my senior. He caught me in a moment when I was vulnerable because of my youth, first of all. Yeah.

Like my prefrontal cortex was not fully developed. I couldn't make the best decisions about everything. But also, I felt unhappy at the time to a degree because I just didn't like being a teenager and I wanted to be respected and I wanted to feel important. At the very same time, I also had a lot of hope for my future. Yeah. And he was someone who identified those qualities and took advantage of them. Totally.

And love bombed me in the way that cult leaders do by telling me that I was special and had something to say to the world. I hate men. And he was not charming enough or organized enough to command a whole group of people to follow him. He just got you. He just got me. It was a one-on-one cult. And I think it's not only interesting to discuss the similarities of these types of manipulation,

but also important to discuss because I think as a teenager who was very stubborn and was not going to listen to anybody who told me, like, don't date him, if I had just on my own listened to conversations like this one, then maybe I could have put the pieces together quicker and realized, like, oh, I'm in a cultish relationship. I am so grateful that I think I'm unattracted to men. Like, I don't know. I go back and forth. Obviously, everyone knows I'm bisexual, but, like, I think the real reason I, like, never

lost my virginity in high school was because I just was like, ew. Yeah. Well, I also want to say lovers across the gender spectrum can be toxic. True. Sometimes I think lesbians love to love bomb and trauma dump on each other. And then you feel like you're really close because you were, like, trauma bonded. And it can be very toxic as we both know. I also think you as, like, a professional in the cult space, you obviously understand

where people are coming from when they accidentally fall into a cult. I do now. You do now. Yeah. Now that you've, like, done the research, like, we've talked about it before, like, in the Luloro episode where I still couldn't wrap my head around how, like, people got in so deep without noticing the toxicity of it. Yes.

But prepping for this episode, I'm like, oh, toxic relationship is, like, the perfect example. Yeah. I mean, if people have a tough time wrapping their head around how someone could miss the red flags, how someone could show up to a nexium meeting, let's say, and, you know, get so into it that they're 10 years in and being branded, you can just think of what motivates people to get involved with someone who maybe your friends and family don't like. You know, maybe it's because life is hard and you're lonely and you want your life to be better because it always starts small, whether it's a cult or a toxic relationship.

It always is a little thing, like, he doesn't want us to go to our family's house for the holidays, right? Totally. It's like slowly taking you away from the people that are supporting you or, like, he doesn't want me to go out with my friends, but that's just because he likes to stay in for sure. So these little things are slowly, like, pushing and pushing and pushing. A thousand percent. I mean, when I think back on what happened to me in my relationship, I moved to Los Angeles

even though I dreamt my whole life of living in New York for decades and decades. For him, my friends and family were confused by our relationship and he pulled me away from them. There were a lot of issues, there were alcohol issues, there were mental health issues on his part that he didn't address, and this is not to say that I was a perfect partner. Obviously not, no one is. Also, not to say that, like, if you don't like your partner that you can just accuse them of being a cult leader.

Yeah, leave it there. But there was this power abuse element and when I think about how that power was exerted over me, he did discourage me from coming into my own as an adult. And whenever I did try to make a decision, whether it was about decor or where we lived or anything, he would just get all the crueler. At a point, it's not that I couldn't have left our apartment or broken up with him because I feared for my physical safety, but the psychological warfare was so strong that I didn't feel like I could leave because I didn't feel like anyone else would love me.

You know? And that's literally what people at Nixxiom felt from the conversations that we've had. That's exactly the same type of feeling. Again, the reasons why you might get into a relationship like that are similar to the reasons why you might get into a cult and the reasons why you might not leave will also sound familiar. You know, they're the reasons why you might also stay at a bad job. Yeah, exactly.

It's like, it's not just about the reasons that you slowly start succumbing to what they want, but it's also about the reasons why you stay in that if you move in with someone monetary as an immigrant, a lot of immigrant parents, sometimes maybe it would be healthier for them to get a divorce, but they don't because they moved to this country together and they have to ride it out together. And I think that can be good and bad, good if you stick to it and work on your problems bad if you just stay in a toxic relationship. And it's not like there is such a clear line between a relationship that's abusive and

a relationship that's not. The media does a bad job of portraying relationship abuse in the way that the media does a bad job of portraying cults. You know, when you think of a cult, you think of like women in peasant dresses or people in robes with their heads shaved. And when you think of an abusive relationship, you think of a man in like a ribbed white tank top like smacking his wife. Yes.

Abuse is not just physical. It's verbal, manipulative, and it's also your actions. Keith Ranieri obviously abused people in like many levels, but like, yeah, he wasn't whipping someone like. Yeah. And even physical abuse, it can look like someone punching the wall right next to your head or throwing plates. Yes.

And these are things that I did experience, but I didn't necessarily clock them or want to interpret them as abuse because that's not the narrative that I'd heard. Some other reasons why people might not leave a cult or a toxic relationship denial. In Russia. Yeah. Social pressure or the delusion that you think you can change that person. I think another reason that you wouldn't leave a toxic relationship, especially for women. You mentioned you were like, I didn't want to see it as abusive because I didn't envision

my life to be at that point. Exactly. That it was. And I think a lot of women, especially with like age and wanting to have children, it's like, oh my God, if I leave, I'm going to have to start over. What if I want kids? I'm never, I'm going to have to find a holding partner. A thousand percent.

It speaks to the sunk cost fallacy, you know, that idea that resources already spent on something justify spending even more. It's like, I've already been in this relationship for 10 years. I can't give up now. I think of sunk costs a little bit differently. If I want it, it's already sunk. I know, like economically, that doesn't make any sense, but like, let's say I think about wanting ice cream, let's say it's like $10 for an ice cream.

I'm like, whatever, it's already a sunk cost because I need it. No, that actually makes sense because sunk cost doesn't have to do just with the money. It has to do with emotional bandwidth and time and hope. Let's say you'd been thinking about that ice cream all day. Yeah. You're like, I can't give up on this dream of mine to get ice cream. Literally. Last Friday, actually, I left your house and I went to go get ice cream.

Good for you. Because... Do you have a toxic relationship with ice cream? Actually, I think I have a really healthy relationship with ice cream. Oh, that's beautiful. It was so good. Yeah, indulge. You know?

Treat yourself to ice cream on a Friday afternoon. Have you ever tried that before? Literally, it's like, it will make you realize that adulthood is better than childhood. Oh, I think about that all the time. Because you can do whatever you want. Dessert before dinner is my favorite part. This is what I'm saying. I hated being an adolescent.

I just wanted to be an adult. And here was an adult who was, like, funny and had his own little charms coming and telling me, like, you are special. Like, you can have dessert before dinner. Yeah. And we're like, fuck you. Yes. You know, the language that we use to talk about cult manipulation and the language

that we use to talk about the manipulation of toxic lovers is different. But the content is the same, you know, talking about cults you hear about love bombing and relationships you hear about grooming. Brainwashing is the cult specific term for psychological abuse or manipulation. With cults you hear about financial exploitation, mind control, isolation, which essentially mean the same things as domestic theft, gaslighting, avoidance. Blackmail can work its way into toxic relationships, like threats of leaking, incriminating photos or messages to discourage you from leaving, like a nexium that was called collateral.

We call cult leaders charismatic gurus while we call abusive lovers charming narcissists. Yeah. Especially if you were underage, that's already like, they can have immediate blackmail because the younger person, whether they did something wrong or not, they probably most likely never did anything wrong. Totally. But you always think you're going to get in trouble because you're the one dating an older person.

Yes. You're going to blame yourself. And I wasn't even underage and this is actually what makes it tricky is that I had just turned 18. I had just turned 18. We can't see who's motherfucking I am. I know. I'll fucking beat them up.

So all the statute of limitations probably expired. What's the word that we're supposed to say so we don't get in trouble? Allegedly. I will allegedly beat his ass up. I spoke about the cult of toxic relationships to a clinical psychologist named Dr. Ramani. Shout out. And she was lending her clinical expertise about some of the red flags to look for. She was saying, you know, if you find yourself being unable to question the person that you're

dating, if you find that their worldview and their beliefs have been fully incorporated into yours, if you can't disagree with them about certain things for fear that you'll get yelled at or hurt, that's a red flag. If they try to distance you from everyone else in your life, from people who might be critical of them, that's a red flag. If they talk massive shit on their exes, aka people who left their cult, that's a huge red flag. I will say my ex-boyfriend from college, who is now out and proud as a gay man.

Good for him. Love that for him. He always like talked so positively about all his ex-girlfriends. Yeah. Maybe that's a red flag. That's upsetting too. In term, like, or like when people are still best friends with their ex, no, I hate that. That's a red flag.

I hate that too. Yeah, like maybe don't FaceTime your ex. I don't know. Babe, you broke up for a reason. I totally agree. I guess I'm talking about like how my ex would talk about his exes as if they were the devil for no good reason. Yeah.

In a way that made me feel like I can't become one of those exes. I can't just become another number, you know? Exactly. Dude, you know what? Fuck thinking I can't become another number. You know what? Numbers have given us everything. Numbers are so important.

Lean into the number system. Numbers are the universal language. That's a great way to look at it. Dr. Ramani was talking about the steps that a toxic lover will move through that are similar to cult manipulation. It starts with a love bombing, then they go through a devaluation phase where they gaslight you, they manipulate you, they lead you to believe that you're not good enough for the world that no one will ever love you.

So that makes it hard to leave. Then you have this discard or dehumanization process where they lose interest in you, maybe they cheat on you after the love bombing process. Oh my God. Listening to this makes me sick to my stomach because, oh gosh, love bombing is a language that just came into my life recently but is just so relevant and I honestly wish it wasn't. Can we just all forget what love bombing is and stop doing it, okay? We as human beings don't instantly think if someone's complimenting me, they're full

of shit. Yeah, you hear what you want to hear and you internalize what you want to hear. Totally. Yes, sometimes I self-sabotage and I hear the opposite of what someone is saying. I don't believe people when they tell me that they like me, but that's just a personal problem babes and I love how I just bring out the accent every time I feel uncomfortable. In cults, a leader might assign new names or new uniforms to strip their followers of their identities in abusive partnerships.

You have this loss of identity, you start to dress differently. I completely changed my style, my hair color, everything. Is that why I have no new clothes because I'm never in a relationship? You're doing you and that's important. Yeah. Oh, she talked about this phenomenon of hoovering in the context of a toxic relationship which is similar to blackmail or collateral where they'll get you to come back into their fold or into the relationship by stalking you or threatening to release nude photos, whatever.

I feel like it is easier for me to see how people would allow for these things to happen because you're connected to that person in a way deeper way, especially if you're not talking about it with anyone else. It's so easy to make up excuses for people that you love because you don't want to see them that way. Exactly. And she was also talking about the type of cognitive dissonance that exists in a toxic relationship as the same type of cognitive dissonance that exists in a cult where you

have this feeling that something is very, very wrong, but you don't want it to be wrong. So you justify it to yourself by saying, like, okay, yeah, I'm not happy, but we have that amazing trip to Hawaii two years ago. Yeah. There's still something here. Two years ago, it's like, right. I know. Let it go.

But this is what you tell yourself. You're like, we had that dinner the other night where he didn't get drunk and yell at me. Yeah, it's like, hold on to the memory as long as the tan lasts, you know, as soon as the tan is gone, let go. Wiser words were never spoken. Like you said in this episode, it's kind of the opposite for me. It's like something that I've never been in, which could also be why I often avoid relationships

because I see red flags and immediately like run in the opposite direction. My anxiety is like very quick to spot toxic energy and I am really good at communicating, sometimes over communicating. So then I just like run away from toxic relationships and then ultimately most relationships. Yeah. But she was saying that some of the things that also can keep you in that toxic relationship are not just fear or guilt or comfort, but it's also hope. It's also that hope that things will get better because at the beginning they were.

Yeah. We're just like such hopeful beings. All these different techniques that you mentioned, because it's a one-on-one relationship, it's so important for couples to have a third party, like mitigate their problems and go to couples therapy because. To have a witness. Yeah. To have a witness and like someone who can be like, you know, maybe you didn't mean to

say it this way or maybe you didn't mean to like imply that. I think it's so important to also highlight. It's not applicable in a black or white manner. And the word toxic is just so overused now in a way that I think sometimes people are less willing to work on things and more willing to just dismiss them and be like, oh, sorry, that's toxic. But therapy can be really illuminating because no one else can really be inside your relationship like that, especially couples therapy.

That's true. You were sort of saying this earlier that it's a good idea to seek out that therapy before things turn really bad or really abusive so that those red flags might be clearer to you. Yeah. But then again, like it's easier said than done because when I was in my relationship, I was in such denial for so long that anything was wrong and was really holding on to things would be better any moment, like just around the corner, things are gonna get better and

go back to the way that they were before. I don't need therapy. Therapy is an admission of defeat. Yeah. It's that stigma. I feel like society and pop culture has done a really good job of destigmatizing therapy for yourself. Like you don't have to have like a disorder to go to therapy, but couples therapy is still

hell of stigmatized, like you're like, oh, you're in couples therapy because you're about to go to divorce. And it's like, no, you should go to couples therapy to like just chat. Yes. To just iron out the kinks or in a worst case scenario to make those red flags real. Yeah. Because I so badly wanted to be seen, that could have come from anywhere. That could have come from a therapist and objective third party.

I never spoke about my problems to friends or family because I wanted to protect this person. I wanted to protect other people to see them in that light. Exactly. I want, because by protecting that person, I was protecting us. I was protecting myself. I didn't want to admit that I had made a bad bet about my life. You mentioned a second ago how like when you're in that toxic relationship, you always think,

oh, it might get better around the corner. Yes. I think it's so fucked up how we don't think that about when we're in a dark place alone. We never think with that same optimism. That's true. You know what I mean? Yeah. When I'm thinking about my own situations, I'm having a really bad day.

I spiral into like, how much worse could it get? Me too. Because we're only thinking about ourselves, but we give other people the benefit of the doubt more than we do ourselves. That's an interesting observation. Maybe our guest can shed more light on that. If you could just start by telling our listeners about yourself and what you do and how you came to be a sex and relationship columnist.

My name is Dan Savage. I write Savage Love. It's a syndicated sex advice column. I've been writing it for 30 years and I host the Savage Love Cast, which is like a 12 or 13 or 14. I don't even know at this point. Your old podcast, one of the first podcasts that roamed the earth and I lucked into it. I met somebody who was starting a newspaper 30 plus years ago and he was telling me about

it and I said, oh, you should have an advice column. Everybody reads those. You should have that Q and A format. You have to read it. And he said, excellent advice, write the advice column. And I wasn't really angling for the gig and I'd never written anything to be published. And that's really clear. If you read the first years worth of Savage Love, which you can't do because I've locked

them away forever. Originally, the idea was a gay guy, I was going to write a sex advice column and a straight newspaper for straight people about straight sex. And I was going to treat straight people with the contempt that straight advice columnist had always treated gay people and gay sex with when I was growing up. But the column was a joke and then straight people loved being treated with that kind of contempt. It was a new and novel experience for them.

And I started getting all these real questions and the column became a real advice column under my feet. Incredible. Satire turned real. We're here to talk about the cult of one concept to illuminate this idea that a toxic one-on-one relationship can be similar to a cult experience. And I was wondering if you could talk about just some of the stories that you've heard over the years of how toxic lovers can be culty.

Nobody runs out the door and says, I'm going to join a cult. Nobody runs out the door and says, I want to find in this bar tonight the shittiest, most toxic, manipulative, controlling, emotionally abusive person I can and partner with that person. So it kind of creeps up on people after they've made an investment in the relationship. That sunk cost fallacy that they talk about in economics totally applies to interpersonal relationships. I've invested so much.

We've been together for years. It was great. I've been in a toxic relationship myself. And what always happens is it's great 98% of the time and like a mysterious shitt show 2% of the time at first. And then five years later, it's a shitt show 98% of the time and great 2% of the time. And you're just hoping that if there's something you can do differently, it'll ramp back up to 98% great.

And what's going on there is that person has just backed you into a corner where you don't feel like you can escape just like a real cult. So the stories I've heard over the years, oh my God, you know, people isolated from family and friends, people pretending to believe things that are clearly lies. I mean, it's just, it's so cult. Yeah. That's why I love your podcast so much. You know, the person is angry at you about some bullshit.

They have a narrative that's obviously a lie or a fantasy. And if you don't pretend to believe it, the anger continues, so you pretend to believe it. And then a couple of years later, you believe it too. And I see it all the time. I mean, it's why I invented DTMFA, which is the acronym you're likely is to hear on an episode of this podcast, which stands for dump the motherfucker already because that's almost always the answer when someone says it was great at first, but and the butt is always

a door that opens to horrors and horror shows. Your DTMFA is our GTFO. Yes. Get the fuck out. Yes. Yes. Yes. The one thing I've noticed a kind of pattern is there are a lot of people out there who

are in emotionally abusive cult of one kind of relationships where the cult leader isn't a brow beating, loud, shouty, physically abusive monster, but has weaponized their fragility or their vulnerability to manipulate and control someone else where you're taking care of that person. And it's not just men doing that to women. Sometimes it's women doing that to men. And it's easy to see from the outside, but when I was in it, it was harder for me to identify.

Oh, a hundred percent. More fundamentally social creatures who want so badly to connect and for the social connections that we bet on to be a good investment, you know, there's also, I can fix this person that my pussy is chemotherapy, that my dick will leverage out of this person better behavior. And people often have a hard time seeing in themselves that they can't do it. They can't fix or save this person. And they want to not just to fix or save the person because they like the other person because of what it says about themselves.

Yeah. They have to admit to themselves that they've quote unquote failed, but it's not actually a failure. It's just that that other person wasn't in a good place. Exactly. And you know, some people manipulate others with fear and some people identify in others that they can be manipulated with their own vanity, the vanity of the victim. These are the craziest cults that I see.

I can't leave because they're so damaged because they're reeling because they're so miserably unhappy. They need me. They need me. Now he's upset with these people. If they know you're going to leave, if they get better, what incentive is there for them to get better? This conversation is only making me more like, I don't want to join the cult of a relationship,

but I know that, you know, a lot of therapy we're working on. Therapy is good. I think it helps to think of relationships as a myth that two people create together about the couple. And it's a story that you tell others about who you are. And it's a story you tell each other about who you are and that you can revise that story as you go. I love that.

And that's, I think, a healthier approach than just sort of raw pulsating meat and nerves pressed up against each other. That's so accurate because we move through life telling ourselves stories about our own lives and our own selves. Like it's all a little bit of a fabrication and an illusion. And if you can just acknowledge that, then I don't know, maybe you can move forward. Every relationship is a Potemkin village. You know, you think about the night you met and you put on your best front and then the

person gets to see behind that. And then when you become a couple, you become a unit, you put on a front for others. And your real friends, your intimate friends, they can see behind the facade of the couple too, just like you eventually can see behind each other's facades. And I think that's how you protect yourself. Not by not making commitments, but by having people in your life whose judgment you trust. Yeah. Where if they say to you, you got to get away, you got to get out, you're going to listen

to them. And then you have to be open to their feedback because I remember at least the relationship that I was in, I started it as a stubborn teenager. So I think there were certain people who were like afraid to confront me because they knew I would bash out. I've often coached people through that, you know, you have to tell somebody that they shouldn't marry this person and they're going to be mad at you. And yeah, they might be mad at you.

It might really damage your friendship or your relationship. You might not hear from them for a year or two, but when they're ready to get out. So long as you say, when you're ready to get out, I promise I won't. I told you so, you, if you're ever ready to get out and you need my help and support, you can call me and I'm not going to be angry or say, fuck you for cutting me out of your life in favor of that asshole. That's a price you have to be willing to pay for a friend that you love. That's love.

That's love. I agree. So we've been talking a little bit about some of the biggest red flags in terms of culty power abuse and one-on-one relationships. If they move you away from your family and friends, one person being a lot older than the other person, kind of like we talked about earlier, can you think of any other tangible signs that a one-on-one relationship might be culty? The red flags for abusive relationships are also the red flags for culty ones.

Do they try to isolate you from your support network, you know, if every time something important is coming up in your life, they suddenly start having a crisis or a meltdown and demanding all of your attention, being asked to pretend to believe things that not only you know aren't true, but they know aren't true. I got to say though that my husband and I are both involved in relationships with significant age gaps that are long-term. I do think that a significant age gap relationship should come in for more scrutiny because there is power there that can be abused, but there's power all over relationships.

One person can make more money, there's power to youth and beauty. When we look at people and we look at power imbalances, we have to look at them holistically and see all of their power imbalances. And you need to look at the older person. Is everyone they've dated between 18 and 22? Do they not have any friends their own age or contemporaries who can tolerate them? You know, a lot of people who are abusive can't keep witnesses around. We have one last question and then we're going to play a game.

You know, when it comes to both toxic relationships and cults, I find that shame can keep a lot of people from getting out because people don't want to admit to themselves that they got into a bad situation or that they were victims. And I was wondering if you could lend some insight for people who maybe unconsciously like don't want to admit to themselves that they're in a cultish relationship and might not be as happy as they hoped just to offer a sentiment to make people feel less ashamed. I think what people are often worried about is losing face, is having to go to friends and family.

It's not that you didn't see the red flags, often other people in your life were going to look at the fucking red flags, look at the red flags and you ignored them, you refused to see them, and now you see them and you have to go to somebody and make yourself vulnerable and say, you were right, I was wrong, which is a really hard thing for a lot of people to say, often if you're in a cult, you're in a toxic cultish relationship, those connections have withered and you don't feel entitled to reconnect with those people until you don't reach out. And it has always been my experience, you know, on the podcast listening to people talk

about their relationships, that when you reach out, people are happy to help. They want you back in their life without this shitty cult, without this shitty toxic person. Yeah. The thing I talk about on the podcast constantly, when I get to this kind of touchy advice when you have a friend who's in that cult relationship, how do you frame it so that when they're ready to go, they'll call you, you have to say, I promise, I promise, I promise, when you call, I am not going to say I told you so, I am going to help. Oh my God, I got chills, I got chills, it makes me want to cry because I completely

found that to be the case as well when my ex and I broke up, his friends were happy. Like I was never going to see them ever again. And they were like, she's free. And it probably freed them a little bit. I would hope they would cut him on lines at some point, because in a way, friends vouch for their friends through their relationships and their presence. And those friends who are still in his life, despite this abusive pattern that he has with his romantic partners, are contributing to those romantic partners entering into those

relationships with him in the first place. Wow. Okay. So insightful. Now we're going to play a little game. This game would not be possible without our fabulous listeners, particularly our loyal culties on Instagram. The game is called culty or just an asshole.

We got our listeners to submit little stories of situations that either they were in with an ex or someone close to them was in with an ex. And we would like for you to listen to these situations and determine was this person culty or just an asshole. Okay. I'm game. The first DM we got is an ex always wanted us to hang with his parents who unfortunately lived in town.

He'd say we'd go there for max two hours and we'd be there for five plus, which I got tired of. When I'd speak up about this, he'd just shut down and say, you don't have to come rather than acknowledge five hours was longer than the aforementioned two. And we didn't need to see them multiple times a week. Just an asshole. Yeah. I agree.

And you needed to call his bluff. You needed to take him up on the offer not to have to come with. And then if he's gone three nights a week, because with his parents, he's not a grown up and you should bring the fuck up with him. Yeah. I agree with you. My ex used to steal cash out of my wallet. And when I would open my wallet to use that cash for something and notice it was gone,

he would just say, it must have fallen out of your wallet. You know how careless you can be. And it took me four years to get out of that relationship while he stole from me almost the whole time, making me feel like I was losing my mind. Gaslighty. Gaslighty is culty demanding as a price of being in the relationship that you pretend to believe something that you know is not true. Go through the motions to avoid their anger.

That's cultish, cult adjacent behavior. All right. Next one. My ex boyfriend had many, many female friends he'd hang out with. I asked him if it was okay if I joined a male friend at a concert. My male friend had a random extra ticket and we certainly hadn't planned to go together. My ex boyfriend absolutely flipped out and we broke up. Why'd you broke up over it?

Could have been assholery, patriarchy, misogyny. Yeah. If you'd stuck around longer and I'm really glad that this person didn't stick around longer than enough to find out, it could have been cult one shit, but it was disqualifying assholery. It was a CTMFA moment and I'm really glad that they dumped the motherfucker. Yes. Amazing.

Next one. When I broke up with my ex and had to move things out of the apartment, he refused to let my dad in to help me and said the only way I could move myself out is if I did it all by myself. He sat on the couch and watched me move everything out and bring it downstairs to my dad. He didn't even get up or offered him to move to a different room so I could easily collect my things. Well, the relationship was already over so you escaped the cult if it was a cult, but

that is some towering assholery. Yeah. And it was your apartment too? Yeah. Fuck him. This brings up a good point, which is I feel like when it's a cult, it's cult and asshole. When it's an asshole, it's not always cult. I think that's very smart.

I always think of Jane Jacobs, the life and death of American cities at this moment. She writes about eyes on the street and how important that is for a healthy urban environment. Eyes on the relationship. This is something I should tolerate or forgive, or is this something that reveals such an asshole to the core that I need to get out? That's what your friends and family can do for you. There are those eyes on the street. Your relationship is the street.

Yeah, exactly. I love that. And if you don't feel like you can talk to your friends and family about your relationship, such a red flag. Or you're forbidden to. Your partner says, don't talk about our business with your friends, bullshit. For the last one, this DM says, dated for six years, he gradually became radicalized by the red pill stuff.

And right after I graduated college, he tried to convince me going to college slash pursuing a career as a woman was a mistake. And I'd only be happy if I learned how to submit to his masculine authority. He also used to keep me on the phone for hours at a time when I was exhausted because he wanted to prove I was strong enough to deserve him. There's other stuff I won't get into, but you can probably guess the bedroom behavior of a 21 year old guy who was got radicalized by the alt-right. I was very nearly almost married to him before I made a wild leap of faith that maybe he

was wrong. It's been almost two and a half years of healing. I'm so glad you're out. Yes, that was a cult of one. That was a cult relationship. I'm so glad you got out and it would have gotten worse and worse over time. And I hope he's alone with his right hand or left hand left. He's represent or no hands, you know, maybe they fell off.

I hope. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I hope he got laprissy and he lost both his hands, but not his dick so he can not check. Yeah. That is a special Dan Savage breed of hell. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on our pod and playing culty or just an asshole with us.

If someone wants to keep up with you, if they dare not to follow your work already, how can they do that? You can find my column and my podcast, the Savage Love Cast at savage.love. I'm on Instagram at Dan Savage and I'm on Twitter at fake Dan Savage. Okay, Amanda, as someone who's been one, but is now out and in the healthiest relationship I've ever seen. Thank you. Yeah, shout out to my current partner who's like the least toxic person alive.

Probably just like a soft, kind man. But as someone in the past who's been in one, what do you think the cult of toxic relationships is? A live your life? A watch your back? Or get the fuck out? Well, obviously toxic relationships are get the fuck out level cults, but the trouble is that most people do not strike a relationship with someone they know is going to abuse

them. You strike a relationship with someone who you think is going to change your life for the better because that's what they promised you. So with relationships in general or more specifically with relationships or maybe like your friends and family have warned you about that person, I would say it's a watch your back because I think- And maybe you can speak to this. Like too much fear and too much cynicism about-

Are you talking about me being single? About love? Can like rob you of some magical experiences? Yeah, we're working on it. We are working on it and I'm fine. I do not mean to call you out at all. Relations that I do have is toxic relationship in the workplace, especially in small companies. In the past, I've been at very small companies where you're kind of codependent on each other,

especially like an entertainment industry. You're not just hanging out like in the office, you're hanging out outside of office hours and doing like drinks together and going out so it gets really personal. So I did not go into that company watching my back and when I lost my job, I was like, how could this happen to me? Like I felt like my family had turned their back on me. Like the rug had been ripped from under you because, right, it was connected to so many aspects of your identity.

Yeah. Never again. And that's why now I'm a closed shell. It's so hard to like be vulnerable and date, but then what else are we going to do? Yeah, like- That's life. Because were you saying this like it's so stupid to spend all your day worrying about your romantic situation?

I'm like, no, that is the perfect thing to worry about. And ostensibly the most profoundly human thing to spend your day worrying about is love. So I think you don't want to be so cynical and so fearful that you cut yourself off to those opportunities, but surround yourself with a supportive network, a therapist, friends, family, whoever you can- A licensed therapist? A licensed therapist. Yes.

Not an Instagram therapist. Not an Instagram therapist. Listen to our Instagram therapy episode. Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week. In the meantime, stay culty, but not too culty. Sounds Like A Cult is created, hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and Issa Medina.

Kate Elizabeth is our editor. Our podcast studio is all things comedy and our theme music is by Kaseph Kulb. Thank you to our intern slash production assistant, Noemi Griffin. Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult wherever you get your podcasts, so you never miss an episode. And if you like our show, feel free to give us a rating and review on Spotify or Apple podcasts and check us out on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.