If Your Partner Does This, RUN

0:00Having strong self-worth is the foundation of healthy relationships. Without believing that you are deserving of love and of the kind of love that you dream of, there's just no way to actually get it if you don't believe that you deserve it. Which is why I created a 23-page downloadable PDF workbook that is going into your inbox literally today, the moment that you pre-order my new book, Rewrite Your Story, How to Step Into Your Power and Get the Love You Deserve. All you have to do is go to jilliantarecki.com book. You'll scroll down and then you will be able to pre-order this book, submit your receipt, and then you will immediately get this downloadable PDF, death, 23 pages to your inbox.

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1:30Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Jillian on Love. So I am going to address some pretty important questions today. And one of them is going to be someone who doesn't even realize just how much she is in something that is incredibly unhealthy and potentially dangerous. and I'm just going to get right into it and read this question because I think it's going to help. Now I know it's going to help so many of you. Dear Jillian, I'm at or I'm even past a breaking point. I'm here on Instagram looking for answers despite all of the years of counseling, self-help, and journaling. I've been with my partner for about 10 months.

2:26He's the most present, loving partner I've had in my entire life. I've never met a man that adheres to a moral code the same way he does. However, he has major trust issues and anxiety. He's accused me of cheating more times than I can count. he's gone through my phone to read every message I've ever sent. He even read through two years worth of text for a relationship that ended three years ago and started arguments over it. He seeks reassurance through proof. He has to prove loyalty by searching for any sign of betrayal and infidelity. I'm nervous every time my phone rings that the telemarketer's name might be a man's, and I have to explain myself.

3:28He's not violent, but his anxiety gives me anxiety. We've talked this over in couples counseling countless times. He minimizes his anxiety in those sessions. and tries to make it sound like I'm unreasonable. At the same time, he says he's focused on this growth and he recognizes that this is an issue, not just in this relationship, but in his past relationships as well. He journals and listens to podcasts and he's doing the work on himself. At least that's what he says. We broke up about a week ago and he's been heartbroken and desperate to make things work and repair this. However, yesterday I was out with a longtime co-worker whom I've had never had the slightest flirtation with, but happens to be a man.

4:17My partner showed up. You mean ex-partner, right? Because you broke up. He showed up somehow miraculously,

4:29despite living two hours away at the exact restaurant I was at. Not so miraculous, actually. I welcomed him over and didn't tell my co-worker we had broken up. We all chatted and he was embraced with love and respect from both of us. That didn't stop him from accusing me of doing something unfaithful by being out with a man and not telling him. He said that within only a few days of us breaking up, I was out at a bar with a man. I was so furious I walked away from the conversation. He promptly apologized, but I'm at a loss. There's a thousand other similar incidents. I'm writing because I appreciate what you've shared, but I'm hurt by things like you won't feel insecure with a loving partner or if they're causing your nervous system to send warning signs because I am a loving, understanding partner.

5:23And that's just not fair. I can't keep being the punching bag for someone's insecurity. And certainly I am not the cause. Right, but you're with someone who's sending your nervous system into complete chaos. And that is why I give that message so often and why it's so important, because it's exactly for people like you. This is not someone who is jealous and insecure and has anxiety. This is someone who's got full-blown paranoia. There is no amount of journaling or podcasting that is ever going to help him. He needs serious help. And he is potentially dangerous to you. I would make sure that you block him everywhere.

6:09I would make sure that if he shows up anywhere where he's not invited to, like he did when you were with your coworker, that you tell him calmly that if he does that again, you're going to get a restraining order. I would also really watch the story that you tell others and that you tell yourself. You're saying this is the most loving, present man you've ever been with, but nothing that he's doing is actually loving. This is not what it means to love someone. You don't constantly accuse them. You don't show up unannounced. You don't, I mean, everything that he has done that you shared in this letter is completely disrespectful and not love.

7:01And it's certainly not someone who adheres to a strong moral code because some would argue that some of his behavior would be unethical. This episode is sponsored by Babbel. Learning a new language is an important thing, especially if you want to travel. And here's a real travel hack. Don't wait until you land to start learning the language. Instead, try Babbel. Even just 10 minutes a day with Babbel can help you start having real conversations in as little as three weeks. What I like about it is that it's built for real life. There's no like vocabulary list. There's no verb charts. It's just like real conversation practice.

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8:42And look, I understand and have lots of compassion for the fact that there might be parts of him that are wonderful. And that trying to reconcile how someone can be like amazing in some ways, but horrific, because what you're describing is actually horrific. In other ways, I know how hard it is to reconcile that, but the reality is that the most unhealthy people that we could be in a relationship with often have other parts of them that are loving. You know, it doesn't mean that he's evil to the core or anything like that. But this is actually emotional abuse. But it's coming from an extreme paranoia.

9:31And again, I want to really emphasize there is a difference between having some insecurities, having some jealousies, having a little bit of paranoia because your last relationship ended in infidelity. and then there is complete paranoia that compels a person to go through your phone, to constantly accuse you, to show up unannounced, especially after you've broken up. And a lot of cases suggest in these types of paranoia that there is eventually violence that happens. It's not a guarantee. It's not a guarantee, but it can. He could, and even if he's not violent towards you, he could be violent against another man who he thinks is a threat to him.

10:17And so you're right. No, you can't be a punching bag. And in fact, like I said, you need to block him absolutely everywhere. If he continues to show up unannounced, you have to get a restraining order. This is such an important question, and I'm sure that I, and I'm so happy that I found it, because abuse, when it is not, physical violence, when it is not this sort of overt, aggressive, verbal violence, can be very, very tricky to identify, especially when there is also other things that are about their relationship and about the person that is loving and kind. You have to trust. And now I'm going to really drive my point home because, yeah, you do have to pay attention when you are with someone and your nervous system is completely in disarray because you feel like you're a punching bag and because you're being accused of things that you haven't done repeatedly and um and and your boundaries are being violated repeatedly him going through your phone unacceptable him um you know going past two years is a sign of mental illness he needs help that is so that is so deep and you need to stay as far away from him as possible so i hope this helps and i hope this I hope this helps anyone who thinks that they may be in something that is potentially abusive, or you think that maybe a friend is in something that's potentially abusive, because this is really important.

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13:45So this is another question, but it's going to be, my advice is going to be very different. This is really about when the problem is actually you. So, hi, Jillian. I find myself consistently breaking up my relationships with different partners when there's a difficult argument. I do it because I want to feel seen, but they don't see me in that moment. So I choose, quote, unquote, peace by saying I'm no longer interested in the heat of the moment. And then when I feel better after about 24 hours, I want to talk to them again, but most of them would prefer to move on. Am I the drama? Did they even love me at all?

14:29So, um... Yeah, you are the drama. I mean, look, I'm sure that, you know, the people who you're arguing with are no saints. And this habit, you're, you know, you're actually very self-aware and very wise because you are... I always find it just so amazing when someone is finally just getting to that realization that they have a pattern that's not serving them and that's not good for them. Arguing and difficult conversations are a part of being in a relationship because you're with someone who has their own mind, and you're someone with your own mind. And look, sometimes arguing is good. It's like, we can open up our minds and be like, oh, this person has a different point of view than me.

15:18Maybe I should listen, you know? This habit of, I don't like what's going on right now. It's very uncomfortable. My peace is disrupted. so I just don't want to be with you. That is the habit that you want to break. And of course, they've already moved on. Because who wants to be in a relationship with someone who is constantly, every time there's an argument, saying that they're out? So what you want to do is increase your capacity for discomfort. Everyone's peace is disrupted when there's an argument. A relation, like peace is not the goal of a relationship. Love is. And we have to have the hard conversations in service of that love.

16:09Peace is important. But this, you know, there's this whole like, you know, it's so zeitgeisty right now. It's so in the pop psychology zeitgeist. If it disturbs my peace, I don't want it. Well, sometimes your peace is going to be disturbed. That's not the same as having chronic nervous system dysregulation in a relationship. It means that like, we cannot have peace. We're never going to have peace all the time in just life in general. There are going to be things every day that disturb our peace. There are going to be things every week that we would rather not deal with in our lives that's going to be disruptive to our peace.

16:53And it is our ability to be able to face the inevitable inconveniences and stress and stressors of our life that actually determines the quality of our life. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp. If I could wake up tomorrow and be better at one thing, what would it be? Honestly, there's a lot of things, but the first thing that came to my mind is keeping plants alive. I really want to have a green thong and be able to have a lot of plants and make them live for 20 years. And honestly, better is a feeling. It's defined by you. And for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you.

17:39It's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over a hundred countries. It's progress and it's getting better at, I don't know, like making your home beautiful with plants and developing a green thumb. So sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash on love. That's betterhelp.com slash on love. we can't have total, there's no control. You can't have control over your peace all the time. And if you're going to be in a relationship, you are signing up for moments, not all the time, but moments where there's going to be some disharmony, where there's going to be an interruption to the harmonious flow of your relationship.

18:37And that is only evidence of the fact that you are a person and the other person is a person. And sometimes there's going to be a little friction. And to be able to handle that discomfort, to be able to say, things are getting heated up it's becoming overwhelming why don't we take an hour two hours or a day max to just reflect and get calm and then talk about it at seven o 'clock tonight or talk about it tomorrow you can even say I'm getting heated I'm afraid that I'm going to say something that I'm going to regret, I'm totally dysregulated. I feel like I feel all this tension in my chest and my belly.

19:27I feel myself getting angry and I care too much about you and us to say something that I'm going to regret. Give me give me a couple hours so that I can reflect and be calm. And then maybe in that couple hours, you journal, you go for a walk, you call a friend, You just give yourself some time to find a little bit more homeostasis, and then you come back. But this is quite literally one of the most important skills that you could ever practice and develop and cultivate within yourself if you want to have good relationships, romantic and otherwise, with others. This is sort of your way of bringing the drama.

20:15And I believe in you and your ability to practice this. So I hope this helps. Hi, Jillian. I am battling with excessive rumination related to revenge in the context of a breakup. I hate it. It consumes my thoughts. I'm borderline obsessed with making things fair and just. I hate that he gets away without consequence. Infidelity lies. I am also aware that life is not fair, and I am not the arbiter of whether he suffers or has suffered enough. I just cannot stop this cycle. I've had lots of therapy. I've been told it's trauma, and now in EMDR, I'm at my wit's end. You know, you're not alone. It can be, you know, when someone, when you're in a relationship with someone, you find out that there's lying and cheating.

21:03It's like, you know, you can get just super, super angry. It's not uncommon to have thoughts of just wanting to get back at the person. It's part of being human. But where it consumes your thoughts to the point where you can't move on is almost always because of a story that you're telling yourself. And part of the story that you're telling yourself is that they're going to get away with it. And it's, and based on what you said, it's like, it's being consumed with the fact that they get to live their lives and be happy while you're left with the wreckage of what they did to you. And that is so incredibly unfair.

21:46But no one really gets away with anything. You know, the lying, the cheating, the subconscious always remembers. So anyone who is going to repeatedly lie to and betray the people who they care about, I promise you that they are not at peace with themselves. I promise you that even if they repress it, they lie to themselves, they tell themselves a story that has them justify everything, everyone at some point has to face themselves. and it'll show up in their back pain, that repressed emotion. It'll show up in their next relationships because you think that they're just going to lie and cheat to you and then jump into another relationship and have this incredibly healthy relationship.

22:44No. At some point in this person's life, they're going to have to look in the mirror and see the pain in their face and feel the pain in their body because they just are not getting the love that they want. And they may or may not ever have the awareness or the courage to say, maybe the problem is me. You know, maybe I have some patterns that I need to look at, but they'll never actually escape their conscience. This episode is sponsored by Quince. I am wearing a Quince t-shirt right now. I am wearing Quince pajama bottoms right now as I record these. And on my bed are Quince sheets. I love Quince.

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25:11It just doesn't work like that. It really, truly doesn't. It somehow will catch up to them. And what I would say is that I, in, in, when we are overcoming any sort of betrayal, or even just a breakup where there isn't any specific betrayal, when we're going through any kind of loss like that, we will go through a stage of anger. And it's actually one of the stages of grief. And anger can be very, very productive if we channel it. So all that rage that you're feeling, yes, watch the story that you're telling yourself about all this, but all that rage, see if you can channel it into something. I don't know, channel it into something that's going to make you really like your life or love your life.

26:04You know, they say the best revenge is just moving on. And there's some truth to that. There's some truth to just channeling that anger into picking up that project that you've been procrastinating on. or writing that book, or whatever that thing that you've been wanting to do that you just kind of haven't motivated to do. Anger can be an incredible motivator for change. So let it be a motivator for you. And every time you slip into the habit of repeating that, you know, I want him or I want them to just have pain, to get hurt, to really feel the consequences and face the consequences of their behavior.

26:53Rest assured that in some way, that is in a completely unknown timeline, it'll happen. The subconscious, the psyche, it keeps score for all of us. So I hope that this helps. I want to hear from you. I want to hear from you in the comments. If you have any questions about this, please do not hesitate to reach out to me and my team at hello at JillianOnLove.com. If there's something that I said today that you know that someone in your life has to hear, please do not hesitate to share this episode with them. Because you just never know whose life you could be changing just by clicking share. And until next time, thanks for being here.

27:50Jillian on Love is a Q Code production executive produced by David Henning and Steve Wilson, produced and edited by Travis Howe. Music by Will Tendi. Disney Plus Hulu will make your day every day. Here's how. Some days you want to laugh. New Girl. Some days a mystery. The all-new Hulu original series, Furious. Some days you want both, and nobody has to know. And Saturday, ESPN College Game Day into ESPN College Football. Make your day every day with Disney Plus Hulu. 18 and older with the Disney Plus Hulu Bundle subscription. Access these titles via Disney Plus. Terms apply. Fall never arrives all at once.

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