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Relationship Check-Up: Is Your Love Turning Toxic?

• Sylvester & Jasmeka Wilson • Season 1 • Episode 10

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What happens when toxic patterns like manipulation, lying, and cheating infiltrate a marriage? Discover the nuances of identifying and addressing these destructive behaviors in your relationship. In this episode of Relationships 101 Podcast, we dive deep into the realities of toxic relationships in marriage, sharing personal stories and insights on how to recognize and combat these damaging dynamics. We emphasize the importance of self-awareness and communication to break free from harmful cycles and reclaim personal well-being.

Gender dynamics play a significant role in how toxicity manifests in relationships. From historical power structures to modern shifts in societal norms, we shed light on the importance of mindfulness and selflessness. Avoiding selfish behaviors and financial dominance can pave the way for healthier partnerships. Our discussion also highlights the value of therapy and other resources in modern relationships, helping couples navigate and rectify imbalances that may arise due to new opportunities and roles, particularly concerning gender expectations.

Intentional dating and clear communication are paramount to avoiding future toxicity. Learn how early understanding of a partner’s potential and capabilities can prevent long-term issues and set a solid foundation for marriage. We also tackle the detrimental impact of toxic relationships on children, debunking the myth that staying together for their sake is always the best choice. With candid advice from seasoned couples, we aim to provide practical insights into fostering healthy relationships or knowing when it's time to let go for everyone's well-being. Tune in for a comprehensive guide to nurturing successful and fulfilling relationships.

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Sylvester:

Welcome to Relationships 101 Podcast, where we share experiences to help newlyweds and aspiring newlyweds understand the importance of a healthy relationship so that they can thrive in this world called married life. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Relationships 101. I'm your host, Sylvester Wilson.

JasMeka:

And I'm your co-host. Chasmika Wilson, yes, baby.

Sylvester:

Yes, so you know we always come at y'all with a topic, always, all right, listen always come at y'all with a topic Always All right. Listen, have you ever been in a toxic relationship?

JasMeka:

Drop it in the comments. If you was live, I would have been the first one to put in there Me. I Hands up Both hands.

Sylvester:

Me Not enough, hands, hands up.

JasMeka:

I've been somebody that was toxic.

Sylvester:

I show toxic behaviors, yeah, and I've been a victim, definitely, to toxic behaviors, but I've been in one yeah yeah and it's important that we uh, that we heal from that by talking about it, by being transparent, um, and by focusing on some things that might help, but first we got to be able to identify what they are.

JasMeka:

Would you go back to a toxic? Just act like we ain't married right now. Just right now, five seconds. Would you ever go back into a toxic relationship?

Sylvester:

No, that's a no-brainer, no-brainer.

JasMeka:

Some people. Unfortunately, they go back to what they know, what they used to. Some people miss abuse, they go back to what they know, what they used to. Some people miss abuse or, unfortunately, people do stay in it and go back to what they're used to.

Sylvester:

It can definitely become a comfort zone for a lot of people, and a lot of people think that you might think that a comfort zone is something that you just feel comfortable. Nah, it's just something that you know, you know it know it's familiar to you, so you go back to what you're familiar to with. I mean, and unfortunately, where we come from, there's a lot of toxic activity listen this.

JasMeka:

This recording this episode at this time couldn't be no more fitting. I don't know if y'all hear the police sirens out there. I don't know if y'all hear it, but it is loud if y'all heard it. That's what a toxic relationship. Look like police sirens just running. That's the thing people running like. That's the perfect sound for today's topic. So let's get into it. Let's get into it. I ain't never going back. I don't want to go back. I am delivered. I pray. I never display those behaviors in our relationship. In the beginning I did I'm a silent treatment, you, I don't know what, what, what, what are the behaviors, though?

Sylvester:

what's the ingredients to a toxic relationship?

JasMeka:

Just name some.

Sylvester:

You got manipulation, lying, cheating, physical abuse substance abuse, jealousy, envy, insecurity control.

JasMeka:

You said abuse. Yeah, I said abuse. Yeah, I said abuse. Okay, these are behaviors that make the relationship toxic.

Sylvester:

Yeah, because relationships don't just get written off as toxic right, and a lot of them don't start that way either. So at some point I know, um, and that's one of the things that I think keeps a lot of people in toxic relationships is because it didn't start that way, and then Right. So then you still got hope that it will return back how it was, because it wasn't always like this. But you got to remember yourself, right. You got to love yourself more than you hope for things to return back.

JasMeka:

It sounds like you can't ever get comfortable in a relationship.

Sylvester:

What do you mean by that?

JasMeka:

Just you're saying when it started that way, they wasn't showing the signs. Then it eventually came, or whatever, after you grew to love them. I think you stay in it when you're comfortable, like this is what it is.

Sylvester:

I guess content, content, content with the behaviors is what I'm trying to say okay, yeah, instead of what, striving for better, um, looking for improvements, working on ourselves, and that goes for both people. I read something that also said that toxic relationships they stem from imbalance inside of relationships, imbalance with the power structure.

Sylvester:

Meaning that one person more so, controlling the decisions that's made in it and it goes their way. So you'd say you got one person that's used to getting away and the other person that's used to going out of their way to please the other person and make sure that they get their way. That's toxic, um, you're actually enabling that other person, when you're the one that's pleasing the pleaser, going out of your way to make sure you know, because you might just be a peacemaker. You just want things to stay peaceful. So let me just go ahead with it.

JasMeka:

But you're enabling that person to be toxic you're. You're being toxic by even doing that so people got to be intentional on staying in toxic relationships, like what role am I serving, you know?

Sylvester:

oh, definitely, let's look at ourselves and see what role am I serving. Oh, definitely, let's look at ourselves and see what role am I playing in it.

JasMeka:

But what if a person never see what they're doing? It's toxic, like cause. There are some mental issues that are going unaddressed in our community and they just feel like I'm made this way, I can't change it or I can't control it, and they don't think that it this way, I can't change it, or I can't control it, and they don't think that it's toxic.

Sylvester:

I mean, that's the work, though that's the work.

JasMeka:

No, it requires that other individual calling it out for what it is. Just going back to what you said about how people just enable it and be quiet about it, you're not helping that relationship or you're not helping your partner by sitting out and being quiet about stuff that's bothering you or that has a problem all the time, yeah yeah sometimes there has to be a conflict, right?

Sylvester:

some people think conflict is bad. It's always a bad. You know it's a negative thing all the time. It's not always a negative thing. I had to learn myself personally to to address conflict, to be conflictual, to run towards the conflict, because otherwise you'll never resolve whatever, whatever it is right, if you continue to run away from the conflict, so you can make it worse so a toxic relationship is created by a toxic person or toxic individuals.

JasMeka:

Right, that's making this relationship that thing yeah, imbalance, it's not balanced.

Sylvester:

Then we go back to balance again. So what am I doing right? Am I allowing too much power to one side? All right. So the way we started um first five years of marriage, I was the breadwinner. You were in school, right and taking care of kids, don't forget that that could have easily.

Sylvester:

How can that could? That could have easily become toxic if I was a person that you know felt like I need to make all the decisions because I'm making all the money or I'm you know some people, just old-fashioned. I'm the man you know, um, some women they use, you know, their sexual that. You know they use sex to dominate in the relationship. Um, you know they're spoiled, they. They use that and open and hold that over the man's head. Some guys might like that though.

JasMeka:

Um, but uh some guys might like what.

Sylvester:

Let's keep it moving. We PG Okay. All right, it went over. It went over my head, I ain't catch it. It went over my head, I didn't catch it. I didn't catch it, it's okay.

JasMeka:

It's okay, but you could have allowed you, being a breadwinner, to dominate and control me.

Sylvester:

That could have become toxic. That could have become toxic because then the power structure would have been off.

JasMeka:

So can you say that you were healed in those times? What helped you from refraining yourself to use I'm the breadwinner, I'm macho man to make our relationship turn out that way?

Sylvester:

My mindset was I thought about you, I thought about the other person, I was mindful about it. It wasn't something that was automatic, because it was instances where, you know, I had to actually be thoughtful about that and think, like stop myself, like hold on now, the way that you address this when you talk about the money, right, it ain't my money, it ain't my check, my like. I was conscious enough to know that, not to address things as my knowing that you ain't bringing in no money, it's like why would I do that? And then have a feeling like you know then, like I didn't want to remind you of that in no type of way and I was mindful about that.

JasMeka:

So so. Selfishness is a toxic behavior in a relationship. That's what I heard you.

Sylvester:

And it could, and also that could come from insecurity. If I was an insecure man, right Feeling like you know this makes it makes me feel good.

JasMeka:

Ego booster.

Sylvester:

Ego right To be able to say what I do and da da, da da. It's like then I would have. I would have been that way, but you know the absence of insecurity, you know it was good.

JasMeka:

I can't imagine being in a relationship where selfishness resides, and the only reason I say that is because marriage is a selfless act. Like you cannot be in this relationship and be selfish.

Sylvester:

Right. Like I just it won't survive, and that's that's the dynamics of the whole structure of marriage is selflessness and even competition.

JasMeka:

Just going back to our story, I'm thinking about how, where we could have got a little toxic in there. Competition I could have been like, okay, you make this money and I'm home and I'm in school, but when I graduate I'm gonna, you know, make all the money and you gonna be just competing with your spouse but that's.

Sylvester:

It would have had to start from me, though yeah, men women too. I mean because sometimes, as a woman you are, you could be the starter right, the beginning of something. Right, you're the beginning when you have the children. Right, you're the beginning A lot of times when mommy say she don't like to eat something. A lot of times children, like little babies, like when they little, like that they go along with that. Oh, mommy said it's nasty.

JasMeka:

Then that's nasty.

Sylvester:

I don't even want to try that. You know what I'm saying. So a lot of times, women are in a position to be the beginners of something too, and we got to make sure that we, that we're responsible with that position. So, as a man in the position I was in, as the beginner or the pioneer of the family in regards to finances, like it was on the tone that I set for it. I didn't set a selfish or a competitive tone. So then you didn't have that to to, to give back to me, because I didn't put that in you, I didn't give you that you know, what I'm saying so you feel like one behavior creates another behavior in the relationship cause and effect cause and effect.

Sylvester:

Definitely definitely so um, I also think that maybe how long people stay in toxic relationships forever.

JasMeka:

Let's just be honest. If we could have seen marriages dating back from our grandparents and all that trauma and all that abuse yeah, I strongly believe those relationships was toxic even though people be like, oh, we need to get back to how our grandparents were dating grandparents.

JasMeka:

they have social media. They have much access to therapy, much access to money, money. So, to be honest, our relationship should be more healthier than what our great grandparents had because we got resources. We can go to therapy to work on these issues, we can invest whatever we need to do personally to become a better person, but I think people stay in that for a long time and they grow bitter and old and die and be sick.

Sylvester:

I mean, it was a lot of difference too. Back then, like you said, the power structure was kind of already given to them back in our grandparents' days and things like that. It was a man's world.

JasMeka:

They thought it was a man's world.

Sylvester:

No, it was. Men were given all the opportunities to actually make the money Like women didn't have the opportunity to do it, Men had advantage, but women were home baking other cookies too, like we got some.

JasMeka:

There's some traumas and some stories, yeah definitely. There's some hidden stuff.

Sylvester:

Definitely.

JasMeka:

But yeah, that was the image, so what I'm?

Sylvester:

saying is that society had already kind of like structured. It gave that household, each household, like the power structure the man is going to, he makes all of the decisions because he makes all of the money right, since we give him all of the opportunities to make the money, then he's the one that and he brings all the money home, then he is the one that and that. That, that's that. That's what an old fashioned mindset comes from, to where, oh, my house, my rules, yada, yada, yada. And then women would just, you know, not even servants, yeah, subservient to them, and they wouldn't even go and get an education, empower themselves in ways that they could, because they didn't feel like it was nothing out there for them.

JasMeka:

So do you feel society make our relationships toxic too? Because now we're in a time where they changed that you could and it's it's more focused on women get the bag and women lead and girls power.

Sylvester:

Yeah yeah, and now women are more like how do y'all want to hear this, but a lot of women are.

JasMeka:

Let me see if I agree.

Sylvester:

The toxic ones in relationships. Yeah, in the same way that those men were, a lot of women have been given the same power, right? Right, I ain't saying across the board now, because all men wasn't like that.

JasMeka:

Okay.

Sylvester:

But it's like you can't speak on a thing unless you've been put in that position Right. So it's like, oh no, men shouldn't, men shouldn't, men shouldn't. But now a lot of women are in men positions now in regards to being breadwinners and making and getting opportunities Right Then. Now a lot of them have become just like those men were Some A lot of them have become just like those men were some a lot of them, okay, and then they wonder why they can't find a man.

JasMeka:

Some, a lot of them. I disagree. Well, I disagree.

Sylvester:

Well, you're still beautiful.

JasMeka:

I don't. I don't agree that a lot of women are toxic in a relationship, or the ones that's coming in toxic Because you got some men in there that sit there and act innocent but he be having a whole nother agenda. And this ain't no women versus men, it's just individuals. I don't think a lot of women are out there doing it. I communicate with a to me more women than you, and I don't hear my circle being on. Oh, he got. Uh, there's a certain income that has to be made but that's not toxic.

Sylvester:

Come on, that's standards. They just have their thing. No, that's standards. Holy spirit activates. No, no, no.

JasMeka:

They have their standards on what they want from that relationship because, they know what they're coming with. No, no, no, but they're not trying to control or dominate a man because they make more. They're just coming in with standards and I don't think that's toxic behavior. Standards and boundaries don't make me toxic okay.

Sylvester:

So how about that that those standards may not be any different from that man saying I bring home the money, I need you in the kitchen, I need three meals a day on some harpo type of color purple, telling them don't work telling them don't work.

Sylvester:

Telling them, uh, what he want and how you want his house, and all that like giving demands. I don't think it's no different from these women nowadays because they they got leverage, that they given demands. And it depends on again, and I understand that it's depending on the type of man that you're dealing with now, if you're dealing with a man who may not be at the level that you're on as a woman, um, financially. So that's what.

Sylvester:

That's really what I'm pointing at the financial difference they know your level so then you find they find themselves like speaking down on that man who may not be able to reach.

JasMeka:

Well, they should know that from the beginning. That's why they need to intentionally date and stop dating. On hope, I'm not hoping. You got a whole record behind you and I'm hoping that in the next year you're going to make a million, as many doors ain't going gonna be open to that individual. So, going in from the beginning, if you're intentionally dating, you 70 percent know the possibilities of how far this man can go. You know if he can talk professionally. You know if he can meet with this banker and handle it well, like I think you would know.

Sylvester:

If you're looking for that.

JasMeka:

If you're intentional about that.

Sylvester:

If you're intentionally about that.

JasMeka:

So maybe we need to say that people need to be intentional in a dating phase so that they don't get in these committed relationships and then become this toxic person? Because if you was intentional in the beginning and not just he gave me butterflies, I would have knew you. Could you only make 30 000 a year and that's probably the highest you can go. I would have knew it if I was intentional of learning your capability okay, I agree, but two things.

Sylvester:

um, I think he, you know, probably giving her a little bit more than butterflies.

JasMeka:

That's one thing, and the second thing is that no, uh-uh, nah, nah, nah, check it out.

Sylvester:

Because I heard you say PG-13,.

JasMeka:

I'm trying to keep it down, but baby.

Sylvester:

Listen, this ain't for kids.

JasMeka:

You talking about boy did he give me butterflies, dad?

Sylvester:

Yeah, we know the power. That's great, we know. Yeah, we know the power we know the power don't be in bondage.

Sylvester:

Let me. Let me get my second thing, second thing, something that you said. Um, you know, I know you just gave an example. You know he might have a record and and may not have access to to you know as many opportunities and things like that. However, we do know that that that that that still is, that still is. No, it's not a limit. That's not an excuse, though, for men, because there's plenty powerful and influential and successful men with a past you know what I'm saying who have catapulted, used their time wisely, learned what they need to learn, honed in on something and attacked it.

JasMeka:

But that's on driving motivation, If they some people with a past just.

Sylvester:

But I don't think it got nothing to do with your past. I think it has to do something with, like you said, your drive and your motivation but I'm saying some people with a record.

JasMeka:

Just be honest, bae, everybody don't have the ability to be a CEO, or it's just.

Sylvester:

No everybody don't, but it's people that ain't got a record and it's still the same. Everybody without a record doesn't have the capacity to be a CEO or Right, but you don't know that while you're dating. I'm just trying to support my argument of yeah, yeah, you're intentional about that dating phase.

JasMeka:

You can, you can 70 percent gauge, definitely, definitely where this could go. Oh, yeah, because when I dated you I was like, yeah, this this, this, this good potential. Like, sorry you, you want my meal ticket out, but Right, but it was potential.

Sylvester:

You know I was thinking of trying to make my own plate.

JasMeka:

But I was like, yeah, this smart guy, intelligent, something to work with, speak well, Manage his emotions well. So you know, I was like, all right, this could do something, it could go somewhere. So just just be intentional, y'all. Don't be out here with the butterflies and the big six. Whatever it is y'all I don't know what's your desire, right, don't be lost in it, don't get lost, don't get lost in it don't get lost.

Sylvester:

And I mean that's. That's one of the reasons why I think we, we, we always find ourselves on the dating phase, because that's where that work, that preventative work, happens at. You know what I'm saying. Like you could have prevented some stuff in that stage, once it's on its own, once the kids done came into it, once the you know what I'm saying you done said I do all of that. Like the dating phase is very, very, very, very important.

JasMeka:

Saying I do ain't going to wash away the behaviors it's not People be thinking okay, we just got to get married and then he'll stop. Or I got to get married and she'll stop.

Sylvester:

Right.

JasMeka:

Get to the root of those issues, because it's not marriage, ain't stopping nothing. It may slow it down, but it's not stopping it Right. Got to get to the root of the issues, whatever it may be.

Sylvester:

If you're going to put demands on somebody for a relationship man or woman, man, do it in a dating phase. That's where you put your demands. You know what I'm saying. Like don't wait until y'all 50 years in and then be talking about he just won't, she just don't. It's like man, put them, put that pressure on them in the dating phase and let's see if they can, if they can perform. If they can't, and it's just a behavior. They just don't.

JasMeka:

Good behavior for that 30 days, 60 day, like couple of you know, like no, like take your time and see what that, what that good behavior runs out at the real them now we're not saying toss out people just because they show you two negative behaviors. Nobody's perfect. As we sit here, we we got some behaviors that we have to manage and control, because I'll just be honest your girl here.

JasMeka:

Sometimes you know my mouth. Try to talk ahead of me, ahead of my thoughts. That's toxic, but that's something that I have to work on every day, intentionally, if I want to make this relationship work, so don't toss it out, because it's there. That person got to be willing to work on it, though, because I'm not going to stay with you all my life and you think you could just talk reckless and that's what you had to tell me in the beginning.

JasMeka:

You was like but hey, that mouth, I don't know where you got it from. I think I know. But you gotta work on that. I think I know. But you got to work on that, like you not going to be going off and then think tonight you can say I'm sorry, you got to learn how to communicate. So you thank God you ain't leave me.

Sylvester:

I thank God, I waited.

JasMeka:

Well, we both can say I thank God, I waited, because everybody got some behaviors that's, that's not healthy. We don't. We're born, I think, innocently, but we're born blank. So whatever we learn from our parents, our peers, that time of growing up that's what we show.

JasMeka:

So, to be honest, in a black community, come on now. All of us was kind of bought up by the same people. Yeah, you fuss, you yell, you fight, you handle your business. That's just what we were bought into. We weren't bought into. No, johnny, the time isn't right. Give me 10 minutes and I'll explain to you why I said no, no was no, no explanation. You can't do that in a relationship. Gotta, gotta explain, right, not right now, babe. I'm just. I'm just tired.

Sylvester:

Just tired. There's a level of aggression that comes from our community and we know the history and everything, but there's a level we got a lot of healing to do as people. There's a level of aggression inside of our community that comes from our community that is not healthy. It's not somewhere that you could take in every arena, in every room with you.

JasMeka:

Because sometimes that dog be needed, babe, don't it? You be needing it sometimes.

Sylvester:

Sometimes you need that dog.

JasMeka:

Sometimes he'd be like babe the plate kind of look wrong like, and then that dog and me be like oh ma'am, he ordered steak. I don't do it rude, but sometimes, sometimes it's needed yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sylvester:

Sometimes I gotta go ahead and tap, pull that leash, tug that leash a little bit like, hey, babe, you ain't have to talk to that lady like that. Now, come on, now you had to talk.

JasMeka:

The lord will continue to work on me that's yeah he will continue to work on me yeah, definitely but they just got to be open to change and I think the relationship work so they gotta first acknowledge, like acknowledge are we getting into some solutions?

Sylvester:

right now we are. Are we getting into solutions?

JasMeka:

we are okay solutions I just feel like they first gotta acknowledge. Acknowledge that I got a problem the person the person, the individual. If they don't acknowledge they got a problem, you trying to tell them they got a problem ain't going to do nothing.

Sylvester:

So how does a person even know that they're in a toxic relationship?

JasMeka:

How do you feel right now? Let's just go through it. How do you feel right now? Angry, upset, suicidal, wondering.

Sylvester:

Depressed.

JasMeka:

What day the the lord gonna call me home? You know, anxiety, depression I could get in this car right now and just drive away and never return that's toxic, unhappy, tired, sleepy no self-medicating. Where the next party at? Where the alcohol at.

Sylvester:

So you got to be honest with yourself too. I think that you know asking yourself certain questions.

JasMeka:

I got one more, but I'm so sorry Go ahead.

JasMeka:

You see happiness in another relationship and you envious, like it's bothering you that this couple is happy. You in a toxic relationship because when you in a healthy one, we'd be like let's go like they in jamaica. We'd be like you are rooting, you're liking, you're supporting, you like girl, where you went, where y'all at no, shoot me the itinerary. You are genuinely happy when you see other people happy. If you're in a place where you don't see it or you ain't happy for somebody, that's not how you responded.

Sylvester:

You win one a toxic relationship, that is now I think you gotta ask yourself some key questions, though. Um, what role am I playing in this toxic relationship? Uh, also, have I done everything right? Have we done everything that that we could do to, to rectify, to turn it into a different, you know direction? Um, what else do you think? I like that?

JasMeka:

you said I like that you said, though, because some people just feel like they're the victim and they don't take a step back and be like this man ain't talking to me because I'm just giving random stories. This man ain't talking to me because, every time I do talk to him, I'm talking about what trip so-and-so took, just making him feel inferior, right. So he's stonewalling you pretty much, avoiding you, because he don't want to connect with you on that level. Right, you're toxic and you feel like you're dating a toxic person, but you're actually creating a toxic person and they're avoiding you.

Sylvester:

Wow, wow, is it toxic conversation then? Right, because if you're toxic, even if it's comparisons um, uh, you know feeling like you just don't add up yourself, comparing, comparing yourself to other situations that means that the conversation that you end up having with the person you're with it's going to end up being toxic. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm, and how is that actually affecting that person?

JasMeka:

So if 90% of your conversations are toxic, there's a high possibility that you are toxic. That is your commercials from Relationships 101 podcast. Be sure to like support, subscribe. Sorry, I just thought that was the perfect time to throw it in there. That was a good commercial. You should hire me Hired.

Sylvester:

So but yeah, what can we do? We do right to turn this thing around. I think that you just got to look at yourself first, because a lot, of, a lot of times we're enabling if we're not creating it, we're enabling some toxic behavior from the other person. You bending your back and breaking your back to please this person when the last time they did that for you. There's an imbalance right In the power structure. You allowing this person too much freaking power in this relationship.

Sylvester:

What about you? Or if you're the one right, do it always have to be about you? Do it always have to go your way? Or you, finna, lash out, or you, finna, withhold sex, or you're finna. You know what I'm saying. That's toxic. You're the one that right, or maybe both of y'all doing toxic stuff. Maybe you're going tit for tat. Yeah I to find some way to stop that because there's an imbalance. It's all about the getting it balanced. Not always my way, right, not always your way, but what's best for us? That might take a little bit for me. I might not be able to get everything I wanted. I have to dumb it down a little bit and just go with. You know what? What? What fits in there. Same for you. But then we compromise, we compromise. That's that's. That's one of the great things about compromise, because it's a tool in relationships that help us keep things balanced. And now we're learning today that imbalance in a relationship creates toxicity. How do you say the word Makes it toxic?

JasMeka:

You said it.

Sylvester:

So we don't want to throw out compromise. I always got to be the bigger person. You ain't got to be the bigger person. It's not about you being the bigger person, it's about setting a tone and some people I get you, if you're with somebody that's tone deaf, right. You always set in a tone. You always being a bigger person and setting a tone that they're not picking up on their relationship.

Sylvester:

I ain't gonna say you know what I'm saying, and if that's the if that's the case, then you may need to take them to a doctor to check their ears right, and if that don't work, his ears work doctor then leave they deaf self, you know it takes two sign language something it takes two and don't be trying to, and I ain't talking about deaf people now we got family members that we love. We love y'all. She be liking those comments.

JasMeka:

I be like my girl don't know what we just said, but she love us and we love my cousin, we love y'all. She be liking those comments. I'll be like my girl don't know what we just said but she love us and we love her too exactly.

Sylvester:

No, I'm just using that as an analogy for somebody who can't breathe right, right, numb yeah numb to what you're doing and what you're giving and you keep on.

Sylvester:

You're the one that's always trying to keep the peace and all that, and they just get their way every freaking time, just so that things don't blow up. Forget it. Let it blow up, let it crash, fall down to the ground and let's see how much they really want it. If they don't and they talk all bad, let them prove it. Let them prove that they really don't need you. Let them prove that they really don't. All that stuff they talking them be wolf tickets.

JasMeka:

Don't stay together for these kids, we are damaging our children. Yeah, we just going to do this for the kids. What you doing for the kids, teaching them how to build another toxic relationship when they leave your house that's it how to be a toxic individual, right? What are we teaching them on the strength of stay together for the kids and I know it's easier said than done. Yeah, we ain't out here preaching divorce. We out here preaching healing, and if you can't heal and you don't desire to heal, then that's kind of where the conversation of divorce comes about for us. If it ain't bearing no fruit, cut it down. Right, chop it. Yeah, if it's causing you to sin, cut it down.

Sylvester:

Yeah, chop it, because that healing starts on an individual level first, starts on an individual level first, and if you're with somebody who won't allow you to go on that journey of healing for yourself, and if you find yourself stopping or enabling or being a distraction to the person you're with when they're trying to heal themselves as an individual, then you're toxic. Or they're toxic, or that's something that needs to be addressed Like you may have to. They're toxic or that's something that needs to be addressed, like you may have to split up because of that so like you may split up, heal and come back together.

JasMeka:

But some stuff needs to happen. We have to change. Everybody keep talking about trauma, therapy, grief, what's their favorite right now, gaslighting like everybody, act like they so in tune to emotional wellness, and we just doing all that talk with no word like time out for that crap, like go out and heal for real and during those, um, I know a lot of people right, this is, uh, something that always happens too.

Sylvester:

It's very common in toxic relationships. I thought about it when we talked about splitting up. So a lot of people, they separated, y'all separated 20,000 times, y'all didn't separate. But still be still married, but y'all didn't separate all this time and during that separation time you slide and he slide. Y'all ain't nobody healing, ain't no one of y'all really working on y'all selves? And if that's the case, if you're not taking that separation time to work on yourself, to become a better person to come back to, then just go ahead and let that go.

JasMeka:

Let it go.

Sylvester:

Because ain't no one of y'all. Studies have shown something. I read that children who grow up in toxic relationships are worse off adults, worse off in school, worse off in life, than the ones who whose parents split up when they realized it was toxic and it just wasn't gonna work. So don't stay together in a toxic situation thinking you're helping them kids you're not.

JasMeka:

You're not unless y'all are great actors.

Sylvester:

Hey, hey, baby them, kids know what's real are we going out, are you okay that? Feels good too, but kids know what's real. Kids know what's real they do so. That's faking you think you faking and fooling somebody. You ain't fooling them, kids. You're just teaching them how to be manipulators. You teach them how to be liars, not only to other people but to themselves, because you got a lot of yourself every day.

JasMeka:

Stop doing that so if y'all ain't ready for real raw conversations y'all know this the place we just come and talk about whatever's on our heart. If y'all ain't ready for me, y'all ain't ready to grow. This might not be the channel for you, but if you are be sure to hit that subscribe button like share and hit that notification, bell so whatever is that?

JasMeka:

well, be notified when we upload those videos to talk about how to make a relationship work. You could be dating, engaged, married, wherever you fall. Yourself fall within those lines every day.

Sylvester:

You're in a relationship, you're working towards keeping the relationship, so it's for everybody, it's for everybody and at some point we are going to be pulling on those seasoned uh couples like ourselves who've been married uh for a long time, and bringing y'all on the show, interviewing y'all, so that we can watching are not just learning from our experiences, that they're also learning from yours.

JasMeka:

So y'all help us grow, we out.

Sylvester:

Peace. Welcome to Relationships 101 Podcast where we share experiences to help newlyweds and aspiring newlyweds understand the importance of a healthy relationship so that they can thrive in this world called married life.