Since I’ve already put my hand on the hot burner more than once I’ve been able to gain some wisdom over the years. When I connect with someone who’s still early on in their polyamory journey, I struggle with trying to decide if I should slap their hand away from the burner so they don’t get hurt or just let them burn themselves so they can learn the same things I’ve had to learn. If I’m being completely honest, I still don’t know where that balance is. You can tell a couple first opening up their relationship to polyamory that triads are hard and people get hurt. You can strongly encourage them to date separately and send them all the resources to unicorn hunting that you can muster up and it doesn’t matter. A triad feels like the safest route for them so they almost never listen. If they already got it in their head that’s what they want, they go for it anyways. I didn’t listen, so why should I expect someone else to? Yup, my first foray into polyamory was a triad. I wasn’t necessarily looking for one but it happened. Guess what? It wasn’t very healthy and people got hurt just like everyone was telling me that’s what would happen. There were some good times, but all the bad things people were telling me would happen, did happen. 

I’m going to drop a list of many of the mistakes (for free) I made on my journey through polyamory. I want to make this list for a few reasons. 1) To remind you that nobody is perfect so don’t be too hard on yourself, 2) As a personal growth exercise to see and acknowledge my mistakes and 3) To maybe plant a seed that might help you avoid some of the pitfalls on your journey.

Ok… Here it goes….

1. Years 1 and 2 – I was in a monogamous relationship that opened up to polyamory. I’ll refer to this as my “primary” relationship although I’m not a fan of that word in general. It’s for clarity in this context. Here are some of the big mistakes in regards to that time period of my journey:
   1. I told my primary partner that I thought it would be weird if they dated someone like me and that just dating someone like me didn’t make sense. I even bordered on an OPP (One Penis Policy) vibe and while it was short lived my brain still went down that path and that was not ok.
   2. I gave my primary all the control because I wanted them to feel safe and secure. Even they admitted further down the journey that this was a bad idea. This meant my connections were anything but organic and were being controlled by an outside source.
   3. We started out with a triad. A very unhealthy one that was fraught with couples privilege. We were toxic af and the epitome of all that is wrong with new polyamorous couples jumping straight into a triad.
   4. I agreed to things that I didn’t really actually agree with. I really blew it here because I was either full of resentment or broke those agreements. Neither of which was healthy or good. 
   5. I should have left that “primary” relationship sooner. Polyamory brought all kinds of bad things to the surface that were swept under the rug since the beginning of our relationship. Despite them trying to be understanding and even be a willing participant in the concepts of non-monogamy, there were many times where I felt like I was just dragging them behind a truck. I should have drawn a line in the sand a lot sooner.
   6. Even when not in a triad, I still let my primary relationship greatly influence my other relationships. I hurt people and toyed with them because I was painfully unaware of how much couples privilege was actually taking place. It makes me sick thinking about what I did to genuinely amazing people in the first few years of my journey.
2. Years 3 to 6 – Here are some mistakes I made outside the scope of opening up a monogamous relationship.
   1. I was in the kitchen table polyamory or bust camp. Over time, I realized it wasn’t reasonable to make it a requirement. It’s not fair to put pressure on people to interact if they don’t want to. Kitchen table polyamory is still a preference but I’ve definitely pulled back on making that any kind of requirement.
   2. I would let NRE catapult me into a space that I wasn’t comfortable with, and then I would have to pull back. This understandably hurts people because it’s scary when you sense a partner pulling back. NRE is dangerous if not managed well.
   3. I let NRE blind me from observing problematic behaviors. This hurt me more than others but I have definitely missed some huge red flags because of pure lustful infatuation with someone. Again, NRE is dangerous if not managed well. 
   4. I have since learned that I’m probably more in the graysexual area, but I would participate in sexual activities before I was ready for 2 reasons: 1) Definitely some toxic masculinity and 2) The polyamorous space is a very sexual one and I’d put pressure on myself to keep up with my peers. This has caused me to get out of sync with partners and nothing good ever happens when you’re out of sync. 
   5. I would bite off more than I could chew. I’d get a wild hair and say “I’m going to take down my walls!” and then end up saturated in connections and finding myself overwhelmed and trying to figure out how to backtrack. While I’ve definitely gotten a lot better with this it’s still something I keep a close eye on.
   6. I would enter relationships with wildcards and not disclose them. Let me explain – I would say to myself in my head: “This is a new situation and I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it but I’ll give it a shot.” and then when the wildcard became a dealbreaker I would take a step back from that connection. More recently, I’ve become very transparent with people if there is a wildcard that I’m not sure about. Unfortunately, I haven’t always been so up front and I’ve hurt people. 

If it’s not obvious by the sheer amount of mistakes I’ve made over the years, I wasn’t lying in saying that I’m human. We all make mistakes no matter how much we try to mitigate them. Nobody gets into a relationship saying “I’m going to try to hurt this person!” Well, at least I hope not.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to still have a connection with most of the people I’ve dated in spite of all my mistakes along the way. This means I was able to get feedback on how my behaviors have affected people and I’m so grateful for that. It would be very irresponsible for me to not at least try to learn and grow from that feedback that has been gifted to me. I’m still going to continue to make new mistakes. Because I’m human. Just like all of us.  

I hope that by my sharing my mistakes from over the years it has helped you in some way. While I will be the first to remind you to not be too hard on yourself, I’ll also be the person to tell you to not give yourself a free pass either. If anything I shared made you question your own behaviors, take a look at them and see if you have some opportunities to be better. At the end of the day, I think that’s what is most important. 

The post Giving Away Free Mistakes! appeared first on Trying To Thrive.

The post Hello. My Name is Lucas. I’m a Recovering People Pleaser. appeared first on Trying To Thrive.

A quick and dirty intro into neurodiversity: 

Neurodiversity is an attempt at acknowledging that we don’t all process the world the same way. You have neurotypical people who make up a majority of folks and neurodivergent folks who are the minority. What makes someone neurodivergent? Lots of things! Autism, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, anxiety and anything that does not fit into the box of “normal” thought patterns. Normal is a very vague word, but it’s what we build our society around. Our classrooms, work lives and our social expectations are all built around the neurotypical person. Neurotypical people tend to be naturally good with social cues, can easily read a room and tend to not get overstimulated easily. They usually learn well in a traditional academic environment, and their development follows a pretty predictable timeline (walking, talking, learning, etc.). On the flip side, neurodivergent people can have trouble learning in a traditional classroom environment and might not follow predictable developmental timelines. Social cues aren’t inherent and need to be learned. Neurodivergent people process information and learn in different ways than neurotypical people. This doesn’t have anything to do with their intelligence and has everything to do with how they process the world through their own unique lens. 

As a neurodivergent and polyamorous person who has navigated both healthy and unhealthy relationships I thought I would share some things I’ve learned over the years. Neurodiversity is broad and I’ve written these tips to try and be inclusive of all neurodivergent folks but my journey and experiences are my own, so these might not all be applicable to you. I still hope they can help you explore some thought tracks when navigating your existing and potential connections.

1. Don’t agree to do things that you don’t like to do. You may get excited when a crush invites you to do literally ANYTHING and you say “YES!” even if it’s not something you’d enjoy. Just say “No.” Explain why and tell them some things you would rather do instead. This is a good opportunity to practice setting some boundaries for both yourself and your crush. If this is someone that you will be compatible with and who will be understanding of who you are as a person then they will appreciate this so much. A lot of us neurodivergent people have a hard time with many normal activities that seem pretty routine. When you say “Yes!” and go to that activity and are miserable, bored and/or overstimulated, the person who invited you is going to know. Stick to doing things that you’re comfortable with and you know you can be at your best while doing. After all, the beauty of polyamory is you don’t need to be that person’s “everything” so let them take someone else to that concert that you weren’t going to enjoy anyways.
   
   
2. Let people know up front how you’re different. Take notes on how you’re different from neurotypical people. Share those things with people you meet as they come up. I’ve found that being up front about my differences early on makes navigating connections much easier. As an example: Say I am sitting across the table from someone and they are telling me a story. I will say “Hey, just FYI, eye contact is really hard for me and my staring off to the side isn’t a sign of disinterest. I’m really interested in what you’re saying.” Now they don’t have to wonder if I’m just trying to find the nearest exit.
   
   
3. Explain masking to new people.  Masking is when a neurodivergent person forces themselves into “normal” behaviors to try their best to fit in with the rest of the world.  If you’re comfortable with taking off your mask for new people then I recommend you try to do that.  This way, they can get to know you in all your neurodivergent glory.  Not everyone is comfortable with or even CAN take off their mask intentionally.  If that’s the case for you, then have a conversation with your potential new connection about what masking is and how you wear yours.  This will take some self reflection and vulnerability but it will help set up some expectations. 
   
   
4. Neurodivergence can make you special. Figure out in what ways being the way you are makes you a great partner. As a neurodivergent person you can probably offer a lot of things that other people can’t. You can highlight these with potential love interests as they might not be things they think about. For example, someone who has ADHD can offer way more spontaneity and amazing adventures to someone’s day and someone who is OCD can offer routine and consistency. For me, being on the autism spectrum and the way it affects me means I can have all levels of conversations with a pretty even tone. A lot of people have appreciated this about me.
   
   
5. Learn the things that don’t come naturally to you. Just because it doesn’t come as naturally to you as neurotypical people doesn’t mean you can’t learn. A lot of people that are neurodivergent have a harder time with things that come very naturally to neurotypical folks. Some examples might be time management, recognizing facial expressions and knowing what to say in certain social situations. That doesn’t mean you can’t work on those things and learn them. For example, when I learned that I was on the autism spectrum as an adult I took a test where I was supposed to identify facial expressions and I failed miserably. Well, I found some facial expression flashcards and started studying them and now I’m a lot better at recognizing them. This helps me understand my partners better. I also realized very quickly that I just thought most facial expressions meant someone had to poop.
   
   
6. Neurodivergence isn’t an excuse to treat people poorly. I admit, this is kind of a broad statement and “treating someone poorly” is very subjective. You are who you are and you can’t be someone you’re not. With that said, if the same behaviors you exhibit consistently hurt people then I suggest you at least try to work on changing those. An example is stonewalling (completely shutting down and refusing to communicate or giving minimal and vague feedback to the people around you). This is a pretty common behavior with people on the autism spectrum and I did that pretty consistently in the past. It happens so fast and I didn’t even know I was doing it. If I’m being completely honest, it even still sneaks up on me now (old habits die hard). Over the years I have learned to recognize when I start falling into that and I can at least say “I’m shutting down and this isn’t going to be the best time for me to talk about this,” or I can keep myself from going into that place by being conscious of it. I still don’t catch it every single time but I do it way less and it doesn’t impact my relationships the way it used to.
   
    
7. Don’t be too hard on yourself. This is the most important advice I can give you. Don’t underestimate someone’s ability to love you just the way you are. I know a lot of us think “I am a really hard person to love” because we see ourselves as so different from what’s considered the norm. Please trust me as someone who is not neurotypical and who has people in my life who love me. They don’t love me in spite of my neurodivergence, but because that’s just who I am. You’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea but you’ll be someone’s hot chocolate with marshmallows on a cold winter evening. 

Neurodivergent people are the outliers and have to do their best to fit into a society that wasn’t built for them. They have been shoved in a box that doesn’t fit them their whole life and perhaps that contributes to them being more comfortable with exploring polyamory and living outside the societal norms. Understanding why there are so many neurodivergent folks in the polyamory community can be a whole other ball of wax (though still fascinating so let me know if you have any research/resources on this). While there is a slight shift in the culture surrounding neurodiversity and people are becoming more aware that we can’t live in a one-size-fits-all society there is still a long way to go. In the meantime, we are all just trying to do our best navigating this wild world. Just do your best, be kind and go be someone’s hot chocolate. 

The post Neurodivergent Dating in Polyamory appeared first on Trying To Thrive.

You may be wondering why there’s a picture of rocking chairs from Cracker Barrel. I’ll get there so you can understand why. But first, we need to start 15 years ago.

It was 2005, I was 21 years old and was engaged to the woman of my dreams.  I was so excited, but despite my outward confidence, inside I was scared. I remember all of the adults in my life asking me “Are you sure? The rest of your life is a long time!” And I would say things like “I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.” I was lying.  I wasn’t sure. I had always struggled with commitment and I thought the only way to fix it was to just commit. When you’re scared of spiders, you push past your fears and hold the tarantula, right? Marriage was my tarantula and I was ready to hold it. 

As we’re growing up and learning about relationships we’re taught that if we truly love someone we will not have feelings for someone else.  It’s taught as a fact and anybody that deviates is just simply a slimeball of a human. While dating my fiance I had feelings for someone else.  This meant that I was one of those slimeball humans. This “other” person existed in my life as a close friend and someone I talked to regularly.  I had known her for several years and we were close. Even though I never “cheated” on my fiance with this friend, I felt like a piece of shit for loving my friend in a more-than-friend way while I was engaged to be married.   

It’s 2006 and I get married.  My feelings for my childhood friends should now cease, right?  Boy was I wrong. Sometimes I would lay in bed wondering to myself “Am I really never going to get to connect with another person on a deep intimate level for the rest of my life?” and it made me sad and scared.  It was a weight I carried in the world of monogamy. I was confused because I loved my wife a lot. I was attracted to her, we had fun together and I was happy with her. Why in the world would I have feelings for anyone else.  I just kept telling myself I was broken and I had commitment issues. I would tear myself down and tell myself that if my brain worked like it was supposed to I would be perfectly happy.  

Little did I know I was a square peg trying to be put into a round hole.  Those late night thoughts of not being able to connect with another human manifested as a symptom of indifference.  My wife could have broken up with me at any time and I would be perfectly fine. I obviously didn’t subscribe to the “There’s only one fish in the sea.” mentality.

I sit on all of these heavy feelings for 5 years but I continue to stay faithful and persever.  It’s now 2010 and we are divorced. It didn’t end because of monogamy but because we got married too young.   I wasn’t sad and I didn’t even cry. I told people I was sad because I thought that’s how I should feel and how they would expect me to feel.  The truth is, the emotion at the forefront was relief. Only now can I look back and see that I was finally let out of my cage of monogamy and relief overshadowed any grief. Marriage was so uncomfortable for me that  I swore I was never ever getting married again.

It’s 2011 and someone new comes into my life.  I told them from early on that I had no interest in getting married again and I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted.  Despite that I still found myself on the normal  relationship escalator and was soon deeply entwined in monogamy again.  I had a lot of the same feelings of indifference as I did in my marriage.  Sometimes finding myself hoping my partner would leave me. I thought I was incapable of envisioning a future with anyone.  Maybe I was going to just end up alone in a van down by the river for the rest of my life. 

It’s now 2015 and we are sitting in front of the TV scrolling through documentaries available on netflix.  Like most couples scrolling through netflix, we had no idea what we wanted to watch. We decided we were in the mood for a documentary. We went back and forth about which ones we wanted to watch but ultimately we landed on a documentary about polyamory.  I had never heard of this “polyamory” thing but we gave it a go. It’s not even 15 minutes into it and. 

My. Brain. Exploded. 

I’ve obviously heard of swinging before.  That concept is pretty prevalent and well known in our culture.  As a demisexual that’s not really something that ever interested me.  I wanted something much deeper than that. I was watching these people have deep meaningful relationships with more than one person and I was learning the language for that.  

It’s the next day and I open my browser on my computer and type in the word “Polyamory”. The topic quickly consumed me.  One of the first things I found was a TED Talk on polyamory.  I found an amazingly insightful polyamory comic called Kimchi Cuddles that was both education and entertaining.  The deeper I plunged into learning, the more I started to not see myself as broken, but just wired differently.  I started to see that society was trying to put me in a box I didn’t belong. Most importantly, it meant I wasn’t broken or a slimeball of a human being.  My partner and I then had the daunting task of converting an established monogamous relationship into a polyamorous one. I’ll spare you the gruesome details of that endeavor and just tell you we broke up a couple of years later. 

It’s post documentary and I now have the luxury of starting off all of my future relationships under the pretense of polyamory.  No more trying to fit into the box of monogamy that made me feel bad about myself. I could now love someone fully and still keep my heart and mind open to making other connections.  Something really insane happened to me one day along my polyam journey. I did something that I thought I was completely incapable of. It happened so fast and was so arbitrary that it took me by surprise and I was completely overwhelmed with emotion.  It was a beautiful spring morning in 2018. I was sitting on the patio of a Cracker Barrel with my partner. I looked over and saw an elderly couple sitting in rocking chairs and holding hands. It made my heart happy and it was really adorable. I looked at my partner and pointed to the sweet elderly couple and I said “That’s going to be us one day.” (Of course I added “With our other partners, too.” because Kitchen Table Poly FTW). She looked at me like she couldn’t believe what I just said.  We had been dating for over a year and I never talked about a future together.  Did I just imagine a future with someone? What is happening? Is this what it feels like to not be indifferent?  We laughed and joked about this milestone for me. However, I’ll never forget it and neither will my partner. We even took a picture of that special day so we could remember.  Here is the day that I was no longer afraid of commitment.

The post How Polyamory Fixed my Fear of Commitment appeared first on Trying To Thrive.

Here is a simple 4×4 Yes Test. Four simple rules and four simple questions. You’re not done with the test until you can answer yes to the 4 questions. If you’re checking in with your partner(s) regularly, the whole thing should take less than 10 minutes. This test leverages the power of good communication and should make navigating polyamory easier and more comfortable for everyone. It can help mitigate potential conflict on the front end through meaningful communication. In addition to using this for regular check in I also recommend you go through this anytime you might expect some potential conflict (date nights, trips, overnights, holidays, etc.). When going through the test, if either of you answer no to any of these, take a minute to talk it out until you feel like you can answer yes. When you can both answer yes to all these questions then you are in a great place to keep moving forward. Keep in mind that my tips are just that: tips. Every relationship is different and there’s always different agreements about how and what to communicate.

Rules:

1. Create a safe space. Agree to keep your emotions in check while you communicate through some hard conversations.
2. Share and Listen only. Don’t argue. Keep it in the back of your mind that there’s two perspectives and they won’t always meet in the middle.
3. Validate each other’s feelings even if you don’t understand them. Be ok with not always fully understanding them.
4. If you start to feel flustered and like you can’t talk rationally about the things being talked about, take some time to recenter yourself (verbally asking for a break). Before you take a break, promise yourself and your partner you will revisit the conversation soon (ideally the same day).

Questions:

1. Have you communicated expectations?

Tips: Setting expectations can be broad but for this example I’m going to use a scenario where one of you has an upcoming date night. You may be tempted to say you’ll be home at 10PM for your upcoming date night. You do this to make your partner feel better, but truthfully you might want to stay out as late as 2AM. If that’s the case, set the expectation that you’ll be home as late at 3AM. If you think there’s a small chance you might have sex, don’t say “We might have sex but I seriously doubt it.” just let them know you are going to have sex. Expectation setting can be a very powerful tool in mitigating hurt feelings.

2. Have you communicated feelings?

Tips: Below is a feeling chart that can help you navigate identifying your specific feelings. It’s another great tool to keep in your back pocket. Share how you’re feeling with your partner and why. Even if you’re just feeling content and nothing else. Make sure you each understand that your feelings are yours to own and that you’re just sharing them for consideration. Do not share your feelings with the expectation that your partner will change their behavior. That’s dangerous. If you want to see a behavior changed, address is explicitly. If you tell your partner that you’re feeling insecure do not expect them to cancel their plans because you’re feeling that way.

3. Have you communicated wants/needs?

Tips: Wants are bonus, needs are things you need. I want to see you 3 times a week, but I need to see you at least 1 time a week. Defining needs can be tricky but remember these 2 things: 1. Make sure your needs are directly related to YOU. Saying you need your partner to stop talking to someone because you’re feeling insecure is not a need. It’s a rule and it’s not cool. 2. Don’t generalize needs and be specific. “I need more physical touch” is too general. Try: “I need to make sure we make time to cuddle on our dates.”

4. Have you communicated concerns?

Tips: This can be kind of viewed as the problem solving conversation track. A good example of a concern is “I’m concerned that my trip to Dallas is going to cause you a lot of insecurity.” Another example can be “I’m concerned that you might have unprotected sex and not tell me because you’re afraid of how I might react.” Do not sit on these things. Work through them. You’ll be glad you did work through them before they became a bigger issue.

So much comfort can be found when you’re communicating and keeping one another on the same page. The simple act of saying out loud what you’re feeling can be surprisingly healing. When I’ve felt insecure and I shared that with my partners in a safe and constructive way it made me feel better. Many times we just need to feel heard. Use this as a simple tool to improve your communication in your relationships.

The post Polyamory Tool Belt – 4×4 Yes Test appeared first on Trying To Thrive.

Wait?  The other side of what?  What does that even mean?  Well, I’m not dead and this isn’t a pop song or a Netflix original series.  This is real life. We are all on the other side of something, right? You might be on the other side of college, cancer or some other life event that you’ve experienced.  We all have our own experiences and have had to make choices in difficult times. This gives us a lot of wisdom from hindsight so we can learn and grow. In this post I want to share some wisdom and tell you about what it’s like being on the other side of an emotionally abusive relationship. It is my hope that just one person stumbles across this and decides to take steps to take control of their situation and do the scary things they need to do.

I want to preface this with acknowledging that it still feels weird to even say “emotionally abusive” because I know that at this person’s core, they aren’t bad.  They are broken and damaged and need understanding…

…wait…

…stop…

See what I just did there?

I already started to defend them. Yup, I’m also a textbook emotional abuse victim. It took me more than a year after the breakup to even admit that there was emotional abuse.  When I first started reading about emotional abuse and what the profile of the abuser and the victim look like, I felt totally called out. It’s true, most abusers don’t know they are being abusive and aren’t always inherently bad people.  On the flip side, victims can’t be fully dissolved of their part in the dynamic either. I don’t mean they deserved it. Nobody deserves to be in that situation. Ever. However, as a victim, I had to look at the behaviors and patterns that got me into that situation and kept me there so I could break those patterns.  In my case, there was a level of codependency and later I understood myself to be a passive codependent.  I also had a diminished sense of self and a flawed mindset about relationships. I heard so many times growing up that “No relationship is perfect.” or “Relationships are a lot of hard work.”  Those are both true statements. Instead of taking them the way they were meant to be taken, I interpreted them in a very dangerous way. I heard “Most relationships are crappy and nobody is truly happy most of the time. If you’re happy and not doing a lot of work then something is wrong.”  That’s messed up, right? Well, brains can be jerks sometimes.

What was it like being an emotionally abusive relationship?

In my relationship, I was forced to walk on eggshells around everything.  This was exhausting. Spending time with friends without them caused conflict.  Friending people on facebook they didn’t approve of first caused conflict. Throwing something in the trash that belonged in the recycle caused conflict.  I even had to provide the right number of ice cubes when bringing them a cup of water. They would yell at me and say not-nice things and then apologize later when they cooled down and told me to dismiss everything they said because they didn’t mean it.  So, hindsight, why in the world would I stay in a situation like that? Whenever someone was bold enough to confront me about my relationship and the way they observed me being treated I would spew the same canned lines:

• “They struggle with mental illness.”
• “I’m certainly not easy to love.”
• “You have to take the good with the bad.”
• “Everyone has their quirks.”
• “They just likes things a certain way.”
• “I’m just as guilty because I put up with it.”
• “Well, it’s not like they hit me.”

(Some of these sound sensible on the surface, but if you hear yourself when reading those then please look deeper.)

Ultimately, I decided to leave because I found myself hoping they would leave me.  That wasn’t fair to either of us. So I did it. I left that relationship. It was a very scary thing to do.  It wasn’t amicable and they were extremely upset. When I told them I wanted out of the relationship they told me  “YOU DO NOT GET TO MAKE THAT DECISION!” When you take control away from an abuser it can be a really scary thing for them.  And as I walked out the door, there were things being thrown and I could hear glass shattering. I felt sick to my stomach and I was actually kind of scared of what they might do.  All the things I was afraid of happening, happened. But, hey? I survived. I’m on the other side and it was a very good decision for me in a lot of ways. I know that in their narrative I am the bad person.  I abandoned them and wasted six years of their life. In my narrative, I just simply outgrew them. I learned that it’s OK to outgrow people and move on. I know that growing up we are all told that a relationship ending equals failure.  In my case, it was a huge success and one that has opened up an amazing new chapter full of happy and healthy relationships. The other side is beautiful and amazing and while it takes a lot of hard decisions to get there I want you to know that it’s totally worth it.

What Now?

Read This:

https://www.healthline.com/health/signs-of-mental-abuse#control-and-shame – This is a nicely laid out article and a great tool to have in your toolbelt. Look through and see if your partner does several things on this list. If they do, take the time to research and learn more about emotional abuse. Once you’ve done that, read it again and see if YOU do anything on this list (I know I checked a couple of the boxes). You can also use this as a guide to keep toxic behaviors in check on both sides.

If you’re in danger and need help getting out of your situation then Go Here or call 1-800-799-7233 or (TTY) 1-800-787-3224.

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