Toxic Traits in Dating

Dating in the modern world comes with its challenges, from missed red flags to navigating toxic traits that can surface in relationships. In this episode, Laurie Poole and Monica Miller discuss the subtle signs of imbalance in dating and how they can erode self-esteem and trust. From bleaching red flags to suppressing intuition, Monica shares intimate anecdotes of self-doubt and boundary violations, offering insights into why recognizing these behaviors early is so important.

Tune in for a thoughtful conversation about self-awareness, intuition, and how to prioritize your well-being in relationships. Don’t forget to check out Monica’s blog at themontfortgroup.com for more tips and personal reflections on spotting and addressing toxicity.

Therapist Unplugged is brought to you by The Montfort Group. Each episode will feature the unplugged views of guests and fellow therapists as we navigate hot topics, therapy trends and the world around us.

*The Montfort Group provides a serene, calming setting where you can feel challenged, supported, and motivated. Our skilled therapists bridge specialized backgrounds and varied philosophies together to create one unified strategy. Rather than steer you away from your own natural abilities, we help you maximize your unique strengths. We do not view a broken history as the end of a story, we see it as an opportunity for a new beginning.

Transcript

Laurie Poole [00:00:27]:

Well, Monica, I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be sharing this time with you this morning because I think we have something to talk about that will resonate with people. They will relate to it. Because I think many folks complain about what it's like to be on the dating scene these days. 

Monica Miller [00:00:51]:

Yes.

Laurie Poole [00:00:52]:

It's not easy. We've got social media, we've got dating apps, we've got matchmaking services. There's just a litany of opportunities to meet people. But the irony is that it doesn't all seem to go so well. And once you actually connect with someone or you meet up with someone, then things continue to evolve. And in reading your blog about toxic traits in dating, I just thought it would be fun to jump on and talk about that today as a couples therapist, I certainly hear a lot about this in my own practice. But why don't you tell us a little bit about your own personal story, Monica, and what inspired you to write your blog?

Monica Miller [00:01:38]:

Yeah. Thank you so much, Laurie. It's top of mind right now. In particular, just because the more that you look at the news, the more that, you know, I typically follow court cases and people seeking justice for wrongs that have been done in relationships and tragedies that have happened and in my own life and my own experiences about how we find ourselves in these types of relationships, and then you wake up one day and think, what the hell just happened? I thought everything was great. And yet when you take a step back and you start looking at patterns and everything, you start picking up on red flags that maybe you missed or maybe you had a tendency to, like as you've said, Laurie, to bleach those red flags.

Laurie Poole [00:02:35]:

Yes, I have said that.

Monica Miller [00:02:37]:

Yes, I have taken that with me, by the way, throughout the years, and I have used that. I always give you credit for that because it’s so true. It's all too easy, especially when you know, like myself, I tend to be a very understanding person, a very agreeable person, a people pleaser at heart, and I like to say recovering people pleaser. But let's be honest, that's a hard one.

Laurie Poole [00:03:09]:

Definitely.

Monica Miller [00:03:10]:

It's really hard. All of those things combine to sort of make the perfect storm. And I guess my inspiration for putting this out there is that I really want people to really be in the first parts of dating, to find yourself just enraptured and just, it's bliss. And then, however, it's very important to keep our wits about ourselves because there are definite signs that you can miss that now. You wake up one day, like I said, and how did I get here?

Laurie Poole [00:03:48]:

Very true. I think also what happens is the bliss can be so powerful and almost drug-like. That when your spidey senses and your intuition tell you something's amiss, you want to push your intuition down because the bliss feels so good and it's so captivating and it just kind of takes over. It can be very difficult to stay grounded, and every once in a while there might be a little blip where you go, what was that really? Oh, it's nothing.. And so that's an example of where we bleach the red flags white because we don't pay attention to our intuition. And even where we feel the discomfort in our body telling us something isn't quite right here.

Monica Miller [00:04:45]:

Yes, something's not right, and we then take a closer look at that, or do we just pull away and like, oh, no, I'll think about that later. This just feels so good.

Laurie Poole [00:05:00]:

Exactly. We don't want to lose the moment. And so it can put us into an avoidance mode, if you like to very much downplay and avoid and not really address. And yet I think we continue to carry it in our body until we can't.

Monica Miller [00:05:14]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Laurie Poole [00:05:17]:

Yeah. And that's, that's, that's a really hard one because we want so badly for things to work or we just don't want to lose what that moment or what that encounter or situationship has, you know, brought forward into our lives. Maybe, Monica, you could share with our listeners. There might be five listeners. Honestly, I don't know. It's been a while. We haven't done a podcast in a long time. Would you be willing to share a little bit about your own story in terms of toxic traits and what you recognized about yourself?

Monica Miller [00:05:55]:

Yes, absolutely. So I remember, you know, in one particular relationship, I still remember the very first. And I think I had written about this in the blog we had. It was probably one of the very first dates and we had been out with his older brother and his girlfriend. It was very much like a double date situation and felt super comfortable because I was already familiar with them. I had kind of grown up in the same town, so they were very familiar to me and just was having a great time. I was all of 26 at the time, so very young and very naive and as understanding as I am now and as empathic as I am now, multiply that by about a thousand. Back then I had rose colored glasses on. I mean, very, very trusting and very, very understanding of everything and just wanted life to just be so smooth. Of course, we all do. Right. However, there were things that would happen where some jokes would be made by him and whether it was like, you know, singing out loud in the car, you know, just singing along with the music and everything. And he would laugh, he kind of laughed at that and said, why are you doing that? Why are you singing so loud like. And I, I was unaware that I was even doing that. And so.

Laurie Poole [00:07:39]:

And by the way, I just want to. Sorry to interrupt, but I just want to say you have a beautiful voice, Monica Miller.

Monica Miller [00:07:46]:

Thank you.

Laurie Poole [00:07:47]:

And so for him to be… I can see why that would be quite a hit.

Monica Miller [00:07:55]:

Yeah, definitely. And really I was just in the moment and I certainly wasn't the only one singing in the car. I don't want that to be the idea, but I mean, it embarrassed me. I was embarrassed. And I still remember his older brother in the car and he had even said something like, dude, what are you doing? You're gonna crush her spirit, you know.

Laurie Poole [00:08:20]:

Wow.

Monica Miller [00:08:21]:

And he responded in an antagonistic way and sort of shut it down. And I just, that's all it took for me to not sing again in the car. And you know, I still have trouble even to this day, which kind of blows my mind. But you know, it's interesting the things that can happen in life that you really do take with you, and they stick to you. I wish they didn't. 

Monica Miller [00:08:36]:

And then there was something. Gosh, I was 26 years old. I was just starting to get into the field. I think I was working in the home building industry at the time before it crashed. And I had this cute little knockoff Louis Vuitton and was just so proud of it and thought it was cute. And I remember he made fun of it. He said, that's not real. Like, what are you doing? Why are you carrying that? It was in front of everybody. It was clearly meant to make me smaller and push me down. And at the time I thought, oh, my gosh, he's right. He is right. Like, why would I be carrying around a fake purse? Everybody knows it's fake. Oh, my gosh. And so just snowballing all of the things. All of that caused me to kind of not only just pull away, but really question myself. I didn't question him. I questioned myself, which is. Wow. Wow. Yeah.

Laurie Poole [00:10:04]:

As I'm watching your body language while we're having the conversation, the word shrink popped into my head. It's like you shrank. You became smaller to avoid more. Is that kind of what was happening? To avoid more of the same experience? So if I just dial myself down and make myself small.

Monica Miller [00:10:24]:

Absolutely. Dialing myself down, making myself so much smaller and years down the road, because I did end up pursuing a relationship with this man. And the way that it all unfolded was horrible. And little did I know at that time, back then that what was waiting for me down the road. If I had only listened to my gut. But at that point, I didn't even really have a good sense of my gut.

Laurie Poole [00:10:59]:

Yeah.

Monica Miller [00:11:00]:

Yeah. So I feel like it's really about being intentional, like very intentional about everything that's happening in that moment. I wish I had been journaling. Oh my gosh. Like, how incredible would that have been to just go back and journal?

Laurie Poole [00:11:18]:

You know, Monica, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about the people pleasing.

Monica Miller [00:11:23]:

Yeah.

Laurie Poole [00:11:23]:

And how that creates a pattern, as you mentioned earlier, how you notice patterns over the years, but the focus becomes external, not internal. So for those of us who have found ourselves in that people pleasing mode because of attachment. Stuff that happens to us in our itty bitty youth. Right. The focus, our self worth and how we relate to the world depends on what we see in other people relative to how much we pour into them, how much we take care of them, attend to their needs and so on. And so we're not as in tune with our own internal experience because the focus is always external.

Monica Miller [00:12:16]:

Yes. You're so right. That is spot on. Absolutely. How. How can you be paying attention to yourself when you're so focused on everybody else. That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Laurie Poole [00:12:28]:

So in that context, I understand absolutely. How some of these signs get bleached.

Monica Miller [00:12:34]:

Yes. 

Laurie Poole [00:12:35]:

And the intuition gets pushed down or hushed. So in that regard, I'm wondering if you can walk us through some of the things that you wrote about in your blog about what to watch for, because I think listeners would be interested in that. And for those who'd like to read Monica's blog, please go to themontfortgroup.com because she gives a whole background to her own story and things to watch for and what she wishes she had seen at the time. But, you know, sometimes you can't find the comb because it's in your hair. Right.

Monica Miller [00:13:05]:

Exactly. Oh, my gosh. Exactly. I heard this saying not that long ago. Someone had said, and I'm blanking on their name, I had heard this on a different podcast, but it was a therapist. And she said, you know, sometimes you just can't read the label when you're inside the jar. That's exactly right. Yes. It's so true, you know.

Laurie Poole [00:13:33]:

Yes, that's very, very true.

Monica Miller [00:13:36]:

Yeah. But one of the things that I remember writing about is, you know, the isolating. Isolating you from friends and family. I remember it was a combination of him being very critical of my friends and kind of ridiculing them in just a very mean way. And it really took me aback because these were my heart friends. These aren't just like, you know, people that I met one day and just decided to hang out occasionally. You know, these were very good friends of mine. And I remember we had gone over to visit them. I brought him over and I think it was like a Super Bowl Sunday or something. And we were also celebrating my best friend's birthday at the time and, you know, singing Happy birthday, whatever. And I remember we left, and he didn't say anything in front of them so I was grateful for that. But he was critiquing my best friends husband at the time for singing Happy birthday so loudly to my best friend. Yeah, again with the singing. What is that? Oh, my God.

Laurie Poole [00:14:55]:

I think the man doesn't like to sing.

Monica Miller [00:14:57]:

I think. Maybe he wishes he could sing.

Laurie Poole [00:15:01]:

Maybe, Maybe he does. Maybe he's envious. That's it. Maybe that's a time where you lit up and he didn't like you shining brighter?

Monica Miller [00:15:09]:

Yeah, it could be. So there was a lot of him, ridiculing friends and not wanting me to go and spend time with them. He would sort of make fun of how often I saw my parents and how often I communicated with them. It led me to believe him, I wonder if I am calling them too much, if I am visiting them too much. Maybe he's right, going down that road with him, it felt like I had given up all of my will. As I'm talking about this now, I'm like, what the hell was I thinking? Like, 20 plus years later, I can honestly say if I was in that situation now, it would be so much different. But at the same time, I'm looking at it going, I definitely went through that for a reason. There was an absolute reason I went through all of it. And the choices I made and didn't make it all led me to where I am now, for better or for worse. That was a huge lesson learned for me, but there was that. 

Laurie Poole [00:16:33]:

One of the points that you make in your article is lack of respect for boundaries. Can you speak to that?

Monica Miller [00:16:39]:

Yes. There was a moment early on, and this was kind of a creepy part of the beginning. I had to run an errand. I had been at his apartment, and I had gone to run an errand. Pretty quick errand. I came back, and his other brother was at the apartment. And when I walked in, they were listening to something, and I didn't know what they were listening to. They were just, like, enthralled; they were just immersed into what they were listening to. And they were kind of giggling too, like it was something really funny. And I was listening closer, like, what are y'all listening to that’s so funny. And I heard myself in the car not 30 minutes before, singing out loud in my car. And somehow he had recorded it. It still wasn't clear what had just happened, but he obviously had planted something in my car to be able to listen to me while I was in the car. And it was just me singing aloud in the car to a song. I'm sorry, I'm thinking about it now, and trying to talk about it, but it was just a mind blowing moment because nothing like that had ever happened to me before and it was a total invasion of privacy and a complete stepping over a boundary. One that I didn't even think I had to set. 

Laurie Poole [00:18:17]:

As I'm listening to you now and I can see, our listeners can't see you, but I can see all the emotion that comes up right now as you consider really what all of that meant. Because that experience sounds as though it's a combination of what you write about in terms of lack of respect, criticism, disrespect, unwillingness to communicate, humiliation that leads to second guessing yourself, questioning yourself, feeling so lost. I'm going to use the word violated with regards to your personal privacy.

Monica Miller [00:19:12]:

Right.

Laurie Poole [00:19:13]:

And that still, all these years later, it provokes such a response because it was so devastating.

Monica Miller [00:19:23]:

Yes, it was. I think on some level it is now just because I so desperately want to go back to that 26 year old and just hug her, shake her and just be like Monica, look at what's actually happening and not just brush it off. Like it was so easy just to brush off in the moment. Like it's nothing, it's fine, it was a joke. But then when you really look at it, what was he listening to and for how long? I never found anything in that car. And then, years later, maybe nine years ago even, I never found a tracker on my car. But the woman that he ultimately left me for did find one in her car.

Laurie Poole [00:20:22]:

So they repeat themselves.

Monica Miller [00:20:25]:

They sure do. Absolutely.

Laurie Poole [00:20:28]:

Patterns repeat themselves. I think when you reference subtle signs and also the patterns of criticism, disrespectful boundaries being blurred, stepped over, isolation, reactivity. Could you speak to the reactivity that became part of the cycle between the two of you? The sort of gaslighting is his reaction to you?

Monica Miller [00:20:58]:

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Laurie Poole [00:21:00]:

Bringing things to his attention.

Monica Miller [00:21:02]:

Yes. His level of reactivity was so completely foreign to me and set me on my heels every single time. It almost felt like I was being trained. Sort of like, I guess grooming in a different sense, like getting used to that control. I still remember having to call and he'd be at work and I would just need to know something like, would you be available for this at this time on this day? But instead of him answering in a cooperative way, he actually was like, what the hell are you calling me for, Monica? You know I'm working right now, I don't have time for this, put it on the calendar. Just very abrasive. Very much letting me know where I stood. Like I was unimportant. Work was way more important than me. But at the moment I wasn't really fully grasping that I was just taking it. 

Laurie Poole [00:22:15]:

You talked about being accused of being overly sensitive in response to things he would say.

Monica Miller [00:22:22]:

He would imply I was always too sensitive, and I believed him. And to some extent, Laurie, I feel like it's that part. Sure, that's true. I am sensitive. I'm definitely sensitive. But that's exactly what that was. The voice that was inside, like, hey, Monica, this isn't right. So yeah he was right about that. I am sensitive. But because it was working against him, he didn't like that. And it's taken me years to sort of put that together. There was also, I think I even mentioned the dry erase board. So we were living together at the time and it had become a thing where if I didn't get two of everything at the grocery store, it was going on the dry erase board. If I forgot something, it's on there. So every little mistake that I made was right there on a dry erase board in our apartment. And God forbid I stood up about that.

Laurie Poole [00:23:46]:

Yeah, I keep saying this as I'm listening to you. There's so many things that are coming up for me. But what I'm hearing is that these subtle signs become louder, more pronounced and evident as the relationship continues. And what was subtle initially becomes louder and louder. And your self esteem, trust in yourself becomes less and less in reaction to what's going on. And boy, how important it is to recognize those subtle signs that start off in a relationship where your intuition and spidey senses and your body react, because often our body will speak before we will.

Monica Miller [00:24:48]:

Oh yes, absolutely.

Laurie Poole [00:24:50]:

And so the anxiety that mounts and also our tendency not to practice self care because then the anxiety creates the fear that then drives all the responses and we lose ourselves in the chaos of this toxicity.

Monica Miller [00:25:12]:

I was completely lost. That Monica was lost. Not only was she in the backseat at the very end, she was in the trunk. Like she wasn't there anymore. And, certainly was never in the driver's seat at all. Hell, I wasn't even a passenger really, when I finally started actually listening to my gut years down the road, that's when things started to shift.

Laurie Poole [00:25:51]:

Well, I think the things that you make in your blog are really important for all of us, not only in the dating scene, but also in our intimate relationships where there is not a balance of power, where there are patterns of kind of verbal abuse through criticism, feeling small. I mean, many of the things that you've outlined in your blog are forms of abuse.

Monica Miller [00:26:23]:

Yeah, they are.

Laurie Poole [00:26:24]:

They really are. And when we're in it, we don't necessarily recognize it that way, but we know how we feel, which is not good. And so I think that's really important to pay attention to and to check in with ourselves. And I think some of the most amount of courage is speaking the truth to ourselves when we really wish it wouldn't be true.

Monica Miller [00:26:59]:

Yeah. But I think that's the ultimate form of bravery.

Laurie Poole [00:27:03]:

Yeah, it is. So to all our listeners who may resonate with what Monica has shared this morning, and again, please read her blog at themontfortgroup.com because there's great information, insight and the sharing of a very personal story. Monica, that took courage to write and to share with our readers and with our clients. I want to let people know too, that they can schedule an appointment to see you by going to themontfortgroup.com. I'm so thrilled that you're part of our team and I know you have a lot as a therapist, tremendous compassion, insight, non judgment and humor to offer your clients. I'm delighted that you're a part of our team and I look forward to our next podcast down the road, whatever topic that will be on.

Monica Miller [00:28:00]:

I would love that so much. Thank you, Laurie. 

Laurie Poole [00:28:03]:

Thank you, Monica. I appreciate you so much.