S6 Episode 5: "I Love Him or Her" is Never a Defense or Excuse for Bad Behavior
Episode Summary
We all know that love is not enough to sustain a relationship. It should also never be used as a justification to stay with a partner who treats you poorly. Relationships that are worth fighting for are based on respect, empathy, trust and communication. If your relationship is missing the foundational pieces, it will not last.
Moreover, love needs to be reciprocated in a partnership. You chose this person for a reason. They are supposed to be your support system, not a destructive force in your life. When you allow your partner to behave in a counter-productive manner, you are enabling the unhealthy behavior. Do not tolerate a partner whom you have to constantly excuse because of blind love.
The unconditional love you should display is for yourself! Grant yourself acceptance and forgiveness. You deserve to be appreciated, cherished and protected. You deserve a partner that will not violate your boundaries or expose you to danger. Never justify your partner’s bad choices with love, the consequences could be life-altering.
At the end of each episode, Marlee and Lis vent about commonly experienced issues in romantic relationships. In this episode, the ladies discuss the dangers of leading on a man with whom you are not interested in having a relationship.
Show Notes
Is your partner behaving badly? Stating that you love them does not excuse them. Love comes from trust, respect, empathy, and acceptance. So, if you are being mistreated, the love isn’t being returned. You deserve to be treated right and not have your boundaries violated.
The second you start excusing your partner’s behavior is the moment you start enabling them. You should encourage your partner’s healthy behavior, and never their bad behavior. Without a mutual benefit to both people, saying you love them is just an excuse to stay in a relationship that’s not working.
If this sounds like you, you might be lying to yourself because you have low self-esteem or you don’t feel worthy. Because of this, you settle for being unhappy. Love is supposed to make you feel light, enriched, and happy—not miserable. Why would you want to stay in a negative situation that doesn’t serve you?
When you’re drowning in your relationship, you may use the word “love” to help you keep your head above water. However, this is a sign of toxicity and abuse. It emphasizes that certain behaviors, bad behaviors, are equated with love. If you catch yourself rationalizing what your partner does, take it as a warning sign.
In this episode, the vent session topic is: When women refuse to understand that leading men on makes them a jerk to the next woman. Consciously and purposefully misleading someone is wrong, especially when you could have just been honest. Women do not owe men anything—never feel guilted into being kind and giving attention. You can be straightforward while still being kind.
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Visit us at www.romancipation.com
Tired of toxic, boring, or dead-end relationships? Feeling lonely or clueless when it comes to love? Need a fresh perspective? Well, you found it! This is Romancipation, a podcast that challenges conventional ideas about sex, love, dating, and mating. Hosts Marlee and Lis offer candid and provocative advice about what it takes to find the partner you deserve.
It's time to rethink your approach to your love life. Take charge and get Romancipated.
Marlee:
On this episode, I Love Him or Her, is Never a Defense or Excuse for Bad Behavior. Wow, Lis, you know, love is a wonderful thing. I know I sometimes am a Debbie Downer when it comes to love. And I think respect is the most important quality that a relationship should have. But I get it. Love exists. I've experienced love. Love is a nice thing.
Lis:
Yup.
Marlee:
But love has its limitations. And I will never accept a person saying love is a justification for tolerating bad behavior.
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
From their partner.
Lis:
Nope.
Marlee:
Never, never, never. Love is reciprocal. Love comes from respect. It comes from trust. It comes from empathy. It comes from acceptance, right? All of these qualities help shape your love.
So if one person is mistreating you, Lis, or someone else in your family, the love isn't being returned.
Lis:
No
Marlee:
It doesn't matter how much you might love the person.
Lis:
That’s right.
Marlee:
If they are not doing what they need to do, which is treat you right.
Lis:
Yep.
Marlee:
Behave appropriately, not violate your boundaries, not do disrespectful things to you.
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
They don't love you.
Lis:
Well, and that's exactly it. I mean, you know, I love a good sports analogy. So in a relationship, the worst offense is a good defense.
Marlee:
Yeah.
Lis:
I mean, the second you start defending your partner's behaviors, you're enabling them.
Marlee:
Yes
Lis:
You're giving them an excuse so it is partially on you. You have to take personal responsibility, right? Like the second you start to defend somebody's bad behavior, you are enabling them to make and have those bad behaviors over and over again.
Marlee:
Absolutely.
Lis:
And I mean, there's a lot of them. There are so many ways that we can enable people in a relationship. And I'm not even talking about drugs and alcohol and things like that.
I mean, you enable them to, by guilting somebody, by bullying somebody, by one upping somebody. I mean, there's so many ways we enable our partners to not treat us the way that we deserve to be treated.
Marlee:
Oh, my God. I completely agree with you. And I also think that when you let emotions overrule your rational thought, your decisions, the things that you are doing. You're doing yourself a disservice. You're doing the other person a disservice.
Lis:
Absolutely.
Marlee:
Because you just gave some great examples. If somebody is being overly competitive with you, they're not helping you. They're not helping themselves. They're certainly not helping the relationship.
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
If anything, they're tanking it. So again, if you love somebody, you should be setting healthy boundaries. You should be setting healthy expectations.
Lis:
Yep.
Marlee:
You should be you're self behaving in a healthy way, and you should be insisting that your partner return that healthy behavior.
Lis:
That's right.
Marlee:
Right?
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
It should never be, “Oh, but I love him, or Oh, but I love her”. I've never understood that as the rationale for staying in a relationship that was so toxic.
I've never understood that as the rationale for staying in a relationship that was so toxic.
Lis:
Well it's unhealthy behavior and you can't possibly have the love that you think you have there if you are in an unhealthy relationship, right?
Marlee:
Well, yeah.
Lis:
It's a fake love. It's not, there's no mutual benefit. There's no, it's not what love should be. Right?
Marlee:
So, I mean, it's an excuse.
Lis:
It's an excuse.
Marlee:
It's an excuse to stay with somebody who obviously is not meeting their wants or needs.
Lis:
Exactly.
Marlee:
Right?
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
But they're either afraid of being alone.
Lis:
Yep.
Marlee:
They have very low self esteem.
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
They have a low sense of self worth. They don't feel they have other options. Maybe they feel they're trapped. They lie to themselves.
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
Right? They come up with this whole, I'm going to be in this struggle. I'm going to be in this toxic situation. I'm going to be unhappy because I love this person and, and correct me if you disagree, but love is supposed to make you feel good.
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
It’s supposed to make you feel happy, supposed to make you feel enriched. It's supposed to make you feel light.
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
Right? I've never understood this concept of love making you miserable.
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
Right? I've never gotten that concept. Why would you want to be miserable? Love is supposed to be positive, not negative.
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
So if you're feeling miserable, if you're feeling used, if you're feeling taken advantage of, if you're feeling abused, if you're feeling neglected, whatever it is, that's not love. You're not experiencing love.
Lis:
Right, exactly.
Marlee:
So how many times do I have to say this? Love is not the same as passion. Love is not the same as drama. Love is not the same as fear or anxiety. Love can come in many different forms, Lis. Many different forms.
Lis:
It definitely can.
Marlee:
And the forms can evolve over time, right? And at different stages in the relationship.
Lis:
Sure.
Marlee:
But love should never be used as a get out of jail free card when somebody's really wronged you as a partner. Love should never be that, what they use. Like, “oh, well if you loved me, you'd let me do this. Uh, if you loved me. I could say this, uh, if you loved me, you'd forgive me”. It's ludicrous. Love should never be weaponized.
Lis:
No.
Marlee:
It shouldn't.
Lis:
It shouldn't be painful. It's, you're so right. And so many people fall into this trap and you wonder how they got there. You really do. Well, I hear how they get down that slippery slope.
Marlee:
I think it's that their partner slowly chips away at their self esteem. I think that “I love him or I love her” is basically Morse code for I'm so dependent on this person or I've invested too much time and energy in this person…
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
That either I can't leave or if I leave now, I'll have wasted all my time and gotten what? I almost feel like what is coming out of a person's mouth is different than what they're actually thinking but it's the only way they can justify or rationalize or convince somebody else why they're staying in a crappy situation.
Lis:
But if somebody gave you those reasons. I don't know. Wouldn't you look at them and just be like, there's so much more.
Marlee:
Absolutely.
Lis:
Of course, right? I mean, you would, you would look at them and be like, there is so much more out there than being dependent on somebody else and it's just, ugh.
Marlee:
Well, I mean, look, you know, our four-letter word, hope.
Lis:
Oh, see, I was going to go the other way, but…Oh no.
Marlee:
Uh…
Lis:
You know I love hope too.
Marlee:
I think love in this particular situation is another four-letter word. I think that people really want to believe something. They want to hold on to something. They want to use it as that life preserver.
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
They’re drowning in their relationship and they want to hold on to something to keep them breathing, keep their head above the water and they just keep using this word love. When you have children that observe this, they completely get a totally messed up world view of what love is.
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
And I think this is where you start getting all of these cycles of abuse and dependency and toxicity that you will see happen in family members and generationally because they have this belief that certain behaviors are equated with love.
Lis:
Wow. Yeah.
Marlee:
Kind of like when we talked about that certain behaviors are equated with passion. “He's so passionate about me, that's why he's so jealous that I have friends.” No, no, he's just controlling.
Lis:
That's right.
Marlee:
Or, “Well, she just loves me so much and that's why I have to take care of her.” It's like, no, no, she's just using you. It's not love because true love is wanting to do everything for another person.
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
That's what love is. Love is, you're the one making the sacrifice.
Lis:
That's right.
Marlee:
That is how I knew I loved my husband.
Lis:
Oh yeah?
Marlee:
That is how I knew I loved my husband. I'm being completely serious. It's when I realized a situation would occur and I would say, “No, you know what, his happiness is more important in the moment than mine.” And then I go, “Whoa, who said that?” And then I realized…
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
I love this guy. It's not the alarm bells, it's not, I guess, ringing bells or like tweeting birds or whatever, no.
Lis:
The twinkle.
Marlee:
The twinkle or the butterflies. No, it's none of that. It's when you recognize, I actually want to do this for the person, even if it doesn't benefit me. I want to do it for them because it's going to make their life better.
Lis:
Right. And you, you actually take somebody else's thoughts and feelings into consideration in a situation.
Marlee:
That's right.
Lis:
Right. It's not one sided.
Marlee:
That's right. And if somebody's being a jerk to you, toxic, competitive, neglectful, whatever it might be, that is them not trying to make your life better.
Lis:
No.
Marlee:
It is not.
Lis:
Those are not positive words.
Marlee:
No, they are not.
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
They're absolutely not. And I need our listeners to understand this. If you catch yourself ever saying, “I love him or I love her” as a way to rationalize or excuse bad behavior that you have either experienced or observed or an outsider has maybe mentioned to you. That should be like the hairs on the back of your neck should stand up. That should be such a serious warning sign to you. It should.
Lis:
Yup.
Marlee:
And if you are not getting that alarmed feeling, you need to take a step back and you need to do some serious self reflection. Because if you're willing to offer such incredible unconditional love, which by the way is for children, not partners, then you at least deserve it in return.
It's venting time with Marlee and Lis.
Marlee:
It's that time when Lis and I get to vent our frustrations over commonly experienced issues in romantic relationships. Today's topic, When Women Refuse to Understand that Leading Men on Makes Them a Jerk to the Next Woman.
Lis:
Hmm. Okay. So, I feel like I need to start this one, if that's okay with you.
Marlee:
Please, go ahead.
Lis:
Because I feel like I wanted to clarify something, and, okay, so maybe you're interested in getting to know this person, but then the circumstances or your feelings changed, which is actually natural and not something to feel guilty about, and then that person got angry at you. That's not what we're talking about. To me, that's not leading somebody on.
Marlee:
Correct.
Lis:
So, For me, the leading of somebody on is you say what you think they want to hear, no matter how you feel about it. They've told you what they want and what they're looking for, and it doesn't actually match what you're looking for, but you're still seeing them.
So you're kind of leading them down this path that they think that you're going to like meet all of these different expectations that they have. And they see you as an “us”. And you don't, and then you rip the Band-Aid. So the net is that if you're doing any of those types of things on purpose, and then your partner gets hurt, they're going to be damaged and lack trust moving on to their next relationship.
So to me, it's a purposeful act. Like you're consciously leading this person down a path thinking that you're in a coupleship and in a partnership. But in the back of your head, you've already kind of canceled them out. You're looking for the next best thing.
Marlee:
Yeah, no, I mean, look, this was an interesting topic because I'm taking it again in a similar, but slightly different direction.
Lis:
Yeah. Love it.
Marlee:
But I love what you just had to say. So for me, too many women have not been taught how to set appropriate boundaries with men. Learning how to say no is a skill that very few women actually master over their lifetime.
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
Women do not owe men anything. If they're not interested, they should not feel guilted into being kind or giving the man attention. There's a difference between being polite and straightforward versus kind or nice. Many men misread kindness as some type of romantic interest.
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
As crazy as it sounds, it is unfortunately true. Therefore, women need to be very aware of how their words and behaviors impact males that are sexually interested in them. As in pretty much every male you encounter. There's a difference between men who misread a situation and women who lead men on to get something from them with no real romantic interest.
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
The result can be dangerous for the woman, as well as, the next woman that enters the man's life. When women play with men's fragile egos, they end up creating monsters. When you make a man feel used, he will make sure the next female feels the pain. Some men deserve to be treated like garbage because of their own actions. However, for the men out there that you use as a filler until something better comes along, please realize the damage that you do to their psyches.
Think of the women who will come after you. You have the choice to set appropriate boundaries and insist the man follows them. And if he doesn't, you walk away. The difference between men who play women and women who play men is the level of violence and abuse that results from the latter. When women get played, they either take it out on themselves, or the asshole who played with their emotions, which is completely acceptable for them to take it out on the asshole, not on themselves.
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
Unfortunately though, in the case of men, they take out their hurt and anger on the next innocent woman who comes along. This is what I mean when I say that when you purposefully lead a man on, which again, Lis, I agree, there's a big distinction between when a guy thinks he's being led on merely because you're being nice.
Lis:
That's right.
Marlee:
Versus when you actually are actively in a relationship with a guy knowing that your wants and needs don't match up…
Lis:
And you're not going to take it further.
Marlee:
And you're not going to take it to the next level.
Lis:
Yup.
Marlee:
And you're leading them on.
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
And you're lying to them and you're making them think something's going to happen that isn't because you're going to get something as a result of making them think something's going to happen.
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
And then when it doesn't, they feel so bitter, so let down, so angry…
Lis:
Embarrassed, used…
Marlee:
Embarrassed and used.
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
They take it out on the next innocent woman. Whether people like it or not, men and women are wired differently. They are. There is a reason that we see so much violence coming from men and not from women, even if they had the same triggers.
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
Women tend to take it out on themselves. Men tend to take it out on others. This is just a reality. You don't have to agree. But it's supported by fact.
Lis and I want to thank you so much for joining us this week. To view the complete show notes and a recap of today's podcast, or to learn more about us, visit www.Romancipation.com.
Before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive notifications of new episodes right when they're released. Also make sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook. If you're enjoying the podcast, please let us know by leaving a five-star review on Apple or a five-star rating on Spotify. Reviews let Apple know that great listeners, like you, enjoy our show, and that helps us expand our audience. Thanks again, and stay Romancipated.