Sadia Khan breaks down the difference between cooperative and competitive partners. A cooperative partner responds with empathy when you raise concerns; a competitive one treats the relationship as a power struggle and may retaliate, like posting photos you asked them not to. Watch for lack of empathy and retaliatory behavior as signs of toxicity.
Chapters
What would you say are the 3 big flags that a man or a woman should look out for when they're entering a new dating relationship?
Competition or cooperation. When you have a partner that values your well-being and wants to see you feel less anxious, wants to see you feel happy, wants you to feel connected, they are cooperative. So when they say, when you say things like, oh babe, I haven't heard from you all day, they're like, oh, I'm so sorry, I completely forgot. I'll call you in 5 minutes. Give me 10 minutes, I'll call you. But other times you'll have a partner where you say, oh, you know, I haven't heard from you. Stop trying to control me. You're always taking over. You're so needy. It's stuff like that. Is it competition or is it cooperation? When you voice a concern, do they actually want to see that you and the relationship get better and your well-being matters? Or are they so stuck on their autonomy and independence and not being controlled by you that they reject and neglect their responsibilities towards you? It's those partners that are in competition with each other. Who can hurt who the most? Or who can stay the most disconnected? Who can stay the most independent? Why are you together? I don't understand those relationships. It's torture. It's real torture. So it's like, oh, I'm liking extra pictures. She told me not to like pictures. Now I'm going to do 10 times more. Oh, you know, he told me not to post bikini pictures. Now I'm going to post 10 times more. Why are you together if you're going to hurt each other? Because hurting them should be hurting you.
