Relationship Red Flags

Welcome to A New Life podcast with Pamela Jean, where it's all about empowering women to empower more women. Get ready friends, to create a new life. And here is your host, Pamela Jean.

Hello my friends and welcome to this week's episode of A New Life podcast. I'm Pamela Jean. I'm so glad that you are here with me. So friends, this is the week. May 19th. Last chance to register for the Social Media workshop in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This workshop is going to change your life in business and I cannot wait to teach this class. We are going to help you streamline your posts, schedule your post, create templates for you to use over and over and over, which is only going to add integrity to your brand and keep that consistency going. So if you would like to register or have any questions, just reach out to me. I will post a link in the comments and you can reach me at my email if you'd like to send me that. Pamelajeanewlifemail.com In June this is exciting. In June, I'm going to be launching my health and wellness plan. I know I've sent out a few little ticklers about this, letting you know it's coming. Well, it is coming on full set in June. This, my friends, is going to be incredible. It's a plan that any can be successful with. It's an easy lifestyle shift that is going to be a lifestyle you will be able to fulfill forever and ever. Amen. It is about resetting your metabolism, reintroducing new and different foods, and living real life. Watch for more details because they will be coming for you in June. So onto today's episode and topic. What I chose for a topic today is relationship red flags. I want to talk about several different relationship red flags that sometimes we ignore and sometimes we're not even aware of. So hopefully we can bring some light to relationship red flags for you. So the first topic I want to talk about is that you are not acting like yourself. You don't feel like yourself and you have a hard time being uncomfortable or being comfortable with being you. You're very uncomfortable. The things that you used to do, you no longer have a desire or passion for. You're growing apart from yourself. So stop and think about that. You're growing apart from yourself and you're essentially losing yourself in that relationship. If you're in a healthy relationship, you will not lose who you are in that relationship. In fact, if you're in a healthy relationship, you're only going to grow within yourself. You're going to become a better person, you're going to become more comfortable with who you are, you will have absolutely no identity issues whatsoever. So if you're in a relationship right now and you just, you know that you're not acting like yourself, it just doesn't feel right. You don't feel like you, or even better, even more powerful. The people that love you have said ever since you started dating so and so you're different. You're just not yourself anymore. You know, it's easy when we hear those words to become defensive and defend that person you're with and defend that relationship. But before you do that, take a step back and really ask yourself, okay, is there any truth to that? Am I losing myself in this relationship? Have I changed? And if I have, how have I changed? Because when you're in a relationship with someone, the person you're with should make you want to become the best version of yourself. And that doesn't mean losing who you are and that you stop doing all of the things that you love and enjoy. It's meant to grow yourself in a relationship, not lose yourself. So that is the first little red flag warning I wanted to talk about. The second one is you struggle with communication. And what I mean by that is you no longer feel comfortable speaking what's on your mind, and you live in fear that you're going to say something wrong or you're afraid of how they're going to react, or you're afraid of what they might think of you. By communicating something that is on your heart and something that is important to you, you rehearse the conversation in your mind over and over and over before you have it because you're afraid you're going to say the wrong thing or they are going to take it the wrong way, and you live in fear of upsetting that person you are with. Healthy relationships are not living in fear when it comes to communication. Now, honestly, there are some hard topics sometimes that need to be discussed. And even in healthy relationships, there's hard topics that are just a struggle. It's difficult, and you do have to really place your words properly. But there's a difference in communicating well and communicating from a space of fear. And if you are afraid of what you're going to say or how you're going to say it, you just might be in a bad relationship. That is a red flag that I want you to really, really listen to. If you just struggle with communication, your fear of the fight or your fear of possibly losing them because of something you need to communicate about is a Very big red flag in that relationship. Because good, healthy, long term relationships, you have to be able to communicate. You have to be able to say anything and everything that's on your heart and be able to say those things with a knowing that you're going to be loved and supported. Even if the person you're with doesn't see it the same way as you, you know, you're not always going to think the same things and see the same things and be the same things. You have to be able to communicate without living in fear of the results of your communication. The next thing that I want to talk about for a relationship red flag is you used to love it when you saw their name pop up on your phone, when that phone call came through and their name popped up and maybe you have their picture on there too and your heart just beat a little bit faster when that starts to change and or you ignore the texts and you ignore answering the phone. You are in an avoidance mindset. You, instead of answering the phone, you just push the button that says ignore. You ignore the communication, you ignore the phone calls, you don't text back as quickly as you used to. You just become a little bit complacent and you're thinking from an avoidance mindset. If you're in a good, healthy relationship, you're not going to want to miss their phone call, you're not going to want to miss their texts. You want to be able to, even if you're busy, be able to pick up the phone and say, hey, I'm right in the middle of something, can I call you back in 10 minutes? But the idea of you see that phone call come through, that name pop up and you're like, oh, you get this heaviness on the inside and you dread it. If you dread it when their name pops up or they text you over and over and over, friends, you need to take a good serious look at that relationship. So you know all of the things that they used to do when you first started dating that you thought were fun little quirks, things that just kind of made you giggle and you thought they were just fun little quirky attributes about this person. Well, when all of those quirky little attributes become annoying, that's a red flag. So if there are things that used to not bother you, you just thought they were cute or it was a whatever for you, but now they've become annoying, you might want to take a step back and really assess the relationship you're in. Their messiness annoys you. All the little things that you thought were cute and fun are now annoying. Everything from he doesn't pick up his socks, he's so messy, he never hangs his coat up. All of the things that never bothered you before have now become annoying. That's a huge red flag. And sometimes we avoid the red flags because we think, oh, we're overreacting. It's no big deal, just get over it. It's not that big of a deal. But friends, if you're in a healthy relationship, those things are not going to annoy you. Those things are not going to bother you. But if they do bother you, you'll be able to have good communication skills to say, hey, it really bothers me when you don't hang up your coat and you keep the house so messy. Those are things that you should be able to communicate with. But if you have fallen off your ability to communicate out of fear, all of those fun little quirky things have become annoying. Chances are you are not in a good, healthy relationship. This is another red flag that I want you to think about. And the last red flag that I'm going to talk about today is you begin to question whether or not that you have the same value system. You used to think that you were aligned within the same moral compass that he loved what you loved and he believed in what you believed in and all of the things. But now you're questioning that the things that you love. He now makes fun of you for the things that are really sacred to your heart. He doesn't respect or he'll say a little snide comment about this or that. You begin questioning the things that you thought you were on the same page about. And friends, if you are in a new relationship and you are already at that point where you're questioning your moral compass, there is nothing to do other than walk away. Because if you're questioning that in an early relationship, it's a giant red flag. And don't invest any more of your time. You have sacrificed your beliefs and values to fit into their mold better. Are you doing that? Are you not attending church as often as what you normally would because it's not something he's really into? Is his belief system rubbing off on you and you're sacrificing your own belief system. Friends, if you're doing that, that is a lose lose relationship that will never change. Being with a person that doesn't align with you morally and ethically and your value systems are not aligned. That's a lose lose relationship. You can't come back from that. You're not going to make another person believe what you believe or think what you think. That is a recipe for a lonely, lonely life. And there is one other thing, one other red flag. I said that was the last one, but I just thought of something else I wanted to share with you. If you've been with someone for an amount of time, maybe three months or six months or whatever it is, maybe it's been six years, but you're now questioning where you're at in your relationship. Defining a relationship, you can't really define it anymore. Are we together forever? Are we just still dating? Are we? Where are we? What are we? If you're questioning whether or not you're in a committed relationship and you just don't really know how the other person feels, that's a giant red flag. So if any of the points that I mentioned, the red flags that I mentioned, if you identify with any of them at all, can I just be real, really honest with you? Run. Run fast and run far. This is not the relationship for you. You know, sometimes we stay in relationships out of our own insecurities, our insecurities of being alone. If you've not been dating for a while and now you're dating someone and you're thinking, well, this is better than this toxic relationship, or this red flag relationship is better than being alone, no, it's not. I you, friends, it's not. When you have a relationship with yourself that is so strong and so powerful, whether or not you're with someone else will not matter. Having a healthy relationship with yourself comes first. Then adding someone else to your life is where the gold is. That's where it gets just absolutely beautiful and phenomenal. But if you're staying in a relationship because you're fearful for being alone, or you don't want to feel rejected, you're afraid of what other people will say, you're afraid of what other people will think of you, friends. Those are minor speed bumps in your life. Minor speed bumps. It's time now to assess, pivot, and make the best choice for you and the future. So if you've chosen someone to be in your life who fits any of those red flag characteristics that I mentioned, it's really time for you to step back from all relationships and assess. Why did you choose that person? Why were you attracted to that person? Because there may be a disconnect within yourself and your love and confidence, self esteem, self worth, all of those things that have allowed you to choose someone to be in your life that doesn't line up with you morally or that has now become annoying or you struggle to communicate with, you no longer feel comfortable speaking your truth and speaking your mind. It's really time to make a deep assessment to that. This is not easy. By no means. If you are in a relationship with someone right now and you are feeling like, wow, this is just not the right relationship for me, I get it. It's not easy to end a relationship. But neither is staying in a toxic, unhealthy relationship. You know, kicking the can down the road does absolutely no good. Nothing good comes with that because the farther you go down the road, you're going to come up to the same can that you kicked way ahead. If the relationship is not healthy right now, today, it's not going to magically become healthy. And staying in a toxic, unhealthy relationship is only going to make your recovery from the relationship longer and harder. So it is easier for you to heal from ending a relationship early on than it is to end a relationship after it has gone full blown narcissistic and toxic. Listen to your intuition, friends. You know God gave us intuition. God gave us gut instincts and somehow over life and time we have been taught to ignore our intuition or our intuition is not kind or oh, don't think that about someone. That's not nice. That's not the way you should think. Your gut feeling is your gut feeling. Don't discredit that. Don't ignore that. Train your brain to see the red flags and stop questioning yourself. You know what you know and do the thing. Do what you need to do. If you need to get out of a relationship, then friends, do it. Do it. Don't stay in a relationship that you know is not going to be a long term, healthy, nurturing, loving relationship. You will have a lot less post traumatic stress from ending a relationship early than trying to end a relationship after it's been going on for a long time. I promise you my friends, your future self will thank you and I needed to add one little thing to today. Today is May 14th and it is my second anniversary. With the love of my I am so grateful to be in this place in my life and I want you to feel what I feel in the relationship that I have with my husband Gavin. So I thank God every day for him and I pray friends that you get to experience the same kind of life and love that we get to experience. Thank you so much friends for being here today. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I hope it helps move the needle in your life and you love listening to it. As much as I love bringing this podcast to you, make it a great day, friends.

Thank you for joining us today on a New Life podcast. We will see you next time.