Josh TrentIdentity Transformation Architect and award winning Host of the Wellness + Wisdom Podcast—a decade-strong show with over 750 episodes and 15M downloads.

TOXIC RELATIONSHIP REALITY CHECK

18 Sept 2025 · 1 min

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This short transcript excerpt captures a conversational exchange about recognizing and addressing toxic relationship dynamics. Speaker A describes a personal conflict pattern (partner anger → stonewalling/defensiveness) and a practiced response asking for changed expression; Josh Trent frames that approach as nonviolent communication and says that if such requests are ignored, the relationship would be toxic.

Chapters

Someone's listening, and they're like, I don't know if I'm in a toxic relationship, but it feels like I might be, well, then the learning edge there is, like, to what degree can you advocate for your own needs and maybe set boundaries without creating disconnection? A way that I learned to do this a few years ago that was really helpful was Kelly and I used to get in a dynamic where she would get angry about something. I would then kind of close up, kind of stonewall and get defensive. That was kind of the dynamic. And when I basically learned or practiced saying something along the lines of like, yes, I want to hear what you have to say, but the way that you're expressing it, it's make it really hard for me to show up in a place of love. So can we just change this?
So that would be a telltale sign if you're in a great relationship, not toxic. If you came to your woman or your man with that type of languaging, which is essentially nonviolent communication, it's beautiful. And they still acted outside of the shared agreement, that would essentially be toxic.