Your relationship isn’t going well. Perhaps your partner is verbally or emotionally abusive, threatening to leave or causing you harm. But there are good sides to him/her too, which you don’t want to discount, so you focus on that and make excuses for their bad behavior to yourself and others. Or you complain about your relationship to your friends, but act as if nothing is wrong when with your partner. You know you should leave, and part of you wants to, but deep down you believe this is all you deserve. Your bar for acceptable behavior is frighteningly low.

When you don’t value yourself or your emotional well-being, you teach others it’s ok to treat you poorly. And this doesn’t just apply to women. In fact, in this episode, I share a story about a male client whose wife throws things at his head and constantly belittles him. When he does threaten to leave, she does something nice to keep him hanging around. Staying in a relationship like this and “hoping” it will get better is to your own detriment. What are you afraid of losing? Why do you think you deserve this? You do NOT deserve it and you have the power to do something about it.