Should You Detox From Toxic Relationships?

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Christ Alone and the Wrath of God

The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty God is hanging over our heads.

They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish. God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Defining "Toxic Friendship" and Why the Term Is Unhelpful

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your host, Harrison Kerrigan, Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we seek to answer the age-old question, should you detox from toxic friendships?

Now Tim, this is one that you were really looking forward to doing. You brought this to my attention. Was there any sort of special reasoning behind that? Do you have a toxic friendship in mind that you've been thinking about detoxing from?

Yeah, I wanted to sit down and talk with you about our relationship. Another live rebuke I see. I mean, I didn't know how to tell you without a camera rolling.

Yeah, in the public eye, yeah, I get it.

Yeah, it seems like you're always getting me into trouble with some of the topics that we pick, so time we sit down and have a talk about this partnership that we have here.

Well, that is definitely not the way that I thought this episode was going to go. I had a completely different plan in mind. But, okay, so putting the joking aside, putting the joking aside, what is this?

What does any of this mean? I think probably for a lot of people who run in the same circles that we do, we probably don't typically speak this way. I don't know, maybe some people do. I guess I don't normally hear this kind of language being used.

So I guess can you just start by, maybe let's define some of the language we're using in this topic question.

Part of the reason why this is unfamiliar territory for you is because this isn't a very masculine way to talk, talking about detoxing from toxic friendships.

Yeah, it feels like something I would read about on, like if I were to get on, oh shoot, I can't even think of the, oh, Pinterest, Pinterest.

Right, right. So this is a question that came to us from a lady, and this is detoxing yourself from toxic friendship. This is very much a female way of speaking.

And not only that. Hang on, Tim. You can't just say that something is a female way of speaking. That's sexist. You didn't even know what the topic was. All right, all right, point taken.

I can see the point. This is the kind of thing that my wife will, as she's on Facebook groups, she will point me to this kind of language is very frequent within female Facebook groups and that sort of thing.

And it's a very psychological way of talking in general. So it's a new way of talking to where there is this seemingly moral imperative that individuals have to remove themselves from destructive relationships.

This is predominant in a lot of the abuse literature too. And so this is a unique way of talking that individuals are embracing at this point in time that is something that may be foreign to people who are not in the know.

But what was the question again?

Let's start off by defining some of the terms so that we all know what we're talking about here. Right, yeah.

So part of the problem with a subject like this is if you're going to talk about something like a toxic relationship, it really isn't a biblical term. So you're not going to read through the Bible and you're going to come up with rules for toxic relationships or 14 ways of identifying toxic relationships and everything else.

It's just a very new way of talking. And it's something that if you were to just do a simple Google search or DuckDuckGo search or whatever search engine you use if you don't want to use the search engine of the devil.

But yeah, just type in that phrase toxic relationship and you're going to have any number of psychological articles, most of which are written by women, okay? So they're going to be talking about the features that correspond with being in a toxic relationship.

Now the problem is that when you actually, like if you know anything about this subject matter, you know anything about the abuse literature, if you know what we're talking about here, one of the things you'll realize is that this isn't a term that is by any means well-defined.

And basically any kind of relationship that an individual finds themselves in that they deem in some sense to be unpleasant, they can describe that as a toxic relationship. And so this is part of abuse culture in a certain sense.

And so if you want to just... I basically just did a search on this to try to give some examples of the kind of thing that I'm saying. But what I'm saying is that this is a term that basically is way overused and there's no clear definition.

And basically any relationship you're in that you don't like to whatever degree can be described in this way. But there's an article that I saw on ramsaysolutions .com. It says a toxic relationship is one that drains, damages, and exhausts you.

Hey, I guess my relationship with my daughter is a toxic relationship, man.

She throws things at you sometimes, damages your eardrums with her crying. So this is why these terms are so unhelpful because anything... This is just a worthless term. Verywellmind .com says a toxic relationship is one that makes you feel unsupported.

Misunderstood, demeaned, or attacked. So this is just... The adjectives there, unsupported, misunderstood, demeaned, or attacked, that is basically every relationship that has ever existed throughout the history of the world.

If it goes on long enough, at some point you're going to feel misunderstood for sure. And then at some point you're going to feel unsupported for sure. And then demeaning is part of the vast majority of relationships that have ever existed, and who knows what this word attack means.

It probably doesn't mean physically attacked. It probably means that your emotions are harmed or damaged in some way.

Well, I think, just to kind of butt in here for a second, I think what's really confusing about that is not even like the... The definition is just saying it makes you feel like those things have happened.

So there's not even like a subjective, no, you have been attacked. You mean objective? I mean objective, yeah. So if a friend of mine were to come at me with a pair of scissors, that would be an objective attack.

I have been attacked in this relationship. Been physically assaulted. But then to say, I feel like, that's basically implying it doesn't even have to actually happen. You just have to think that it could have happened.

Part of the rules of the game, you can't challenge a person's feelings, particularly a woman. So you can't challenge a woman's feelings. And so if a woman feels something, then you have to validate that, right?

So you have to support that because a toxic relationship, by definition, is one that makes you feel unsupported. So if the person feels attacked by you, basically you have to hang yourself in the process.

You get what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So if they feel like this is a toxic relationship and you say it's not, you are the definition of creating a toxic environment, right? Right, right. And so it's unfalsifiable in that way.

Dr. Lillian Glass was a California-based communication and psychology expert. And she coined the term in her 1995 book, Toxic People. So she coined this term, toxic relationship. And she defines a toxic relationship as any relationship between people who don't support each other, right?

See how helpful that is? Who don't support each other, where there's conflict, and one seeks to undermine the other, where there's competition, where there's disrespect, and a lack of cohesiveness. So you see how this is just an entirely useless term.

So you ask, what is a toxic relationship? Basically, my original summary of what a toxic relationship is, is a toxic relationship is a relationship you don't like. Right.

For whatever reason or another. And I can hear some people probably objecting, well, no, what they actually mean is something like this that happens over a long period of time, right? But then the definitions you just read, there's nothing in there that qualifies it with.

Like, for six months, you feel this way, right? For a year, it's just

Well, there's no way to come up with, I mean, these are not objective terms. This is just making up, there's nothing objective about anything that's happening here. You're describing the phenomenon of a person being in a relationship with some of these definitions, a relationship that damages their self-esteem, that doesn't make them feel supported or affirmed.

I mean, this is all subjectivity put on full display here. So, yes. I mean, there is no objective definition of what we're talking about or categorization of what you're talking about. And even if there was, the kind of things that they're putting into this category are the kind of things that are characteristic of every kind of relationship imaginable under the sun.

Right. And there's no way that this is like a helpful, in practical terms, there's no way this is a helpful way to look at relationships, right? Or speak of relationships, right?

Why Biblical Categories Are Better Than Pop Psychology

Well, this is why it's so important that you believe the Bible is sufficient. If you believe the Bible is sufficient, then one of the things that you have to do, and people are not aware of this, and this is one of the things I'm constantly trying to help people to understand, is that you have to, you're living in a world right now that comes up with terms like these.

And these terms are not neutral terms. I mean, these terms come laden with a worldview that is hostile to the Bible in every conceivable way. And so that seems like a fairly innocuous term, a toxic relationship on the surface.

And you can have plenty of Christians who buy into this, they have this sense in which their own relationship, it doesn't feel fulfilling, and it doesn't bring happiness to them. And so then they can latch onto a label like this.

But the problem is that this label is not a biblical label. And what we need to realize is that the Bible is sufficient. So God in His word, He's given us all things that we need for life and godliness.

And if you really believe the Bible is sufficient, one of the things you're going to do is you're going to religiously and intentionally try to describe everything that you're thinking and feeling with biblical terms and not with pop psychological terms like this.

So the best thing you can do is just to take these kind of labels, remove them utterly from your vocabulary, refuse to deal in those kinds of terms and to make yourself say, whatever we're talking about, I'm going to use biblical language to describe it.

I'm not going to use psychological language. I'm not going to use like feelings oriented language. I'm not going to use therapeutic language. I'm going to use biblical categories to describe what I need to do.

Because if I don't use biblical categories, then it might be that I get the application all wrong. So, you know, and we could talk about that at that point, but like, this is why this language is totally, utterly, absolutely unhelpful.

Just stick to biblical categories and you might understand what kind of relationship you're in and what you need to do at that point.

Now, by making a statement like that, are you essentially creating a new law saying, Hey, we, you know, don't ever speak in these terms. They're not good. Use biblical terms. Are you creating a new law here?

I'm not saying it's sinful to use these nonsense terms. I'm just saying that it will, it will lead you to sin. Okay. Do you get what I mean? Yeah. Like if you, if you speak this, like, you know, so wisdom category.

Yeah. I mean, so it's largely what we're talking about is a wisdom category, but like the problem is that the Bible says of unbelievers are of unbelievers that they speak as the world speaks. Right. And so if you speak as the world speaks, you will think as the world thinks and you will act as the world acts.

Right. So your language isn't neutral at that point. If you speak the way the world speaks, you're going to, you're going to feel the way the world feels and you're going to act the way the world acts.

And so the point there is just to say, Hey, is the original speaking the language of the world? Is that wrong? I don't think it's like necessarily wrong, but if you internalize that language and that's your, that becomes your worldview, that's the way you view the world, you know, without any check on the Bible, like then you're going to be led into sin in one way or the other.

And you're going to lead other people into sin. Right. So like, if you use this term and you think about this, so like the issue is like, this is not a neutral term. Like this is a term that's put forward, you know, that is telling, like it has a moral imperative implied in the very language itself.

Right. Yeah. So like we're talking about, should you detox yourself from toxic relationships? Well, obviously you should. Do you get what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying you actually should, I'm trying to say that.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, no, I'm following what you're saying.

If you define the relationship you're in as a toxic relationship, then what you're saying at that point is that you staying in that relationship is like putting your hand in a barrel full of acid. Vat of acid.

Yes. That's what you're saying. And like, that would be wrong, wouldn't it? Yeah. Like the Bible says, no one hated his own flesh. Right.

Right. We just read, we just read a verse, you know, this morning about those who mutilate the flesh. Right.

Right. So, but like, so the issue then is like, if you accept this term, there's a moral imperative implied in it. The answer is obviously, yes, you should detox yourself from toxic, like, relationships for your health, man, you know, or woman, like, because it would be insane.

Like, we're not, like, we're not individuals who are in favor of abuse. Right. Like, you shouldn't just let yourself be abused. Should you, right. Be damaged or be attacked. And so, like, that's where, like, there's a lot more to these kind of terms than you realize.

And so the best thing you can do in terms of wisdom is to not speak that way and not think that way and to describe it with biblical language. If you do that, you're in a much better position to figure out what God wants you to do in any given situation.

But if you insist upon using this nonsense language, you're going to, you're going to act in a nonsense way. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. Because in a sense, the language is, is sort of playing, it's playing into that victim mentality. Right. And so whereas the Bible is constant, it seems like the Bible is constantly telling us to, you know, overlook offenses instead of, instead of blow them up out of proportion or, or, you know, be completely like.

Not if it's toxic. Not if you're in a toxic relationship. Right. If you use that language, it's easy to think that way. Right.

Yeah. But see, like, that language is a club that just bad way, you know, just swatted away that verse, like a unruly fly or something. But I mean, I've never, like, the thing is, I mean, I've, I've probably counseled a hundred people who have used this kind of language and in their minds, the moment they use that language, I know what they're saying.

They're saying that not only do they have a moral imperative to exit that relationship, but I also have a moral imperative to let them and to support them in doing so. Yeah. So it's, it's not only like a, a, a moral imperative to them.

It's also a moral imperative to me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so I've never heard the person who talks like that, who doesn't think that way. Yeah. That when you, when you embrace that language, it, it is going down a, you know, it's going down a path, you know, and, and there's, you really have to be intentional and say, Hey, whoa, well, let's back up, you know, let's put this in different words.

Different language here.

Yeah. Sort of like the, the man in Proverbs, I guess six, maybe that, you know, he walks down where the, where the, the adulterous woman is or prostitute is. And then, you know, he gets seduced by her, right.

And, and Solomon basically says he's watching it the whole time. And he already knows the outcome before it even happens. Because he went, he went somewhere he knew he should have stayed away from. Yeah.

Yeah. To give another example of that too. You know, we used to, my brothers and I, we used to, we got into bowling for a little bit. We kind of rotate sports.

So, you know, Was the underwater basket weaving in there anywhere?

We never quite got there, you know, you know, we'd play basketball or tennis or ping pong or pool, or we got where we were. The, the bowling alley had like, I think you pay $5 and you could, you know, bowl for an hour or something like that.

As many games as you want. And so we buy our own lane and we got into that for a little bit. But, but part of the way bowling works is like the, the lanes are actually oiled in such a way that there's a, if you curve it, you find the, you find the channel, right.

To throw it at. It's going to go like where the oil tells it to go. And so at a professional level, they have to actually mess with it. To where it's not so easy, but you can get to where, if you find that lane, like to find the exact angle at which to curve it.

Right. If you can do that, you can keep on doing it over and over and over again. If you find that channel, but it's like that with this word, right. It'll go down a path. If you, if you, if you insist upon using those words, it's going to take you somewhere and you might not understand where it's taking you.

Okay. So I would just tell people don't, don't, like you have to constantly religiously, you know, examine your language and ask, is this in the Bible? Yeah. If you want to know how to honor God.

Self-Centered Motives Versus Glorifying God in Relationships

So when, when going back to, you know, talking about, you know, should I detox from a toxic relationship? What is like the, we mentioned like the, the, this sounds like victim language, right? It is. Yeah.

Is that like, is that the motivate, what's the motivation behind using this kind of victim language?

Yeah. I mean, I, um, so you do have a lot of people who are essentially, they're not coming at things from a biblical worldview. They're coming at things from a, you know, a secular worldview or psychological worldview.

And in that kind of framework, basically the, the goal of any relationship is going to be very different than a Christian relationships goal. So if you're a Christian, you think, well, what is the goal of this relationship?

Like you're going to answer that a particular way. Right. So like, as a Christian, like my goal in my relationship is to glorify God. That's my goal, you know, for better, for worse and sickness and health.

Right. So you attach that goal of glorifying God and you put upon it, um, all the vows that you take when you stand before the pastor, you know, at, on your wedding day and, or however you got married, right.

Do you have traditional vows that you, you basically say, you know, for better, for worse sickness and health, you realize that this is a lifelong commitment that you're making and you're making it without strings attached.

Right. There may be, um, you know, I believe in the, in terms of my philosophy of divorce, there's two exception clause view. I don't embrace a permanent view of marriage. I believe that there are two legitimate exceptions, uh, adultery and abandonment.

And I don't add a third, you know, I believe there's two as far as that's concerned, but by and large, this is a permanent union that we're doing, that we're operating on under God's rule, right. Under his authority to his glory.

So he sets the parameters for the relationship as far as that's concerned. Now you think about the secular way of going about it. Like there is no permanent of marriage in a secular mindset. And there's no necessity of marriage that is operating either.

Right. Yeah. So marriage is a purely optional choice that you can enter into for as long as it benefits you. Right. Yeah. As long as it, you know, fulfills you, as long as it builds your quote unquote self-esteem, like it's a purely optional arrangement that you can enter into if you desire to do so.

And there's social benefits that are attached to that. And, you know, so largely, this is a utilitarian kind of arrangement you're entering into at the level of marriage, you know, do it if you want, if you don't, then don't.

Right. But then any other relationship you enter into, there's no, like you can get everything from a marriage you can get in another relationship too. And so fundamentally the goal in those kinds of arrangements is largely the goal of happiness and self-fulfillment.

Uh, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I'm following you. So then in that kind of framework, then a toxic relationship is a relationship that's not accomplishing those fundamental goals of being fulfilling and bringing you happiness.

Right. Yeah.

So by definition, some pretty selfish sounding what is it's like, it's the definition of selfishness. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

It's the definition because that's like, there is no God, like this is not about God. Right. Right. Yeah. Like other centeredness is only a tool to bring about happiness.

Differing Motives in Christian and Secular Love

Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, okay. Okay. All right. Hang on. Let's sit on this for a second because, because I think probably most, most people outside of Christianity think that they are actually being selfless when they, when they pursue like loving another person, but, but probably 99 .9 of the time they're being selfish.

Right. Why, why are they being, you know, so like the husband might bring flowers home for his wife, right. As a gift for her. Well, why is he doing that? Well, there's pro, the motivation is probably for the Christian, the motivation will be, well, I want to honor God and God tells me to love my wife.

You know, husbands are supposed to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Right. I want to love my wife. I'm going to go bring her a gift. And this, this will be honoring her. This will be honored and showing my love for her.

And in doing that, I'll be honoring God. You know, among other things, there's other good things that come from it as well, obviously, but that's like the primary foundational sort of aspect that's happening in a, in a, you know, like an atheistic worldview really the only, the only reason to do that is because I would rather my wife, you know, be happy with me than mad at me.

Right.

Well, it's always about the God of self-interest in one way or the other. Right. There is no God that's above you that is, you know, setting the parameters for your action in any way is like you are your own God in that way.

So it may be that, you know, you're giving it may be that you know, you like in the worst case scenario, you're bringing your wife flowers because you want to put her in a better position to, you know, respond to your desires.

Right. Right. Yeah. But then, you know, like it could be that you're bringing her flowers just because you'd like the way it feels, right. You know, do something for someone else so you can feel like a good person or something.

Right. If you're not living to glory of God, ultimately the motive is going to center around yourself at some level one way or the other. And, and, but like, but as it relates to counseling, I mean, like there is no higher purpose.

There is no, you know, there's nothing objective beyond the self anyways. So the goal of the secular like therapist is to help an individual pursue other centeredness because it's in their own interest to do so.

Right. Cause it'll make it, cause it'll make you feel better. Yeah.

Or it's better for you in certain ways. Like, you know, Hey, if you kill everyone you see, you're going to end up in jail. Right. Right. Yeah. So like, so all I'm trying to say is like, ultimately there is no such thing as selflessness in this kind of framework anyways.

And like, you can look at any one of these websites that talk about toxic relationships and you know, the operating assumption that undergirds the entire project is the project of.

Self-interest. Right. It's,.

It's the air that all of these projects believe in because it would be harmful and damaging to yourself. If you subject yourself to a relationship that is not, you know, leaving you feeling supported or understood, you know, or that results in you being demeaned or attacked or that drains you or damages you or exhaust you.

It's all about you. Right. So this is all about, this is a, this is just a self-centered framework that you put on, put on a relationship that's operating under basically the self-centered kind of assumptions.

Handling Difficult Relationships Biblically

Right. Okay. So I think we've, I think we've pretty well established that, you know, this line of thinking is not a helpful one. It's definitely not a biblical one. So with that in mind, what would, I mean, okay.

Like, so putting that response, you know, to, I guess like, I don't, I guess like undesirable relationships in your mind or difficult relationships. We understand that there are difficult relationships, right?

There are, there are times, I mean, every relationship gets difficult at some point, you know, it might not always be like a, a world ending, you know, sort of difficulty, but there's definitely difficult, you know, there's disagreements, there's arguments, there's, we're all sinful.

So there's points where there's selfishness comes into play. There's so many different ways that relationships can become difficult. What should the biblical approach be to handling a difficult relationship?

Yeah, I think that's, what's so hard about the subject is that it's just it's impossible to give a one size fits all answer to this kind of question because you have to take it on a case by case basis.

But then the problem is that if every difficult relationship is called a toxic relationship, then what you've done is you've taken a broad range of things that could fit in a broad range of relationships and you've lumped them all under one sloppy category, right?

And then what you've done is you've given the same application to every single one of them. Then so what you want to do is you want to figure out, well, what scenario are we in here? Right. What are we actually talking about?

And the only way to objectively go about doing it is to categorize like the types of things present in this relationship with biblical language and forget the term toxic, right? So I don't, I don't care about that term, you know, and this is what I will, I mean, I will essentially say that in counseling, if I'm counseling a person and they they're saying that this is, you know, they're trapped in a toxic relationship, I'll just say, Hey, I, I, what I want you to do is I want you to describe this relationship in biblical terms.

So what's happening in biblical terms, we're not going to use therapeutic terms. Like what are we talking about in biblical terms? And I may not say it exactly like that, but that's the point that's going to come across.

Like I'm going to try to figure out what is happening in this relationship and encourage them at some point. I may not like the first thing I do is, you know, disagree with the language, but I'll say, well, what does that mean?

You know, if they were to say, I'm in a toxic relationship, it's like, well, what does that mean? What's going on in it? You know, if they say, I feel unsupported, I feel misunderstood. I feel demeaned.

I feel attacked. It's like, well, what's happening. Right. Right. Yeah. So the best thing you can do is ask, well, what is happening? Not how are you feeling at that? Does that make sense? Like, cause you'll get more information, better information that way.

But like, so there's a, like the broader point is there's a broad range of things that we could be talking about. Yeah.

The Bible basically is what you're getting at is the Bible gives us, you know, probably different responses to depending on what is happening. Whereas the, you know, talking about like the toxic friendship, what, you know, the toxic worldview is more just saying, oh, you know, if, if it doesn't benefit you, if you feel attacked, if you don't feel supported, if you don't feel understood, there's only one proper response, no matter what's happening.

Yeah.

Self-care, right. Yeah. Do the self-care, you know, pull the plug. So what are we talking about though? So, I mean, and you can imagine on the, like on the one end you have like, like I say, you have a lady who basically lets her house go and doesn't do anything at home.

Right. Her husband wants to have like family worship time. Cause we just talked about that. So husband wants to have family worship time. The wife is fighting that at every level. She's letting the house go to mess.

He's trying to take her and the family to church every week. She's fighting that she's constantly sleeping in. She's staying up all hours of the night, refuses to get up in the morning, go to church. You know, she might look at you and say she's in a toxic relationship.

She feels like unsupported. She feels misunderstood. She feels demeaned. She feels attacked. And it's like, well, what do you mean he's like attacking you? He just doesn't think I'm a Christian because he just thinks he's so much better than me or whatever else.

Right. It's like, well, what is happening here? Right. Like, what are we talking about? Well, in that scenario, like what is the application? Well, that's whatever the scenario you're just in, this is a toxic relationship.

If you want to use that language that you've made. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You're the source of this toxic relationship by rejecting everything the Bible tells you to do and then making your husband's life literally miserable.

Right now on the other end, like you can have a situation where you have a guy who like, so like I just paint, like there's a, that the girl's a bad, bad one in that scenario. Right. But on the other end, you can imagine the kind of scenario where you're married to a guy who basically has high expectations of you.

He wants the house entirely spotless every single day. He wants you to have, you know, 20 kids or something like that. Plus adopt, you know, as many kids as he wants you to adopt. And I'm not saying it's wrong for a guy to expect a wife to have, you know, as many kids as she could have or something along those lines, but you can imagine the kind of guy who basically is just never satisfied with anything that she says, doesn't listen to any of her concerns.

He's constantly putting on her, you know, an overwhelming list of expectations that he has, you know, every day he goes to work, he hands her a list of 30 things that she's expected to do or something like that, um, that are just unrealistic and show that he's taking, um, uh, no consideration to the amount of, uh, time that some of these things take, you know, so you can imagine the kind of guy in that scenario, he has nothing good to say to her.

Everything he says to her is just, I'm disappointed in you and you're a failure, you know, and you can't do anything right. And, you know, I don't even know why I try, you know, because you're just, uh, worthless and everything.

You can imagine, you know, and then that could even, like he's so frustrated with her to the point where he's yelling at her and screaming at her and maybe even, you know, threatening her with physical violence or transitioning into that.

So yeah, I mean, there's, that's a big long spectrum between those two different scenarios, right? Yeah. Like there's a big spectrum there, like in between. So like if those are the two extremes on both sides and then you have, uh, you know, it was even make that guy a wife spank or two, you know, just make him as bad as possible.

Um, so like, uh, uh, there's a broad spectrum of people that can fit in any one of those. And yeah, I mean, that one feels more toxic than the other one, right? Uh huh. Yeah. If you're going to use that expression that feels like it fits more on that end of things than it does on the other end of things, but it's an entirely, it's just, it's still an unhelpful expression.

We should stop using it. And so then you figure out what you're doing. Um, like you figure out what the biblical response is based on what the situation you find yourself in, in that way. So the first woman, yeah, no, this isn't some relationship that you're morally mandated to leave in order to pursue self-care.

Right. Right. Yeah. The second one, you know, you need to ask a lot of questions about what, what are we talking about here? Um, what have you done? Right. What are the steps that you've taken? Uh, you know, now a lot of that, if he's like, if there is no abuse that's happening and this is just a, you're married to a miserable man with miserable expectations, who isn't very encouraging, but there is a category in the Bible of just persevering through and loving difficult people.