Your Problem Is You Tolerate Them

It’s easy to talk about the people who’ve wronged us, hurt us, or manipulated us. But the hard truth, even for me, is that there were signs—signs that they weren’t good for us to begin with. The real problem is, we tolerate them. There’s that saying, “We teach people how to treat us,” and it’s true. When we let certain things slide, we’re showing others it’s okay. I’ll talk about why we tolerate this behavior and why it’s time to stop.

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You Tolerate Them: How Your Behavior Gives Them the Green Light

People can sense when your boundaries are weak. It’s not much different from how a toddler behaves. If you know, you know: there’s a testing phase they go through. During this stage, they’ll push limits, doing whatever they want while watching you closely to see how you’ll respond. When you don’t set boundaries or react, they keep going. Even when you do set a boundary, they’ll test it repeatedly until you finally stand firm and show them you mean business.

As adults, this plays out the same way. A person gets close to you, and in the early stages of the relationship, when you’re feeling comfortable, a toxic person begins to test your boundaries. For example, they might make a disrespectful comment about something you said. You might laugh it off, thinking they’re just being playful, but that’s when the door opens for them to continue violating your boundaries. With each violation, it only gets worse.

As terrible as this person might seem, unfortunately, you gave them the green light.

Tolerating the Wrong: Lessons from the Bible

There’s a Bible story that reflects this message on a much bigger scale, and it’s an important one because it shows how to deal with the issue. You can find it in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13. I encourage you to read it, but here’s a quick summary:

The Apostle Paul addressed a serious case of sexual sin in the church in Corinth. A man had an inappropriate relationship with his father’s wife, and instead of dealing with it, the church had been allowing it to continue. Paul rebuked them for being proud of their tolerance and told them to remove the person from the community. He explained that letting this sin continue would affect the whole church, just like a small amount of yeast spreads through dough.

How This Relates to Us: When You Tolerate Them

This Bible story is a clear example of why you should not tolerate disrespect, especially in a group setting. Have you ever been with family, friends, coworkers, or even at church, and someone kept pushing boundaries to see what they could get away with?

There is a time for silence, but there is also a time to speak up. The first time someone disrespects you, address it right away. This shows them how you expect to be treated. When you speak up, do it with confidence and self-respect.

Laughing off disrespect or going along with it only makes it worse. Instead, stand your ground and say, “I do not appreciate this, and I will not tolerate it.” Some people test boundaries in front of others to show control. If you let it slide, you are showing everyone else that it is okay to treat you the same way.

The best time to say something is the moment a boundary is crossed. If they keep disrespecting you even after you have spoken up, that is when you remove yourself from the situation. At that point, your silence speaks for you.

More Ways You Show You Tolerate Them

Here are more ways you might be tolerating them without even realizing it.

First, after someone repeatedly disrespects you, you continue to stay around them—going to parties, holiday events, or even their homes. They may invite you, but their behavior hasn’t changed. Yet, for some reason, you think that just because they want you around, they will make an effort to change. Let me tell you with certainty: even if you’ve expressed your concerns and they haven’t stopped, just because they want you around doesn’t mean they love or care about you. Most likely, they enjoy the comfort of having you as their emotional punching bag.

Second, you don’t speak up. You let them tear you apart without expressing how much it hurts. By doing this, you’re not only fighting them, but you’re also battling yourself internally, feeling torn between what you tolerate and what you really want to say.

Third, you let them gaslight you into thinking that you’re too sensitive or that you took it the wrong way. But here’s the truth: If something hurts, it hurts…whether they call you sensitive or not. If someone truly cares about you, they will feel the impact when they hurt you and will want to make it right.

Why You Tolerate Them

Speaking from experience, and maybe you can relate, I’ve realized that I tolerated disrespect due to an abandonment and rejection issue rooted in childhood trauma. I feared that if I didn’t behave a certain way, people would dismiss or abandon me. As a result, I accepted toxic behavior just to avoid being alone or to feel accepted. My need for connection led me to lower my standards and tolerate things I should never have allowed.

Second, I struggled with people-pleasing. When people would say hurtful things to me, I would smile and stay silent, thinking I was keeping the peace. But what I was really doing was letting them off scot-free and making them comfortable in their sin.

Third, it was learned behavior. I watched my mother act this way with others when we were out in public—always kind and polite, even in the face of blatant rudeness.

Fourth, the fear of confrontation—again, a trauma learned from experiences where someone made me feel unsafe or scared when I spoke up or talked back. This is something I would like to address in a future post.

Lastly, there was just the need to be around people and not miss out on the fun. Isn’t it crazy? I was tolerating disrespect just so I could have a fake sense of sisterhood or friendship.

But in the process, I was abandoning myself and my relationship with God. The uncomfortable, uneasy feelings I had while tolerating these individuals were actually signs from God telling me to let go. In the end, it cost me more than I realized. I spent years trying to learn self-respect, and worth, it drained my confidence and self-love.

It also set me back a lot because when you lack trust and confidence in yourself, when it comes to doing something new or pursuing greater things in life, you’ll find yourself questioning your worth and ability to trust yourself.

Deep down I found myself wondering if I couldn’t stand up for myself in this situation how could I ever show up for bigger things?

I hope this post, Your Problem Is You Tolerate Them was helpful to you. If you’d like to continue this journey with me, please subscribe and sign up for my newsletter. Your support means the world to me!