"The most painful thing is to lose yourself, because of too much love for someone else and forget that you yourself are unique." - Ernest Hemingway
Toxic relationships aren't just relationships with someone who treats you badly, they're the horrible relationship you have with yourself. A relationship where you think you deserve it.
She wasn't stupid. She knew the game he was playing. She learned it so well that she could anticipate every move. The one that is coming, the one that is in progress and the one that will happen. She almost enjoyed all their comments and games in a sick way.
His ego soared to new heights every time he crossed a line and upset her with his behavior or speech. He watched her reaction. She was never silent, but hit back.
They behaved as if they wanted to hurt each other in some way. "I'm not going anymore. It's over ," she wrote. "You can't finish something that hasn't even started."
Why couldn't she let him go? Why couldn't she just leave? How can she love someone like him? But there was something about him - a kind of addiction she couldn't let go of. She couldn't resist him. She always answered his messages or answered his phone immediately. She couldn't say "no" to herself, and it was like that every time he said it “Come.” she went to him.
This relationship not only changed her, but also the relationships she had with other people. She began to expect bad behavior from everyone. She became so numb and distant that no one approached her anymore. The moment someone would try to approach her, she would run back into the arms of the person who made her this way.
He taught her that she could no longer trust anyone but him. She believed that no one would ever know her as well as he did. He taught her not to let anyone else so close to her heart but him.
He came and went. They shared much more than just a physical relationship, but also an emotional attachment that made her unable to leave. He knew all about her past, as she knew about his. She shared secrets with him that she had never confided in anyone and he knew her under the surface. No matter how confused she was, love was there.
In toxic relationships, the most difficult thing is to realize that this kind of love is not real, that it is toxic.
But people stay - they believe in what a person is like when they are good with them and forgive them when they treat them badly. They think that will ever change. They stay in these weird relationships because they want to be the person who will change them.
But you can't change people, you can only love them. And you can love someone deeply, but you can't make them love you back the way you want and deserve.
Many people think that a bad man is easy to spot, but it is not so. Often the person who destroys you is the one who sneaks into your heart and pretends to be everything you've ever wanted in love.
On the one hand, he is a perfect man, but on the other, he hides his poisonous nature. For him, everything good is compensated by bad and bad by good. It's abuse and leaves no bruises or marks other than self-inflicted ones. The ones that somehow stain and destroy you from the inside out.
You become dependent and normal relationships become abnormal for you. A toxic relationship teaches you that it's perfectly normal for love to hurt. That love is suffering and pain. It teaches you that if you love someone, you'll do what they say, even if it doesn't make you feel good. It is difficult for you to leave such an attachment and this person, because you mistake this relationship for true love.
She was naive to think that love was what was causing her pain. She was thrilled if he made time for her, she couldn't possibly find true love because she was hiding in a toxic addiction. She gave herself and more to the relationship. True love and a true man would meet her halfway.
It's hard to let go of a toxic relationship because it stirs up painful excitement in you. When you've been in it for a while, that's all you know. There's something about that love-hate relationship that makes you give up on anything that would take you out of it. All you want is to stay.
You don't realize that this will never change. This future you imagine and hope for will never become reality. Because if a relationship is toxic, it's like quicksand, the longer you stay, the harder it will be to get out. And eventually it will destroy you.
It seems almost impossible to leave, but once you start respecting yourself, you will never put up with this kind of behavior again. The day you recognize toxicity and let it out of your life is the day you say to yourself: "I can't believe I've ever loved someone like you."
