If you ask me about toxic relationships, I could tell you about the best person I know. He is good looking, loving, kind and hardworking. I could tell you that he was often in problematic situations, from which he always took out the best, using what would make many of us angry and bitter to be successful.
If you ask me about toxic relationships, I will always smile a little. And that’s because I know the truth about toxic relationships and toxic people.
The truth is that sometimes people are just poisonous to each other. It does not have to mean that they are bad, but they could be bad for you.
Sometimes two people come together with the best of intentions and in the end, it is clear that they do not match at all. If you ask me about overcoming a toxic relationship, I see the solution only in love.
I did not want to give up the love I felt for him. Someone I wanted more than anyone else. Someone for whom I would have done anything. Someone who got a hundred chances when I gave barely two to most men. The same one I forgave many things that I would not forgive anybody else. But the truth was that it was different with him.
And the toxic parts of our relationship have destroyed me. I use the word “toxic” because that’s what it was.
I could tell you about the times when I was staring at my cell phone and I knew that he carefully chose the words that would make me freak out and then stop reporting to me. Or, he knew how to handle me as the discussions in disputes escalated. He always had the words to soften me.
I could tell you how he turned the screams into “apologies” and “I love you.” He always managed to make me feel good in the end.
He left all the bad things he went through in his life to me because he knew he could. I could tell you about the night my mother picked me up drunk from the bathroom floor. I cried in her arms because I missed him in those months when we did not talk to each other.
I could tell you about the games on social networks where we often added and deleted each other.
I could tell you that there was no kiss that filled me with so much fire and passion in the moments we were together. And I can tell you that every time he left me, my heart is broken.
I could tell you about the years of back and forth, and every time he disappears and comes back, I secretly hope it will be different this time.
I could tell you that I saw him in my future. I could tell you how I defended him in the quarrels I had with my friends because they saw the self-destruction that he caused in my life.
But the truth was that I hurt myself when I loved him. This love has changed me. I went from someone who demanded respect to someone who did not want relationships unless he had this toxic adrenaline rush.
I had many expectations of how to be treated, but I developed into someone for whom it was normal to be treated like dirt.
I lost myself trying to love him, and what happened was that I ended up in many similar relationships where I was not treated the way I deserved.
So if I say love and toxicity in the same sentence, then it’s love, but what you need to understand is that it would not have been poisonous if the love had been reciprocated.
And that was the difference. I loved him and he could not love me the way I needed it.
Each of us needed something from each other and we kept trying to find something that was not there. We held each other and hurt each other because we were used to it.
And people ask, when will it continue?
And there were many little things.
I sat in my car in front of his house because I was not allowed to come in. We had to sneak around and hide because our relationship was secret. As I met new people, I had to be careful not to see my phone conversations with him, because that would automatically mean the end of our relationship. I went to events alone, because every time he should be my companion, he let me down.
But the truth was that there was not a single moment when I was enough because, with each of those moments that should have pushed me away, I was like a moth lured to the light.
But after a while I really got tired. I could not do that to myself anymore. And the truth was, I went away and still loved him. I went away and still thought about him. I walked away, still thinking he was a great guy.
Because the truth was, he was and is a great guy. And it took me years to realize that we did not fit together well.
Trying to force anything will only end in destruction. So that was a self-destruction. And as the years passed, we came together, but not on a level of intimacy, but friendship. As I looked into his eyes, pictures from the past came up again and again. But the moment I realized everything was when I sat across from him, staring at each other and feeling nothing.
I’ve managed to get over the person I never thought would do it.
And we parted with a kiss on the cheek and he said he loves me and I knew he was serious this time. And I drove away and listened to our song, and it did not hurt anymore.
What I first learned to overcome a poisonous relationship and allow it to be a friendship was forgiveness. Second, it was about the love that did not fade but only changed the shape. And third, sometimes the people we want to be with are the ones we are best at without. And that’s fine. It’s okay if you do not get what you want. Because you only get what you deserve …
