I understand why women stay in toxic relationshits and marriages. The rosy past and the dream of happily ever after. I have spoken with many women who eventually were so depressed it was either they leave or depression kills them.
When we talked I realized that the man involved having moved on to another woman is doing the exact same thing to the new woman but she’s still in infatuation stage and she’s blind to the reality of who this man is and why his exes left. Even when they know they have magical thinking that it won’t happen to them and the problem was the other wife who left.
In the course of healing I realize that it’s not the man the woman is mad at, she’s mad at herself, for not removing herself, protecting herself and just admitting to herself that she is with a toxic partner. The most painful thing is when you hurt yourself. By negligence. By lack of self esteem and self love. By desperation to stay in toxic relationshits. It can take forever to forgive yourself. The same way you would struggle to forgive your mother if she hurt you bcz she should be the person who is your greatest ally.
So when you stay in a toxic relationshit and you even get kids to see if the man will change bcz of the baby then things only get worse, it hits you like a ton of bricks that the man is just being himself, how can you hate or blame anyone for being themselves? It is you who has betrayed and abandoned yourself bcz you realize quite early that this is not what I signed up for, I am not happy with this person, I can’t change him, I can’t do anything other than leave or stay and suffer for the rest of my life or until he or she leaves.
When you look at the sunk costs especially when you have kids, it seems like an impossibility to leave. Especially women bcz they care about their kids growing up in a broken home and the stigma attached. It’s tough but you can’t lie to yourself. You will start getting sick, you will get depressed, you will become a shell of who you were, I’ve even heard of women getting strokes and heart disease. In the end your body will force you to leave.
If you can’t remember the last time you woke up with a smile on your face, it’s time. If you are having all kinds of ailments you never had before and I don’t mean STIs, it’s time. If you don’t remember the last time your partner did or said something loving to you, it’s time. If you sit up at night, next to your snoring partner wondering what you are doing there and feeling so lonely like you are the only person in the world, it’s time.
Life is really short. If there’s something you can’t afford it’s to be perpetually unhappy. First of all stress is worse to your immune system than even HIV. Is this person really worth your happiness and your health? Is anyone?
Otherwise Christmas is here. Happiness be yours.