If life ran like a storybook, the person we fall in love would not be the person who broke us. Regretfully, we humans tend to be a bit more human than that. We fall in love, we devote, we get injured– over and over– and we stay. People require people, but in some cases the cost is a heavy one. When it’s a toxic relationship, the damage can be significant.
Love is addicting. So is the hope of love. All relationships can be compared to an addiction, but sometimes the power of this can be self-destructive. When relationships become loveless, hostile, stingy or unsafe, you would think they would be simple to leave, however they can be the hardest ones to ignore.
A bad relationship isn’t about being on the downward slide of the usual relationship ups and downs. It is one that consistently takes your pleasure and follows you around with that indisputable clamour that this isn’t how it’s suggested to be.
Knowing when to let go.
In some cases the indications are clear– emotional and physical abuse, consistent criticism, lying, unfaithful, emotional hunger. In some cases there is nothing remarkably apparent– it simply doesn’t feel right. Possibly it did once however that ended long ago. The indications might depend on the isolation, a gentle but consistent heartache, an absence of security, connection or intimacy or the range between you both.
Whatever it involves, there are very important requirements that remain starving, for one of both individuals in the relationship. The relationship exists however that’s all it does, and in some cases hardly even that. It doesn’t grow and it does not support. It is kept, not through love and connection, but through habit.
Often there are circumstances that make leaving difficult. Sometimes however, there’s nothing in your method other than you. Some of the indications that you might be addicted to the relationship are:
- You understand it’s bad, but you stay.
- You desire more on your own, but you stay.
- There are very important requirements in you that are so starving (intimacy, connection, friendship, love, security, respect), and you know in this relationship they’ll remain that way. However you remain.
- You have attempted ending the relationship in the past, however the discomfort of being on your own constantly brings you back.