Toxic Relationships

What is a decision? What is sadness? What is love? These are questions that a great friend asked me and that invited me to think about relationships, how they happen and how toxic they sometimes harbor. There are many more toxic relationships than we think.

We are not aware that beliefs such as “love is for life” or “love is a struggle” affect us the moment we decide to establish a bond with someone. Unconsciously, we bind ourselves, we are afraid, we possess and possess us and we become slaves of a valuable feeling.

Falling in love toxic undermines your self-esteem

I hardly remember what it was like. His name was Juan and he fell in love toxic. The disease occupied the rest of his days. Sarcasm, mockery, and manipulation undermined her self-esteem and her ability to decide. Obviously,  you get into a toxic relationship out of love or at least that’s what you think.

A short time later, low self-esteem, believing himself to be the savior of the other person, assuming the role of victim, the desire to be accompanied at any cost, fulfill a social role and the fear of moving through life ended up wearing him down deeply.

But all that which hurt her so much, she took as a justification for the toxic relationship she maintained and which, from her point of view, seemed indissoluble. The problems were obvious. Not only did he suffer, so did his partner. It was not a healthy relationship. It was a relationship that was poisoning.

Juan never realized that his vision of love was wrong and he immersed himself in relationship after relationship causing great damage and also causing it. Realizing that love has to be something else, something calm, that does not involve constant struggle or stress, can be an opportunity to get moving and seek help to change your perspective on relationships and that beautiful feeling.

Free love, love that is not synonymous with battle

How many times have we heard “you are mine and I am yours”? We still have a long way to go to get out of that belief that love is to possess the other person. Free love can be considered by many as that both members of the relationship can have other types of relationships or approaches with third parties. Nothing is further from reality.

We never have to tie ourselves to anyone, because love does not suffocate;  toxic relationships do. Over time, you will notice how anxiety is present in your life and you will not know why, until you step back and see the bond you maintain with the other person from another perspective.

We have to have our space, we cannot get attached to the other person as if it were the only reason for our existence. Freedom does not imply that they will betray us, that they will deceive us. This is a fear and if we start a relationship with fear we are not laying a healthy foundation so that it can flow naturally.

Finally, I would like to share this review of a very significant fragment of “Once Minutes” by Paulo Coelho about love and toxic relationships:

“Throughout my life I have understood love as a kind of consensual slavery. But this is not so: freedom only exists when there is love. Whoever gives himself totally, who feels free, loves to the fullest. And he loves the most, feel free. But in love, each of us is responsible for what we feel, and cannot blame the other for it. No one loses anyone because no one owns anyone. And this is the true experience of freedom: To have the most important thing in the world without owning it ”.