Why stay in a toxic relationship?

There are so many men and women who are currently involved in highly toxic relationships and who have no desire to leave them.  To most people, this does not make any sense whatsoever.  Why would anyone elect to be in a relation that is toxic and therefore dangerously counter-productive?  What good can come out of a situation that is highly destructive?  What I find quite intriguing is that most individuals who are implicated in those types of relationships are often times perfectly aware of their situation, and yet it seems like they do not want to do whatever it takes, so they can finally reclaim their lives and move on.  What justifications are generally used to explain this appetite for maintaining the status quo?  I frequently hear that the fear of suddenly becoming financially insecure is a great motivator to continue enduring all forms of abuse.  Another common reason is the aversion to ending-up alone.  In other words, it is preferable to remain in a devastating environment, because there is someone else who is involved in the equation, the abuser.  The permanent state of weakness that the abused one constructs and constantly reinforces is so overwhelming, that the likelihood of waking-up one day dissipates fairly quickly.

A toxic relationship does not solely refer to an abusive marriage.  Friendships or even the relation that one has with his or her job can also be deleterious.  There is a wide range of interactions that create alienation and annihilation.  And it is crucial to identify every single one of them, before proceeding to their eliminations.  But for most people, the identification process is the biggest challenge of their lives, and it is a scary one.       

::: Can you allow anything to supersede you?        

In the best of all possible worlds, the answer is no.  But since the best of all possible worlds does not exist, it is important to assess truthfully the pertinence of every single choice that you make, so you can gain as much clarity as possible on what is productive versus what is destructive.  What does this entail?  It signifies that the only point of reference that can be used during this exercise is you.  No one else matters.  Most people base their final decisions on the impact that they have on others.  The intent is to ensure peace and harmony, while avoiding judgments that would ultimately affect the reputation and ultimately the relation itself.  Under the pretense that it is necessary to include other people in the computation of the decision, most individuals forget to include themselves.  And this is a major issue.  The more you discard yourself when you make a choice, the more others realize how much you can be controlled and manipulated.  Predators smell it.  Abusers see it right away.  Do you really think that abusers prey after people they view as secure?  If you allow anything to supersede you, they have the ability to detect it immediately, before using it relentlessly to crush you.

What motivates people to pick something and make it greater than they are themselves?  What has the power to be so much more important than what they are, and for which they are ready to lose all senses of self?  What have you always lacked of?  For some, it is money.  For others, it is attention, love or acknowledgment.  What you lack in life is your biggest Achilles’ heal, because you are ready to do whatever you can to get it and make sure that it never goes away.  What you lack is your prison.  What you miss is your limitation.  I have realized that missing someone or something was indeed a dreadful confinement.  So I do not miss anyone or anything any longer.  It does not mean that I do not appreciate anyone or anything any more.  I simply do not need the presence of someone or something to be able to function in life.  To require a presence, whichever it is, is not healthy.  And it can open the door to all types of emotional exactions. 

The answer never lies within someone else.  I have worked with women who were raised in poverty and, when they were little girls, had promised themselves that they would rise socially and never lack of money for the rest of their lives.  So they married rich men, who also happened to be extremely abusive.  As soon as you seek an answer for your life from another individual, you instantly become highly vulnerable and at the mercy of this other person’s views.  This is toxic.  You are not in control anymore.  You become the recipient of his or her desires, emotions, nastiness, frustrations and thirst for alienation.  Anyone who has high self-esteem always refuses to be put on a pedestal and be the source of another person’s life.  Such individual constantly empowers you to seek greater for your existence.  This explains why toxic people have barely any sense of self.  They need to provide and make you pay for what they provide.  Are you currently involved in a toxic relationship?  Do you know whether it represents a limitation of your personal expansion and emancipation?  The first step is to ask yourself, “What have I decided that I utterly need from someone else?”  I can ensure you that any answer to this question is a lie that you have constructed to make you feel small and pathetic.  But daring to answer it can also signal the beginning of a brand new and exciting life.   

::: Can you be intrinsically strong and involved in a toxic relation?

All the men and women with whom I have worked and who were the recipients of an abuse in their respective relationship were very far from being pathetic.  That may not sound logical, and yet that was the reality.  How can an individual who is not intrinsically weak choose to endure being bullied, diminished, belittled and sometimes physically hurt?  Well, what if sustaining such levels of personal adversity were in reality a way to prove oneself of the existence of immense psychological and emotional strengths?  There are folks who continually prove themselves that they are strong by creating successions of amazing things.  There are others who believe that they need to suffer and consent to tremendous levels of sufferings to know that they are not weak.  If you are a part of the second group, would you like to migrate quickly to the first group?  Life is way too short to allow such insanity to confine all the good and positive that you have the power to generate.  To prove yourself that you are strong does not mean that you must destruct yourself in the process.           

How many people grew up in toxic households and are now an intrinsic part of one?  How many little boys and girls had an alcoholic parent and are now involved emotionally with an alcoholic?  It is true that for those who are asleep and therefore anti-conscious, to jump from one highly dysfunctional relationship into another is like business as usual.  But is it the same dynamic for those people who are consciously aware of the choices that they make?  The need to be part of an immutable routine cannot be a receivable explanation.  Do you think that those who decided that they have failed at healing their alcoholic parent gave themselves no other choice but to heal someone who now suffers of the same disease?  It is certainly a respectable belief but, ultimately, at whose expense?  How many women, who witnessed their mother being beaten by their dad, are currently married to a wife-beater?  Have they convinced themselves that they could fix their guy?  This is insane.  You cannot change anyone but your own self, therefore all those enterprises are deemed vain.  And you certainly cannot change yourself to please someone else.  That does not work.

You do not have to stay in a toxic relationship to prove how strong you are.  You do not need to surround yourself with toxic people and create obnoxious friendships to get the confirmation that you can bear anything.  You do not have to be miserable at work in a job that considerably limits your potential to know that you deserve so much better.  You already are phenomenal, so would you like to get over yourself and start thriving like never before?  This society is an aversion to self-empowerment.  Most individuals have been conditioned to believe that they utterly need to rely on someone else to get a measure of their self-worth.  This is absolutely ludicrous.  Only you can develop, grow and nurture your self-esteem.  It does not depend on someone else’s viewpoint or judgment.  To allow another person to influence the way you perceive yourself is likely to have horrendous consequences on your life.  There are people who judge you, and that signifies that they allocate most of their time toward trying to define who you are.  Do not embrace such definitions because they are extremely constricting.         

--

You are strong, so would you like to choose what allows you to enhance your existence, without projecting yourself into the future?  Remember, no one knows what the future is made of.  The decision to leave a toxic relationship is often times tampered by the fear of an uncertain future.  But that fear can solely be based on ungrounded assumptions and conclusions.  When you honor yourself by leaving a dreadful environment, you can only attract positivity, happiness and bliss.