February 14 – celebration of love.

In the flow of the sweetness of love, I like to talk about the toxicity in relationships.

Being in toxic relationships – be it your love/ family / friends – is one of the strong power leakages in our lives.

Yet oftentimes people in toxic relationships are reluctant to speak up choosing to suffer in silence.

I think that has to stop.

If we are aware of how a toxic relationship looks like, then we can stop being blinded by love.

In next month’s The Good Life session, we have the privilege of hearing from the speaker on how she bravely faced the toxicity in her relationship and rebuilt her life.

As a strong person and love optimist from a young age, I too have been blinded by love.

My first crush was on this boy whom I named 6.55 because I always see him at 6.55pm at the mama stall (provision shop) downstairs. I was in Primary 5 then. He was cute and tall with a breathtaking smile. He was also a “bad boy”.

In secondary school, all the boys I were attracted to were the juvenile delinquent type – boys who smoked, played truant, and were naughty.

I had lots of decent boys as friends but once I found out that they were interested in me, I shut down the friendship.

I worshipped the ground of the naughty ones who weren’t good for me; and I rejected the courtship of gentlemanly guys who spent their weekly allowance on roses for me.

My ex-husband was also a bad boy. When I first met him, he was wearing a leather jacket, bandana, and earrings. He had a colourful background and past.

The man I fell in love with after I left my marriage was provocative, different, also with a colourful past, and had a complicated model of the world with mind-boggling perspectives. After my break-up with him, I started dating. Once again, I was drawn to men who were totally non-suitable for me.

Martyr syndrome. Saviour mentality.

A friend summed it up best when she advised me: you must be careful about your saviour mentality because when you get close to someone and he is crap, you will find yourself being pulled in even deeper.

Self-awareness meant that I had to recognise that my attraction to this type of man is really non-useful.

I was worried that I would keep falling for them and hence, a lifetime of misery.

It contradicted my desire to be in a nurturing and loving relationship. I needed to recognize that the relationships I had to-date were not sweet but toxic ones.

And to snap out of the deny denial phase – this is where we are not only in denial but we deny that we are in denial. Double whammy.

Toxic relationships tend to exhibit a pattern of negativity where at least one partner causes harm in some way, whether purposeful or not. The parties do not communicate or relate to one another in healthy ways. Conflict easily arises.

I had plenty of that in the relationships but the strong me refused to surrender (last week’s sharing that being strong means not surrendering). I also felt helpless in getting out of them.

However, there is a time to hold on and also moment to let go.

When I decided to get out of them, the following action steps were useful:

In some instances, it may not be possible for you to leave a toxic relationship or cut off ties.

Nonetheless, it is helpful to recognize them for what they are. So that you can do what you can to mitigate the adverse impact and better manage the unhealthy relationship.

If you are unsure if your relationship(s) is toxic, have a read in the Action section where my colleague Dr Sunita Rai, Clinical & Counselling Psychologist, shares the signs and symptoms of toxic relationships and abusive ones.