I recently linked up with a friend of mine after hearing
she’d rekindled her often volatile affair with her ex. My
first instinct was to be viciously critical of her decision,
considering what a complete douchebag he was to her.
Instead, I decided to hear her out, having been in a similar
situation not so long ago. As we sat down and she
started pouring her heart out, her justification made sense
to me. I could do nothing but sympathise with her.
“I love him”, she told me, unapologetically.
“Nobody else in this world will ever cause me the amount
of pain that he’s caused me, but I love him”.
Mind you, this was the same guy who derived pleasure
from flattening her self-confidence. The only time she
didn’t feel completely useless to him was when he had a
hard-on that she was expected to alleviate. I recall a
phone conversation she had with him where he flat out
laughed at her for confronting him about his cheating –
yet again. He shamelessly accused her of being insecure,
saying that the only reason for his philandering was her
constant nagging. I was dumbfounded.
I also got to witness his friends mocking her as we drove
past them – and instead of coming to her defence, he
helped them belittle her. Despite her many attempts to
please him (getting her hair done regularly, going to the
gym after he’d called her fat, buying “prettier” clothes
because, according to him, her dress sense left much to
be desired, putting on make-up because her less than
flawless skin incited nasty comments from him, etc.), he
could never find it in him to be supportive of her. Not
even the fact that she was a successful career woman
with her own money could deter him from being
emotionally abusive. Unless she was coughing up money
to support his drinking.
“But, she loves him”, I said under my breath.
I’m certain she’d forget about him if she could. But I also
know that it’s not that easy. And when he resurfaced after
seeing her with someone new, she probably assumed he
wouldn’t have come back if he didn’t genuinely care.
“I know I’m probably being naïve, but I owe it to myself to
give us another chance because I still love him”, she
admitted. “I love the chaos, the pain, the fighting, the
crying. I don’t mind it because it makes sense to me”.
I suppose that’s the thing with toxic relationships. No
matter how hard the third party implores you to see
reason, you won’t leave the relationship until you’re ready
to leave. You get so accustomed to the toxicity that it
eventually becomes the only thing you crave. Simply
because at that point, you know no better and you believe
you deserve no better. That’s what scared me the most
about my entire conversation with her…