Article By LaShauna Dixon // EEW Magazine Online // Relationships

I was in a toxic relationship for four years, and it almost destroyed my life.  I was a case study in relationship don’ts. Truly, what not to do should have been inscribed on my forehead.

When I was in the situation, I was aware that it was unhealthy for me. But I felt stuck at the time and was too weak to walk away. I continued giving up small pieces of myself, until there was nothing left. Eventually, even after putting up with his chronic cheating, manipulation and mistreatment, he left me for someone else.

I should have been celebrating my freedom, but I was too brokenhearted and blinded by what I thought was love. My self-esteem was shattered. I was angry with myself for tolerating him only to be left high and dry. Looking back on it now though, I see that the forced breakup was the best thing for me. Had that not happened, I might still be entangled with him.

For over a year after our breakup, I was in a deep depression. I refused to hang out with friends. I isolated myself from family members. I distanced myself from God. I was sad constantly. I went to work, then came home and cried in bed. I am an emotional eater, so I fed my feelings and gained 30 pounds. I was in a terrible rut!

With time, things got better. I started doing some soul-searching, did a deep-dive into my feelings and asked myself for the first time, girl, why are you in this predicament? I stopped blaming myself and began working on my relationship with God, getting therapy, praying a lot, and getting to know myself better.

As a result, a light bulb turned on in my brain. I saw that I had invited that toxicity into my life, and I allowed it to happen because I was not whole. I needed to work on me. When I took accountability and made a commitment to real change, life got better. Depression lifted. I began taking care of myself again and finding happiness for the first time in a long time.

On my healing journey, there are 4 key realizations that helped me see where I went wrong. I saw what I didn’t do that I should have. Had I known the things I’m about to share with you, I could have avoided the toxic relationship altogether.

Here are 4 things you must do to avoid (or get out of) your own toxic relationship.

#1 Address your feelings of unworthiness. If you feel unworthy of love and you’re insecure, your standards for your relationship will be too low. Insecurity makes you a prime candidate for manipulation by a man who sees your insecurity and exploits it for his own gain.

A manipulator gravitates toward those who will tolerate mistreatment, excuse bad behaviors, and self-blame when things go wrong in the relationship. That way, they don’t have to take personal responsibility for their actions. They can do and get whatever they want without having to sacrifice anything. So, address your feelings of unworthiness. Before entering any relationship, believe that you deserve love, respect, and happiness. Otherwise, you’ll never expect or demand it.

#2 Stop expecting someone else to make you happy. If you are broken, unhappy, and desperate for love when you’re single, that brokenness, unhappiness and desperation won’t magically vanish once you get in a relationship with someone else. Do the self-work before getting involved with anyone romantically, because another person does not possess the power to make you content or complete.

If you don’t realize this, you will go on thinking that your connection to them is the only way to be happy, and you will be too fearful to let them go despite their toxic nature. Healthy women would rather be alone than unhappy; broken women would rather be unhappy than alone.

#3 Honor yourself. When a woman dishonor herself (like I did), she goes against what she senses in her heart. She quiets the voices warning her about the red flags she sees, because she is fearful of losing a relationship. Don’t ever invalidate, dismiss, or ignore what you see or feel for the sake of keeping a man, keeping the peace, or keeping up appearances.

Treat yourself well. Take care of you. Pamper yourself, even. When you learn to honor you, you’ll have that same expectation of your partner. Behave as if your feelings matter, because they do. If you don’t do this, you will be in constant turmoil and will be forced to suppress your emotions and pretend to be happy. There will be no joy in your life, only misery.

#4 Give yourself an out clause. In an agreement, an out clause lets you cancel the contract for specified reasons, without penalty. In a relationship, an out clause is an internal agreement you make with yourself that gives you permission to walk away if necessary. To simplify this idea, it purely means having standards. It’s about standing up for yourself and saying, some things, I will not tolerate. These are my deal-breakers.

Establishing firm standards would have spared me the pain my previous relationship caused. Without any guiding principles, do’s and don’ts, any woman will, even if unintentionally, bind herself to an abusive, manipulative, toxic individual in the name of “making it work” or being a “ride-or-die.” You have to ask yourself, what are my non-negotiables in a relationship? And stick to them.

No one should expect a perfect relationship, but everyone should expect a healthy one. When you have a healthy romantic connection, your partner values you, respects you, grows with you, and is willing to admit and correct wrongs.

But, before you can expect them to do all these things, you must address any broken areas within you that might lead you to invite drama-filled, toxic relationships into your life. It all boils down to self-evaluation and putting in the work to improve you first before trying to build anything with someone else.