The Aftermath Of Loving A Toxic Man

The worst thing about loving a toxic man is how hollow you feel after he leaves you.

Loving a toxic man is a type of trauma I would never wish upon anyone.

Imagine being with someone who makes you question everything you are and ever wanted to be. He completely destroys your own perception of what’s right and what’s wrong.

You’ve probably seen it one too many times.

You’re in a relationship with this toxic man who makes you feel miserable. But you don’t know how to leave.

You want to find a way to walk away from him without leaving a broken heart in the wake of the aftermath, but you simply don’t know how.

He’s made you believe that he’s the only one who’s able to love you properly. He’s made you believe that you deserve all the pain just as much as he deserves your absolute loyalty.

Words like those, when they’re repeated enough times, become your truth.

And the people around you are confused. How can you trust his words? How can you believe him when he obviously doesn’t deserve you?

What they assume is that you don’t love yourself enough. They assume that you’re too much of a coward to walk away from him, so you stay because it’s comfortable.

They probably never experienced pain if they believe that the constant hurt in your chest is comfortable.

These people actually believe that you’re weak for not leaving. They think that you lack self-respect simply because you let him treat you like that.

What they don’t understand is the strength needed to walk out of that relationship.

They don’t understand how much time and effort you need to walk out of there in one piece.

The aftermath is a whole other story. Piecing yourself back together after loving a toxic man needs more strength than anything you might have ever tackled in life.

Because of that, you, me and every woman in this world shouldn’t be ashamed. You can’t let people shame you for the pain and misery you’ve been through.

Because you’re not weak, you’re one of the strongest people out there.

Simply because letting go of the man you thought to be the love of your life is no easy quest.

You made so many plans with this person. Even during the hard times, you still remembered the good moments in your relationship.

You remembered every time he would kiss you like he didn’t care who was watching.

You remember that he used to tell you how he’d make you his forever.

There wasn’t a moment when you didn’t want that.

Even when you had to pick yourself up from the floor, you still wanted all those good things he promised you.

But the day comes when you have to admit to yourself: Holding on is so much harder!

Holding on to the man who can’t see your worth is nothing less than miserable.

He makes you believe that your opinions, wants, and needs simply don’t matter.

He’s invaded your privacy on so many occasions that you’ve lost count.

Whenever you’d leave your phone somewhere near him, he’d go through it without any respect for your boundaries.

Actually, he bulldozed right through your boundaries. This man didn’t care enough to show you any form of respect whatsoever.

And then he made you believe that everything was your fault. You’re the reason he’s behaving like that, and you had to be fine with it.

So what happens when you walk out of a relationship like that?

You obviously can’t just move on with your life as if everything is fine and dandy.

You can’t just pretend as though nothing happened. Your scars are so deep, your wounds still hurt, and you’re supposed to be happy that you escaped him?

God knows that the aftermath can be just as destructive as loving a toxic man.

But at the end of the day, when you walk away from him, you finally have time to heal.

When people think of healing, they think of spa days, self-help books, and walks through nature. You can’t really heal like that after loving him.

Simply because the silence consumes you. You feel like it’s eating you up alive.

When you’re alone in the silence, the residual love you feel for him knocks the wind out of you.

It makes you reconsider so much and you’re left to wonder if you’ll ever be able to heal completely or if there will always be a silent reminder of him.

Then let’s talk about the horror of trying to love again after you’ve loved a toxic man.

After a toxic relationship, a normal one feels awkward.

He showed you his toxic love and he made you believe that it was the right way to love someone. Love was always in relation to questioning yourself.

You can’t imagine loving someone without always flinching whenever they raise their voice even a little bit.

You flinch when people explain things with their hands, because you’re just waiting for that hand to meet your skin.

Even if he never hurt you, you knew that it wasn’t beyond him to try.

When someone new comes into your life, you feel like their unconditional love is fake.

You’re taught that love should be awful and full of pain, so why does it feel this good?

That’s exactly why we all end up pushing so many good people away. We were thought by the toxic men we loved once that it’s all a mask.

You don’t understand what it means to be loved and treated the way you deserve to, so everything just feels awkward.

But there’s one thing you and I have to learn together and that is that we can’t let the fact that we loved a toxic man deter us from loving anyone ever again.

You might want to crawl into a hole and never emerge. You want to hide yourself to heal and keep your heart whole.

Even if a man showed you all the kindness in this world, you’d still be confused by his intentions.

When you think of yourself like that, you might find self-pity in your heart, but please don’t pity yourself.

What you need to feel is absolute admiration and love for the strength you’ve shown in this situation.

Many would have stayed out of fear and pain that might come with leaving the toxic man they once loved.

Because yes, it will hurt. It hurts you to think of the woman you were and it even hurts when you look at yourself now.

You think that you’ve deceived yourself for what you went through.

But believe me, it has nothing to do with you and it has everything to do with him.

It will continue to ache for who knows how long until you heal from him.

And even when you think that you’ve healed completely, there will be a small spark in your chest that’ll hurt from time to time.

But it won’t be enough to keep you from true love. It won’t be enough to make you shy away from love ever again.

Once you meet the man who’s worthy of you, you’ll realize that the toxic guy you once loved never gave you anything remotely close to love.

He just poisoned your poor heart.

So when you meet the one, everything will finally make sense and you’ll realize that the pain of healing was worth it. You had to go through hell to get into the arms of heaven.

You’ve figured out your own value and you’re going to learn to love again. So don’t worry.

The aftermath of loving a toxic man is scary, but you can get through it. It’s nothing compared to what you’ve already gone through already.