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4 Toxic Things I Learned about Myself from my Past Relationships

Like anyone else, I’ve had my fair share of relationship struggles. I had some good times with a few and some not so good times with some. Seeing that I’m single, none of those have worked out – and for good reason. What I didn’t know then was there were things from my past that contributed to how I navigate relationships. At the time,I figured I had conquered any factors that would create a dysfunctional relationship. What I realized, dysfunction was what I was attracted to. Dysfunction was comforting for me. We can unpack this in a later post.

Throughout my past relationships there were things I did that when everything fell apart – I couldn’t understand why those things didn’t save the relationship. There were times when I would hang up the phone and beat my self up for what I did or didn’t say. As a hardcore Pisces, I fall hard and sometimes you’re so deep into the illusion you can’t back out. You love love so much you try to create it in relationships even if it isn’t there.

After ending my last relationship I took a step back to look at myself – because a relationship is a two way street right? Things are not always one-sided. Some things I discovered about myself, that I really didn’t like. It’s so easy to put a mirror up to someone else and show them who they are. It is much harder to look into that mirror for yourself. It’s easier to point out someone else’s flaws, especially when they allow you to. It is much harder to be accountable for your flaws. I was good at showing men the mirror – showing myself, not so much. 

So I had to take a step back and check myself. Being honest while in a relationship about who you are, in a not so lovely light, can be difficult, especially if you have one- never faced that person and two-are afraid to. What I realized is, I too had allowed toxic traits into my past relationships. Hearing that and saying it out loud for the first time was astounding. At first I even rebuked the thought. Me of all people, toxic? Sis, it’s true. So as I analyzed my past relationships, I started to recognize my toxic flaws, that I brought in or allowed to linger unaddressed in relationships. Now that I’m single and pouring into myself, I’ve taken a serious look at how I contributed to the toxicity in relationships: 

  1. Overthinking 
    1. Jumping to conclusions was (and sometimes still is) my specialty. I can, at times overthink a situation into a problem with no solution. Why is there no solution? Because there was never a problem! I allowed myself to overthink the small things, like unanswered phone calls, misinterpreted text messages and pain masked as uninterested. I would overthink small emotions or personal plights for attacks on me. Things I thought were due to disinterest or lack of- in me. There were times when my best friend would have to talk me out of doing a drive by. Borderline crazy…
  2. Holding on to past hurt 
    1. When we preach forgiveness we forget that part of forgiveness is to move past the incident and hurt that came with it. Particularly when you forgive behavior in relationships. This means being honest with ourselves about how we are actually feeling, where we currently are in our forgiveness journey and being honest about our ability to actually forgive. I said I forgave but I really didn’t fully let the hurt go. I couldn’t separate it. By not being honest about it, I allowed relationships to move forward while I carried that with me. Allowed it to seep into small disagreements or reactions to uncomfortable conversations. 
  3. Passive Aggressive Behavior
    1. My ex would call me out on this one! Instead of being up front about how I felt and what was bothering me, I held back in fear. Which turned into snarky comments/remarks, negative “us” talk, disinterest in anything he would say – really to get my anger out. Yet, what I really should have been doing was voicing my feelings. Bypushing it to the back only created more space. I was unintentionally silencing my voice.
  4. Not taking responsibility for my feelings – aka-Blaming 
    1. Yeah this was definitely a big one. There were times I would say, “he made me feel like this”, which at some point could have been the truth, but it was my responsibility to check my feelings. I was responsible for my feelings. I was responsible for how I allowed someone to make me feel. Yet because I was looking for affirmation in men, I didn’t realize I gave him the power over my feelings. No one should be able to have that much power over you are your life.

Sometimes the biggest step is realizing that you can be toxic too, and what that looks like on your end. Acknowledging this allowed me to identify the issues and start adjusting my behavior. Now, I am nowhere near perfect and have not changed these habits 100%, but I’m getting there. It’s a work in progress, with a little help from a therapist (yup you guess it, another post). In realizing this and starting to make change, It’s actually preparing me for my next relationship and my current relationship – with my self. No one will be perfect and triggers are a real thing, but my response and self-accountability will be different here. I know it. 

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