When to Walk Away from a Toxic Relationship

I was in a relationship for many years when I decided to let go. I couldn’t blame the other why it didn’t work out. I was the one who went astray. As much as I believed that I was forgiven, but I was not. Those years that I thought our relationship was given a chance, I was not happy. I knew there was something missing; something was not right.

I was not wrong. There was another one, as I suspected all along. It became crowded.

It took me a long time to finally decide that I had enough. Gathering my courage, I said goodbye and ended a relationship that I thought would last.

It is not easy to end a relationship. More so, when we have invested all our emotions, time, and even our life on it. We always think that we can still give it a shot at a second chance even though the obvious has been slapping our face all along. Most of the time, we turn a blind eye to the truth and create a world of fantasy. We believe that it is still going to work. That it has to.

We can count a few reasons why most people stay in a toxic relationship. One is they are scared to end up alone. They are afraid to start over. They have already become too comfortable with their worthless state. They think that they can still make the relationship work. They presume that they can change the person. And the most common and popular of all is the belief that love can do wonders.

Of course, we can’t blame people who stay even when everything else is already failing. We are always blinded when we are in love. As much as we want to do what is right, we usually end up being stuck in the wrong. We think that we can still save the relationship even if we are already bleeding.

As I mentioned the reasons why people stay, mine is none of the above. I stayed because of guilt.

Yes, I was made to feel so guilty about what happened between us that it made me believe that I had to be punished because of what I did. And even if I was already miserable, I truly thought that I needed to suffer to make the relationship work.

To be fair, I knew the other one was also suffering. I knew that I didn’t have the right to hurt someone I loved. But it also wasn’t fair for me to suffer for the rest of my life. We both deserved to have inner peace. We both deserved to be happy without each other.

I already wanted to get out but I didn’t know how. But time came to zap me back to reality. And as much as it pained me to let go, I needed to do it before we would hate each other in the long run.

To be honest, I found it so hard to end it because I’m the type who doesn’t want to initiate a breakup. But I did it and I consider it one of the bravest things I have done in my entire life.

I guess it will take a while to realize that it’s time to walk away, that it’s time to let go.

If you feel that it’s making you miserable and you’re feeling worthless, don’t prolong the agony. Don’t wait for everything to fall apart and you’re already struggling to pick up the pieces. You deserve more than that. You deserve to be loved and respected.

So how do we walk away from a toxic relationship? Thinking of what happened, I wanted to recall how I did it. But then again, I realized there are really no hard and fast ways to walk away from one. The right question is when. And the answer is, it will just happen when the time comes.