TOXIC LOVE

When you think about a child, a close friend or a romantic partner, the word love pops up in the mind and instantly, other emotions rush in. Joy, hope, excitement, trust, security, sometimes, sadness and disappointment
There might not be a word in the dictionary that we are connected to than love. Isn’t it absurd and somewhat interesting that we aren’t explicitly taught how to love?

We build friendships, navigate through early romantic relationships, get married, bring babies home from the hospital with the fictitious expectation of figuring everything out. Sadly, most times, in reality, it just doesn’t work out. Most partners are stuck in marriages because of other reasons than love… Maybe it’s for the children, or he, she is so rich I cannot leave, or I just want to make my parents happy. So they wait, stick around, linger and these waitings, these insecurities take its toll on the mind and in worst cases show up as abuse or violence. Most times, the partner on the receiving end of these actions either end up dead or maimed for life. A lot of us all cannot really tell what love is, whether we feel it or not but don’t worry, I’m here to help😊. To make things very simple, there are 2 kinds of love, the healthy and the unhealthy love. Amusingly, there is a thin, barely visible line between the 2 kinds and most people don’t recognise when healthy gradually becomes unhealthy. We see the signs and miss them or sometimes, choose to ignore them and like a virus, no one connects the dots before something very bad and irreversible happens

THE UNHEALTHY LOVE

It ranges from simple things such as taking a peek at your partner’s chats, shaming a child for not doing well at school or getting excessively angry at your partner. The thing is, most abusive relationships don’t start out abusive. They start out exciting and exhilarating. There is this intensity of affections and emotions or rush. It feels so good, you feel so lucky that you’ve hit a jackpot but these feelings shift over time from exciting to overwhelming and even suffocating and trust me when it gets to this stage, the choice and freedom to leave the relationship is threatened.

THE SIGNS

THE IGNORED STALKING

It’s important to know that in a relationship, it is not about how it starts that matters but how it evolves. It is crucial to pay attention to how you’re feeling and what you’re seeing in the early days of the relationship. Is your new found boyfriend or girlfriend starting to show up everywhere? Is he impatient all the time you are slow to respond knowing you were so busy throughout the day?
Are you comfortable with the pace of intimacy?
Do you feel like you have space and room to breathe? do you have a voice in your relationship and are your requests respected or not? These questions will help reveal the difference between disguised stalking and love

THE UGLY JEALOUSY

This is one of the most frequently missed signs of unhealthy love. Why? because every relationship starts with the intense desire to spend time together and being jealous is cute and a good sign of love but it is easy to miss when it starts appearing ugly
Ugly jealousy is when your boyfriend or girlfriend starts pulling you away from your friends and families, your job and tethering you more tightly to them. Ugly jealousy is simply your partner sowing seeds of doubts about everyone in your previous life.
Healthy love is falling in love with one another, spend a lot of time with each other and still retain the connection to people and activities you cared about before
Ugly jealousy brings along with it possessiveness and mistrust, the desperation, the obvious anger in their voice. Ugly jealousy is toxic and dangerous. Most times, it’s hard to change anyone with this kind of jealousy and the best thing to do is just leave.

Phew!
I’m literally out of fuel right now. I’m sure you all must have enjoyed a thing or two from this write-up. If you have a healthy love life, keep these signs in mind in case anything starts to change. If your love is unhealthy, please, you know the right thing to do.

Till next time humans, bye!