Ending Toxic Relationships

Why you have to do it and exactly how to do it

Congratulation. A year from now, you will look at this decision, and you will know that it was the right decision. Ending a toxic relationship is not easy. But you will get there.

I trust you.

How to proceed

To properly end a toxic relationship, it’s important to understand the mechanisms that make a toxic relationship so seductive.

You should also understand why you became trapped by this particularly toxic person.

When it’s time to end the relationship, cut all contact with the person in question, reach out to friends and family.

Reset your focus and allow time to pass to heal yourself.

You have to prioritize yourself and your dreams

I know that you are capable of taking care of yourself, and that’s what’s everything is really about.

When you feel that it is difficult to end a toxic relationship, always reset your focus to the respect you have for yourself. Also, put your focus firmly on the dreams and aspirations you have for your life.

Choose yourself

If I could tell you just one thing, I would tell you those high-flying plans you have for your life can become a reality. But to achieve them, you have to end your toxic relationship.

Ending a toxic relationship is hard

Toxic relationships have a way of trapping you and making walking away very difficult.

You feel like you don’t have a way out, and there is no good alternative. And that’s why you need to understand more about why toxic relationship occurs.

Toxic relationships are spellbinding

You also need to understand why they are so seductive. The more you grasp the mechanics behind a toxic relationship, the more successful you will be at ending a toxic relationship.

Signs of a toxic relationship

The clearest sign of a toxic relationship is that you don’t feel happy about who you are around a specific person.

Your energy levels will be very low.

It’s also common that you try and deny the situation by constantly explaining why you are feeling so bad. You want to blame yourself, not the toxic person.

You walk on eggshells

A relationship is toxic if you feel worried about the other person’s possible reactions. You try to adjust yourself and your personality so as not to upset them.

On top of this, you watch yourself and you watch them. Always being careful about your actions.

You try to tell yourself that everything is fine, but deep down, you know that the reality you live in is unhealthy.

It’s not you; it’s the toxic person

Deep down, you know that you are suffering, and you feel like you have become a hollow version of your real personality.

You will know that you are in a toxic relationship if this person mistreats you. Examples of this can be ignoring you, being negative towards you, insulting you, or punishing you in different ways.

The roller coaster

One reason why a toxic relationship is so seductive is the roller coaster effect.

We are intrigued and attracted by things we cannot predict. As humans, we thrive on the unexpected. And nothing is more addictive than an unexpected reward.

You crave the highs

Since you never quite know what you will get when you are in a toxic relationship, the times when everything is great will feel incredibly good.

You will have received an unexpected reward, and you will keep on working on getting more of those highs.

The highs are an illusion

The highs of a toxic relationship feel so high just because the low part is very low.

If someone takes away your self-confidence, they do a trick on you. They take the power to give you back exactly what you need.

Since they are the reason you feel bad, they also have it in their power to make you feel good.

You are being manipulated

They pull you down and, by doing so, gain the power to bring you up. To understand this mechanism even better, check out our articles about love bombing and manipulative behavior.

Love bombing

The start of a toxic relationship is often an intense emotional experience, with lots of love and lots of hope.

If the toxic person weren’t also very charming, no one would get stuck in a toxic relationship, ever.

But everyone who has been in a toxic relationship knows how seductive they are in the beginning. You feel higher and more in love than you have ever been before.

The toxic person will build you up

The toxic person most likely put you through an intense phase of love bombing.

He or she probably told you they never met anyone as fantastic as you and suggested an amazing future for the two of you.

Toxic people trick us

As humans, we don’t want to be alone, we search for connection and understanding. In this search, we are vulnerable to toxic people.

Toxic people know how to tell us what we want to hear. They seduce us. Accepting that you have been seduced and tricked is the first step toward ending a toxic relationship.

Get Perspective on the toxic relationship

Everything I told you so far is to help you get perspective.

Give yourself even more perspective by writing down your unique experience with this toxic person.

I suggest making a list on your phone. This way, your thoughts and conclusion are always available to you.

You can read and reread them.

Letting go of hope

The hardest part of ending a toxic relationship is letting go of hope. As humans, we are full of optimism and hope.

To end a toxic relationship, you need to let go of the hope.

You need to realize that things will not get better. Most likely, they will get worse. You might object that you love this person, that you understand him.

In fact, he is probably having a worse time than you.

That’s how manipulation work

Manipulative people use your empathy to trap you.

Don’t fall for this trick. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself if you want to be empathic or if you want to be happy. With a toxic person in your life, you can’t be both.

The more you understand about manipulative behavior, the more you will be able to protect yourself.

You have to save yourself

Some people are incapable of happiness. You can’t save him. But you can save yourself.

What do you need?

In this step, you will do some soul-searching. What do you need?

This toxic person does fill a hole in your being. Understanding more about what you might be lacking will help you grow stronger. What do you get out of this relationship?

When you know more things about what you get from the toxic relationship, you can ask yourself if there are other ways to get those things.

Do an inventory of the practicalities

Also, ask yourself about the practical steps to end your toxic relationship. Do you need a job? Do you need somewhere else to live? Often one of the reasons we stay in a toxic relationship is practical.

The relationship gives us financial safety. The relationship gives us somewhere to live. Quite frankly, we are a bit lost in the world without our relationship.

This is a strategy many toxic people use to get control over you. They make sure you are dependent on them in a lot of different ways.

Take control over your own life

To end a toxic relationship, you have to become independent, both emotionally and physically. This will not happen overnight; untangling yourself from a toxic person is a process. But it’s important that you write down the different practical steps you have to take to break free.

Get Therapy

We can all fall victim to a toxic person. But there were reasons why you fell for this particular person.

There were causes why you needed this person. If you don’t address those deep-seated reasons, you might fall into the same trap again.

It’s difficult to see ourselves clearly. Because off this, therapy can be effective. You need to address the root of the problem. If you have the possibility and can afford therapy, I strongly recommend giving it a go.

You are responsible for your choices

You are not to blame, but you are responsible for your personal growth and for becoming a more comfortable and confident version of yourself.

Therapy will help you trust your judgment again.

What to do if you can’t afford therapy

If you can’t afford therapy, there are many exercises you can do on your own. The most important one is to set small goals for yourself and increase your ability to achieve those goals.

We often know exactly what we need. We know that we need to be creative, connect with nature, and care for our bodies.

But knowing and doing are not always the same thing, and you need to bridge that gap.

The way to do this is to start by setting a small goal, for example going for a walk, and then keep the promise you made to yourself. You have to practice being the person who gives the thing you need to yourself.

Cut all contact when Ending a Toxic Relationship

It’s a big day when you finally decide to leave a toxic person.

To successfully end a toxic relationship, you need to cut all contact. It’s a big decision, and you will need all your willpower to stick to your decision.

Don’t trick yourself into thinking that you are capable of micro-dosing on your toxic person. Don’t attempt to fade out. Make the breakup a clean one. Move out and move on with your life. Don’t accept phone calls. Only write short messages as replies.

That goes for social media as well

It’s also very important that you delete the toxic person from all social media.

Don’t feel bad about this step. A toxic person is like a drug. You have to stop cold turkey to get rid of your addiction. To end a toxic relationship will hurt, but if you allow the process to drag out, it’s going to hurt even more.

Stay out of reach

When they reach out, which they definitely will, because toxic people can’t stand the thought of not having you wrapped around their fingers. Stay strong. Don’t allow them to get to you on an emotional level.

You will miss your toxic person

The toxic person will promise you to change. They will promise you anything you want to hear.

Don’t listen. Don’t trust them. Step away from the fire and stay strong in your decision.

Remind yourself of the downsides

You most likely will miss them. That’s OK, as long as you are firm in your belief that you don’t want them in your life. When you feel doubt, go back and read the things you wrote about how they make you feel.

Would you want that for a friend, for your daughter?

Allow Time to pass when Ending a Toxic Relationship

Time is one of the things you need to be able to move on.

Consider time your friend. Count the days and then the months. Every day away from your toxic person is a victory. Time itself will help you heal. Time will also help you see more clearly, and time will help you grow stronger.

Find out what gives your life meaning

Be specific about what activities bring you joy. Fill your life with those activities.

The things you enjoy doing are medicine for your sense of self-worth. In your passions, you find your true strength and the meaning of your life.

A way out of the addiction

In a toxic relationship, you often lose yourself, and it will take time to find yourself again. Give yourself time. There is a reason sober people count the days of their sobriety. Being involved with a toxic person is the same as having an addiction.

Reach out to friends and family when Ending a Toxic Relationship

Toxic people normally isolate you from your friends and family.

This is part of their devilish strategy. To end a toxic relationship, you have to reverse this process. You have to try and bring your friends and family close to you again.

Apologies for being absent

Reach out to people who you have dismissed because of your toxic relationship, explain the situation, and apologies to them.

They might not accept you back in their life right away. Don’t blame them. You were the one who ditched them. Give them time. On top of this, you also have to do the hard work of finding new friends.

Dream big

Expand yourself. Toxic people are often critical of your goals and dream.

This means that if you have been stuck in a toxic relationship, you probably have tried to adjust to what they want from you. But your life is not small. Your life is expansive. To reclaim your life, also reclaim all the possibilities.

You have been in a mental prison

Toxic people always put you in a mental prison. Thus, you haven’t spent enough time on your passions. You might not have learned anything new in a long time.

But life is about learning and developing, and challenging yourself. So do go ahead and spend some time and money on learning new skills.

Keep yourself busy

Also considering starting volunteer work.

Keeping busy is an excellent strategy to stop you from thinking about your toxic person.

We often do things toward people expecting them to be nice to us in return. But a nicer way to look at life is to do nice things towards people and not expect to get instantly rewarded or even rewarded from them. If you do nice things, life in itself will reward you.

Keep on reading

Here at Her Brilliant Friend we have more recommended reading to keep you busy.

Check out Ending a close friendship, if the toxic relationship you want to end is a friendship rather than a romantic relationship. Also, check out How do you know if you are dating the right person, to find out more about what a healthy relationship looks like.

A Final Note

We enter a new relationship with high hopes. We fall in love; we become close to this person.

To be able to give to our new relationship, we take time from our passions, from our friends and family.

This shift is minor in a healthy relationship. But in a toxic relationship, you forgo everything important to you to be able to satisfy the toxic person. Only, your efforts are never enough.

In a healthy relationship, on the other hand, you feel fulfilled and free. In a toxic relationship, you feel your whole being, your whole world, turn into a small frightened animal.

Ending a toxic relationship means reclaiming your strength, reclaiming your passions, and reclaiming your connection with other people around you.