6 life-changing strategies that will help you finally move on
First of all; great question. Because life is hard sometimes, for all of us. You know what you should do; you should walk away and never look back. But you can’t bring yourself to be fully on board with this action. You keep going back. You are addicted to your toxic relationship, or at least your subconscious mind is addicted. You have probably asked yourself this question; how to stop going back to a toxic relationship, a thousand times.
How to break free
Now you have come here for the answer. I will give you the answer; I managed to break free from my ex after 6 years of back and forth. I know what you are going through.
I will not blame or guilt you, or make you feel like a total loser. You are probably doing those things to yourself already.
How I finally managed to move on with my life
Instead, I will give you a roadmap on how to stop going back to a toxic relationship. I will tell you exactly how I did it.
The more attention you spend on each and every step, the more likely that you will succeed. Time to bring out pen and paper and help yourself finally break free.
My 6 life-changing strategies
- Understanding why you keep going back
- Choose yourself
- Be kind to yourself
- Develop a better relationship with yourself
- Be really fucking sad
- Question your stories
Let the healing journey begin
Often we don’t understand ourselves, and we don’t understand our actions. That’s OK; we are here to heal and to learn how to see ourselves in this messy place that is our existence.
You know the relationship is toxic
You also know that the connection you feel with your toxic partner is different from everything you have previously felt in your life. Love and understanding are what make walking away so difficult.
Deep connection is rare
You know a strong connection when you experience it. And since making this kind of connection is hard-wired into our biology, it’s hard to give up. Through songs, movies, and novels, we learn that our search for love and connection is what the human existence is all about.
Walking away is never easy
When you find love, you don’t easily give up; that’s what your cultural heritage keeps telling you. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so hard to give up on a toxic relationship.
If you want even more help understanding yourself, I recommend this amazing woman.
1. Understand why you keep going back
One thing that keeps you going back to a toxic relationship is your optimism. It is also your empathy.
With my ex-boyfriend, I could see the wounded child he was once upon a time. He even enforced this view of him by telling me stories from his horrendous childhood and showing me baby pictures of him and his sister. They both looked so innocent.
He didn’t choose to become toxic. It was done to him.
You see his innocence
Every toxic partner was once a frightened child, and by empathizing with the struggles of your love, you end up staying longer than you should.
Write down your personal reason
But you cannot take your empathy and use it as a weapon to hurt yourself. Make a list of all the reasons why you keep going back. Seeing them on paper will help you break free. Knowing our pattern is the first step to breaking those very same patterns.
Ask what needs he and the relationship are meeting?
The more clarity you can gain, the more likely that you will manage to finally break free.
2. Choose yourself
The thing you have to keep reminding yourself is that by staying in a toxic relationship, you violate yourself. You are destructive towards yourself.
Put yourself first
In this sweet life of ours, we always have to look out for ourselves first. Empathies with yourself before you empathize with your toxic partner. Their pain is not yours to take on. You have to take care of yourself. It is OK to put yourself first.
You have to be very firm in your decision to choose yourself.
Relationships are addictive
Toxic relationships are especially addictive. When the outcome can’t be predicted, we get more addicted.
One of the first steps, when you ask how to stop going back to a toxic relationship, is to admit to yourself that you are addicted. Realize that the addiction is a real thing. You are dealing with addiction and that’s why it’s so hard to break free.
Your toxic relationship is heroin
When you fall in love, the hormones your body produce is stronger than any drug you can buy on the street.
Viewed in this light, your addiction doesn’t seem so strange anymore. Check out my deep dive into manipulative behavior and you will expand your knowledge.
3. Be kind to yourself
Don’t beat yourself up. The more you beat yourself up for going back to a toxic relationship, the more likely you are to go back.
It’s the same mechanism as if you put a picture of yourself looking fat and ugly on the fridge to stop yourself from snacking. It simply doesn’t work.
That sort of mentality will actually make you want to snack even more. The harder you are towards yourself for staying in a toxic relationship, the more likely you are to go back.
Understand yourself
Instead of ruminating about everything you did wrong in the relationship, think of everything you did right. Think of how you were brave and vulnerable and really tried to make it work.
Accept yourself
Be proud of yourself and the way you showed up. You did your best. The more you can acknowledge this, the easier it will be to stop going back to a toxic relationship. Check out my article ending toxic relationships.
You did everything you could
Don’t be in conflict with yourself by keep asking yourself how to stop going back to a toxic relationship; instead think about how strong you are for putting up with your toxic partner. Bombard yourself with nice words, even when you don’t particularly believe in them.
Tell yourself that you are a strong, loving and decent person.
4. Develop a better relationship with yourself
You have probably stayed up many late nights asking yourself why you keep loving him.
But now I want to put the focus on you. Because the answer to that question will be in the relationship you have with yourself. The relationship you have with him mirrors the relationship you have with yourself.
Who are you?
Whatever pain you are experiencing is pain that is mostly about you and who you are. The relationship you have with yourself is a real relationship. The more you can realize this important point, the better you will be at being in a relationship with yourself.
Spend quality time with yourself
The best way to spend quality time with yourself is to journal. Brew a cup of tea, light a candle, bring out a pen and paper and ask yourself all those questions you wanted your ex to ask you. Have a deep and meaningful conversation with yourself.
This way, you give yourself the love you so desperately wanted from your toxic person. To give yourself undivided attention is the purest form of self-love.
Ask yourself important questions
What drew you to your ex, to begin with?
Why do you put up with behavior that is not OK?
What patterns from your childhood does your behavior mimic?
Get to know yourself as if you were a person you didn’t already know.
This way you show yourself that you are an important person worthy of love and tenderness and attention.
5. Be really fucking sad
Joy is such a beautiful thing and I’m sure that in the beginning, when you first meet this toxic person, there was a lot of joy. You might have even believed you meet your soulmate.
To be able to move on you have to properly grieve that part of your journey.
Put on sad music, go for a long walk. Scream if you want to scream, cry your toxic person a river. Have a funeral for all the potential of your relationship.
Make sure you properly mourn
If you haven’t been able to move on earlier on, one of the reasons could be that you didn’t properly mourn the relationship. To lose a toxic partner is still a loss. It is a form of death.
Be present with your feelings
When you got the worst sadness out of your system, ask yourself how your feelings feel. Do a slow meditation about your emotions, label them and feel their physical sensation in your body. This exercise is a good way to process emotions rather than trying to push them away.
When you go through a breakup, it’s important that you feel your emotions and that you don’t try to rationalize them straight away. The first step is always to feel your emotions, they are there to guide you.
6. Question your stories
Or mind is a story-making machine. You want to go back to the good parts of the relationship.
I sure know that was the reason I kept going back.
When he was happy, my toxic person was a lot of fun to be around.
He inspired me; he took me on adventures. He made me feel seen. He was the best person I had ever met.
You still believe he can change
Hollywood would be jealous if they knew what was going on in your brain. You are probably imagining your ex-boyfriend meeting someone new and living happily ever after. And not being toxic to her.
I always thought my ex would change and it drove me crazy that another person would enjoy his good sides. So I kept going back. It was the stories that made me go back.
It’s natural to create stories
You might tell yourself that the toxicity was your fault because you were too crazy or too needy. If you had acted differently, things would be different.
Your mind creates stories to try and deal with the unknown. Your mind also creates explanations and excuses for his toxic behavior. That’s just how the human brain works.
Don’t believe those stories
To stop going back to a toxic relationship, it’s important that you question whatever stories come up for you.
The stories are not the truth. Check out my guide on how to get over your ex fast.
A Final Note
Ultimately, how to stop going back to a toxic relationship, is about you. The person who can give you enough love to break free is you.
You can write your own story for yourself. By taking action and prioritizing yourself, your story can be a story where you heal and improve thanks to walking away from a toxic relationship.
Pain exists to help us heal; it’s whit the help of the pain we find our unhealed parts.
Start trusting yourself
By staying in an unhealthy dynamic, you violated the trust you have in yourself.
You betrayed yourself and your own trust. Just like if you were in a real relationship with yourself, you know you have to rebuild that trust.
You have to rebuild the relationship you have with yourself. You do this by taking care of yourself, listening to yourself and encouraging yourself. You also do this by staying present with yourself.
The more you can focus on yourself, and build strength within yourself, the more likely that you don’t go back to the toxic relationship.
Moa Ailert is the founder and editor-in-chief of Her Brilliant Friend.
She has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and plenty of insight into human psychology from traveling and living in different places around the world.
Moa is currently based in Portugal where she has a guesthouse; Villa dos Irmaos.
She has various websites, among others Ericeira Insider, but Her brilliant friend is her true passion project.
