Nigerian women in toxic relationships lose sight of important aspects of their lives. The sad thing about being in a toxic relationship or marriage is that these women wake up years later to discover that they have lost themselves.
They no longer know who they are anymore. And if the relationship or marriage finally ends, they don’t know where to start from. They become angry with themselves for putting up with toxicity for so long. Some even lose the will to live.
I am an advocate of staying away from toxic people and relationships because no matter how good of a person you are, toxicity will drain you, hurt you and even break you. You must stay from toxic relationships if you want to live a peaceful life.
What is a toxic relationship? A toxic relationship especially between love interests makes you feel unsafe, unhappy, drained and devalued.
In such a relationship, you are always afraid to express your feelings, communicate your boundaries or react when you are hurt. You walk on egg shells all the time in such relationships because of how your partner makes you feel.
Toxic relationships contaminate you and depending on how long you continue to stay in one, it continues to steal large parts of your happiness, creates an atmosphere of fear, and leaves you with little or no belief in yourself.
Sometimes, marriages do not start as toxic, they come in the best possible form until the polluting begins and bad feelings begin to fester. This is not a good place to be in as a woman. It is heartbreaking.
Below are 10 things Nigerian women lose sight of in toxic marriages:
1. Self worth. This is because you have been made to feel worthless by someone you love who should have your best interest at heart.
2. Lovableness. You lose your ability to love because you were not loved by an unloving person.
3. Right to happiness. This happens because your happiness never matters to the person you love.
4. Intelligence. Having been labelled dumb, foolish and stupid so often, you start to feel you are actually unintelligent.
5. Dreams. Many women lose their dreams because their spouses deliberately undermined them and trashed them.
6. Friends and family. It is sad that many Nigerian women think its normal to be isolated from their family and friends.
7. Sanity. Women in toxic marriages lose their fundamental sanity as a result of constant gaslighting by their spouses.
8. Attractiveness. This is because a toxic spouse always find ways to make you feel ugly and unlovable.
9. Loving heart. You lose your loving heart because you are always accused of being cold and selfish by your toxic spouse.
10. Feeling safe. You don’t feel safe with a toxic spouse because you never are safe from his constant attacks on your person.
You may not like to admit that you are being taken advantage of. You may also feel ashamed sometimes because you weren’t aware enough to see through the situation.
The first step to leaving a toxic relationship is admitting you are in one, that the person checks off all the red flags and invokes demeaning feelings in you.
When leaving a toxic relationship, you need help from friends, families, and professionals to see you through and commit you to make that change.
Surround yourself with the right kind of friends, the ones that are empathetic towards your situation, and are committed to their personal development just as you are.
Sometimes, leaving a toxic relationship starts with telling the person that they are toxic and you would like to break things off. This provides a clear and clean cutoff. However, this is not recommended in verbal and physical abuse relationships.
