I have a friend who has been in probably one of the most exhausting situationships I have ever come across.
I can’t even call it a relationship, because it wasn’t that.
My friend met her ex when she was in college and although he was the one courting her, it turned out she was courting him for the next decade.
Young relationships normally stick out longer than they need to because people hold onto the fact that they have known this person for so long, or that they have watched each other grow.
But what a lot of people, especially females do not understand is that although it is amazing to see that person grow to be better every day — you also have to watch them outgrow their old character and sometimes outgrow you.
My friend was in it knee-deep.
Swallowed by a black hole kind of deep.
She was there for them during the financial hard times, the family feuds, the prison sentence — all of it.
After his time away, the tables really turned.
He got another woman pregnant, he was cheating on her excessively, he was talking bad about her to others, he did it all.
And guess what — she stayed.
As the years went by, she was so invested in this person that she fell into depression, left her job because of it and was just sitting at home mopping all day.
He became her life.
She would tell me:
“I did everything for him, why did he do that to me? I was there for him when nobody was, why is he treating me like this.”
And my brutal but honest answer to her was: “Because you’re stupid.”
Some may say I was harsh, but a reality check is needed for people living in a fictitious world where such a relationship could ever end in happiness.
My friend had convinced herself that this was her person, the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
How she was able to see the future so brightly when the present and past were nothing but darkness and misery bewilders me.
Years went by and she stuck it out. She accepted that he was a liar, a cheater, a horrible person altogether.
But she stayed.
She kept saying “I have a soul time with him”.
And every time she said it I would either roll my eyes back or just laugh.
Because it wasn’t a soul tie — it was self-hate.
A self-hate that started from him but eventually she made it her one and only identity.
Women are more emotional beings and unfortunately can get sucked into this pattern of loving their selves less and loving others more.
A man will probably or never will deal with as much as my friend would have. They’re logical beings and are better at leaving bad situations.
Women like to convince themselves that all relationships are bad to defer from the fact that they are in a toxic relationship. They will pass the man’s mistake off as something small, but end up crying every night about it.
How does that make any sense?
Self-hate.
You don’t love yourself enough to walk away from a bad situation.
You don’t love yourself to see a situation for what it really is.
You don’t love yourself when you allow someone to mentally abuse you.
You don’t love yourself to see when someone hates you.
You don’t love yourself when you love someone who doesn’t respect or love you.
That is not a soul-tie.
Simple.
