Shadow of a freaky hand looming over scared male figure
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The monster in the relationship

Has a relationship made you jealous, irrational, or slightly crazy? Sure, we all have. Unfortunately, this is what an unhealthy relationship looks like.

And it can have catastrophic results.

Take for instance the stunning Ruth Kamande who was just crowned beauty queen at Nairobi’s Langata women’s prison. This 22-year-old beautician fell madly in love with a man. Farid, a dashing 23-year-old. Their relationship was going great. She really loved him. So when he started becoming a little distant, she didn’t think much of it. Until one fateful night when she glanced at his phone and read a text to his secret lover.

This was it.
She lost it. The betrayal was too much! So she stabbed him. Not once or twice, but 22 times. Farid fought back but was no match for his scorned love.

She’s been quoted in several interviews saying how remorseful she is about her actions and how she wished she hadn’t let things get to the extreme. But now this young lady is waiting out her sentence in a Kenyan prison, her bright future a dim light behind her.

Should it have gotten to this point? Was there a way that she could have perhaps stopped herself? What made her get to the point where she felt that this was her only choice?

Toxic relationships are characterized by several things, such as paranoia, attachment anxiety, romantic jealousy, intimate partner violence, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and unchecked violence. These emotions can make things escalate quite quickly.

It’s almost funny – we often don’t even realize that we are in a toxic relationship.
Our partners attack us and there we are, all broken, crying, wondering where we went wrong. We berate ourselves for the emotions that we experience because we feel like we are ungrateful and wretched for not being happy. Yet it’s completely out of our control.

As you go into each relationship, you inherently know that you should remind yourself that you come first. And that if your partner doesn’t value you and respect you, you should leave.

Unfortunately, it’s never that easy. We all get caught up. It becomes difficult to prioritise and say, ‘I come first’.

We want to please; and while this works when you’re in the right kind of relationship, it never ever works in a toxic relationship.

Mainly because it becomes exhausting trying to keep up with the bouts of rage, the contempt, and criticism, the overall unhappiness and negativity.

It’s hard to know what these emotions are caused by. However, you must look out for the signs that your relationship is indeed toxic. And if you are, get out. FAST!

The first thing you must do is accept that it is indeed toxic and let go. Sitting around waiting for your partner to change never works.

You must realize that you deserve better and take the reins back into your own hands.

And yes, it will hurt like crazy, but you should embrace your emotion so that you can heal and get over it. It’s not as easy as it sounds but the alternative is worse. You must remember that there will be someone else out there for you. Once you regain your happiness, then, and only then, will you begin to see the all possibilities again.


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