No medals for overstaying in toxic relationships

There are no medals or sainthood granted for staying longer in an unhealthy relationship.

Red flags are there to signal that you need to take action. Ignoring a toxic relationship is not going to change it.

1. Have a conversation about the relationship and how you both feel about the dynamic. Conversation not arguments.

2. Create a timeline to start working on yourself and look inwards and observe changes. Start self-care. Seek support in therapy or counselling.

3. Look into your upbringing and also theirs, and why you might be a right fit for each other.

4. Do not subscribe to drama or chaos. Do not accept bad treatment. Create conflict resolution rituals weekly, and learn to excuse yourself from anything that does not serve you.

5. If nothing changes, remember, you have one life. Relationships have end by dates.

Root cause

However, there is also an awareness of root cause, that you require to understand why you are staying longer than you need to. Or why you stayed until you lost your voice or sanity.

Unless you understand the reasons or cause for your beliefs, demonstrated by attitude and behaviour, you are likely to see problems in partners only , without recognising the part of you that has a pull towards such people. In each moment in a relationship you keep choosing, you are the right fit. You have a part of you that fits well with a part of them. The only problem is right fits do not have to be healthy. There are also unhealthy right fits, drawn to each other because of the unmet needs in the your childhoods.

Seek support

This is the painful work you need to do, to look back at your childhood and address your trauma. Wherever you are today is an outcome of whenever you came from. You have your own beliefs, from how you were raised that are keeping you there. It is hard to accept that you are staying because of your attitudes. This is why it might be easy to put responsibility on someone else's behaviour or upbringing, rather than look into how you can avoid this behaviour now, or in future. Or you stay even longer, then you make out that it is their fault. Yet, it is more the challenge to let go that is holding you there, than that the other person is keeping you there.

Habit of denial is learnt in childhood

If you are in a toxic relationship, do not ignore your situation or pretend that it does not exist. You are living life in pain. How you manage your situation indicates how you might have coped as a child. Seek support, pay for healing, detach and adjust how you show up. Invest in a self-care and join a circle of kindred spirits who are actively working on themselves. Feel and journal emotions.

Avoid pressure on the other person and focus on yourself. Recognise that if you are fixated on the changes a partner needs to make, not your own changes, you will not progress. They have their own timeline to change.

Detach and show up differently

The reason why you are in this dynamic is because of the dance both of you are involved in. Remove your contribution to the dance, and observe what happens.

Do this by focusing on how you feel. You can begin to make decisions in your best interest, whether the other person makes changes or not. Sometimes by focusing on yourself and maintaining boundaries with yourself, the other person might decide to step up.

The reason you need to focus on yourself is because the other person needs to come to a decision to change without pressure. If you maintain self-focus, and develop self-love, you will make peace with whether they step up or they do not.

Leaving and healing

If you have decided to leave an unhealthy relationship, it is wise to take a break and rest your nervous system. You have been through a lot. Your body needs a rest and your thoughts needs restructuring. Let the healing work be the focus.

People who have a hard time looking within might also rush back to dating soon after an unhealthy relationship. This might be due to the belief that it was the other person's fault, so they can simply move on. This is also a way to avoid emotions. They might meet someone, but unless they address their wounds, they might find themselves with a seemingly right person for a few weeks or months, a year maybe. Then after the honeymoon phase, things start to crumble and they begin cycle of blame. Staying longer in a toxic dynamic and without making changes is detrimental to your well-being and to the quality of your life. There are no medals for those of us who stayed longer than we should have. There is no reward for suffering.