Maybe you know a woman, or you are a woman like this. A woman whose light shines and brightens the day of everyone she comes in contact with. A woman whose beauty radiates from her heart. A woman who is loving, caring, and willing to help everyone in need. A woman that owns a forgiving heart and laughs sincerely.
But, she finds him. The one she thinks is the love of her life. And shortly after, her light begins to dim, and shadows and pain appear in her eyes. She stops smiling. She stops radiating with happiness and love because she is exhausted from trying to keep the relationship alive.
If a worried friend or family member tries to talk to her, she will say she is okay. She starts making excuses for his bad behavior. She lies to others and to herself saying, “He is not like that”, “He is having a bad day…”. But, as she continues to destroy herself every day, you may ask yourself why she is allowing him to treat her like this, why she doesn’t just leave.
She doesn’t leave because she is a believer in true love. And an optimist. Her toxic partner knows this very well and he plays on her optimism and good heart. He knows that regardless of how bad he treats her; she would forgive him and believe in him that he will change. He knows she is seeing the potential of him and their relationship, what could be, and she hopes for the best. He is certain that he only needs to say or do something nice from time to time to keep the fantasy in her alive.
And that’s how incredible women get stuck in toxic relationships for years.
They trust that things will get better and they continue to hold on. They are strong and brave and that’s why they don’t give up when things get difficult. They always try to find the good in the bad and that’s why they can’t leave unhealthy relationships just like that.
Optimistic and loving women tend to always blame themselves when something is wrong. She then explores and evaluates the things she said, makes sure she didn’t act needy, and she looks for ways to solve her past trauma because she thinks the reason why she can’t make the relationship work is hidden within her. She tries everything and overanalyzes her behavior except she doesn’t see that the problem lies in the toxic partner that is right in front of her.
She gets involved in a game that she doesn’t know she is playing.
When it comes to being involved with a toxic person, her optimism and hope are working against her because the toxic person knows all too well that her hope will make her make excuses for his disgusting behavior.
Sadly, there are therapist out there who will try to find what’s wrong with her, codependent issues, daddy issues, abandonment issues, low self-esteem… they will try to use any word to name what could be broken within her instead of focusing on what the real problem is – her strengths.
Because, if a woman is successful in other areas of her life, and she only struggles with romantic relationships because she gets stuck with toxic people, then she was not in those relationships because something was wrong with her, but because of everything that was right – her hopeful nature, her optimism, and her belief in the good in people.
And this woman will become shattered and devastated once her optimism is destroyed and she can finally see the person she loved for who he really is.
However, even though her optimism and hope can sometimes work against us, I still believe that being kind, hopeful, loving, caring, and forgiving can bring good things and good people in our lives. Not everyone is toxic. There are still great people out there who are waiting to meet people like us.
