Toxic Relationships
Snippet of We Heal Book:
Toxicity was part of my middle name, Budy Jamilly 'Toxicity' Garcia. Toxicity started with me and continued with the relationships I was in. The relationship with my ex had many red flags from the beginning, yet I ignored them. He was different. He took me to see my favorite artist as a first date. We went to church as a second date. Imagine, Ms. Catholic girl had a guy take her to church, say what. This man loved his mother and sister. He had a job and our chemistry was strong. I fell so damn hard for him, so I looked past the red flags, the red traffic lights, the stop signs, the u-turn signal, and the multiple bricks that God threw at me. The first 3 months we dated he lied about his education and I let that slide. I made the excuse that he felt intimidated because I was in college. The second lie was his continued connection with his ex-girlfriend who always "came around" to bring something else from their past.
My ex often tried to make me feel good by comparing us. He made me feel as though I was on top of the world because he chose me. Now let's fast forward to the serial cheating. I remember I was 7 months pregnant and I went through his email. He was corresponding with a girl telling her he was a single dad, etc. I forgave him because it was just an email and they "never" met. After birthing our son, more cheating happened. I remember one day as I woke up to go to work, something told me to check his phone. The week before this his phone kept ringing as he was getting ready to go out. I asked him about it and his excuse was that his friend gave a girl his number because he was just released from jail and didn't have a phone. When I checked his phone and text messages, the girl told me they had gone out and kissed. I excused it because it wasn't sex, right? The cheating continued and only worsened. The excuses I made for him just to be with him were toxic. My ex would drink and become verbally abusive. It was during his drinking that I realized what he thought of me. When he sobered up, he was filled with apologies and I accepted it. I started really losing myself and so I binge ate and drank. I was filled with many sleepless nights when he went out as I worried if he was with someone else. I would obsess over checking through his stuff and even got jealous when he went to see his family. I so badly wanted to be loved that this was the LOVE I chose to accept. Realizing I was in a toxic relationship and recognizing its toxicity are two different things., I realized quickly the first time he cheated, but I recognized it was toxic the moment he left me via text and I became an emotional hurricane.
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