During my cram packed searching and studying to learn all I could about Toxic Relationships, Narcissists and other Cluster-B types… the one thing that really stuck in my heart was what Jackson Mackenzie said about them stealing our “innocence”. Now you may be thinking, well I wasn’t so innocent when I met my partner… for myself I had a previous 20 year relationship and three children. That’s not the innocence we’re discussing here. We are talking about the belief that all people are good, that love can conquer anything, that if we give enough of ourselves we will get that in return. What a beautiful dream.
A dream that the Toxic Partner shatters, and once it has been shattered it cannot ever be the same. That is what they steal from us. It is definitely what mine stole from me. While I can never have that innocence back, there are other things he stole that I will, can and am reclaiming. My joy, my laughter, my confidence. I am taking those things back, and you can, too. I don’t know what moving forward, in regard to another relationship, will look like. I don’t know when I will be ready or how hard it will be to trust. Honestly, that’s okay, because right now it’s all about focusing on me. I spent nearly six years focusing on Him, it’s my turn.
Guess what? He didn’t deserve a day of what I gave him, and neither did the person you gave your precious love, time and energy to. Sure, my heart still longs for him often, because my head can’t tell my heart what to feel. If it could my heart would be cold and angry! So it’s probably a good thing that it can’t. We have to feel to heal, we have to mourn what we lost, even if it was just an ideal romance that we conjured in our minds. Please remember that’s what it was, I’m not saying your monster didn’t think they loved you, I’m saying they aren’t capable of what we know as love. While there were many sweet moments, they just weren’t enough to justify the anxiety, the fear, the torment that dominated the majority of the relationship. When I become overwhelmed with sadness or loneliness, I remind myself of what it felt like to sob into my pillow so he wouldn’t hear me. What it felt like to tiptoe around him so he wouldn’t get upset by my presence in my own home. How I was always torn between making him happy and being a good mother – and that too often he won when my children should have.
Yes, he may have taken my innocence, but he did not destroy me. My payback is that I am going to live the most beautiful and love filled life that I possible can. I want the same for you.