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We live in a world where so many people do not know how to love properly, and it is not entirely their fault, as many people were not properly loved as kids. The kind of relationship most people saw between their parents was not right, and most kids grew up believing that's the way to love. It has affected most of their love life, especially those who have failed to re-evaluate themselves on what love is and how to act in a relationship properly. 
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<center>[source](https://unsplash.com/photos/7I1wrtRz5QQ)</center>
Let me tell you a story about our then-married neighbour during my childhood. That relationship is one for which I never prayed for anyone because of the toxicity that was evident between the two couples. I was way younger back then, but I could smell the bad blood between the husband and the wife. I learned that both the man and the lady were forced to get married by their parents. The couple had never had a relationship before living as man and wife, so there was a lot of friction, brawl and quarrel between them. 

They were days when my dad had to step in to stop a physical interaction between the couples as they were always fighting each other. I feel the toxicity came from the lady and later affected everything in the relationship, including the husband. I heard the man would go to work and drop money for his wife to prepare food and care for herself. The man will go out to work as early as 7 am and get back home as late as 8 pm, and he would be shocked not to find his wife home or even food. Even when both were home, they spoke to each other, and I think the marriage crumbled, but we left that house as my parents could not cope with the noise always emanating from their apartment. 

I have also found myself in a toxic relationship that almost changed me, but I left before that could happen. So the relationship was between an ex-girlfriend and I. We started off on a mostly rocky note due to the fact that I had to beg her to be in a relationship with me. So I realised that she was always doing some funny intolerable things to me, for example, slapping me when I made her angry or gaslighting me and avoiding communication with me when I failed to send her money. I found the whole situation very new and confusing, and it changed me as I saw that I was starting to get comfortable with shouting at my woman. 

After she crossed her limit and embarrassed me in public, I managed to end things with her. We were having dinner in the eatery because she does not cook for me. I ended things with her on this day because she slapped me in between an argument, and I almost slapped her back. I have never been that provoked to the extent that I want to slap a lady back in retaliation. I left the scene because we were outside and blocked her on all social media where we were friends. To date, whenever I think of that relationship, it's one I regretted being into, but it happened during my youth when I was still in school. 

What the whole experience taught me was that you always love yourself first before going into a relationship. Because if you do not love yourself, you can never love another person, right? Also, by loving yourself firsts, there are many toxic traits you will instantly reject in a relationship regardless of who the person is. Also, never beg for love; I think the fact that I begged for her to date me, created an impression in her that I could not do without her. She was so overconfident that I could not do anything to her, nor will I even think of leaving her, regardless of how badly she acted. 

So after leaving the relationship, I realised that I am also a spec and don't have to beg to be loved. I loved myself first and could go for months without being with a girlfriend. I realised how much my mother loved me and how priceless and unique her love was, and I should not expect that from anyone temporarily in my life. I realised that when you stay too long in a toxic relationship, it might start to change you, so leave before you start to act in ways that even you do not recognise. 

Kindly engage and let me know what you think in the comment section. 







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