Why A Toxic Relationship Can Lead To Your Prince

Growing up I was a huge fan of fairy tales and believed that someday a handsome prince would come and sweep me off my feet and we’d live happily ever after. Boy was I wrong… I didn’t really take long for me to realise that a real relationship just doesn’t work like that. And you know what… that’s okay!

Now, I’m not going to lie. I’ve had my fair share of broken hearts and I have most probably done my fair share of heart breaking too but it was these experiences that, as much as they hurt at the time, have helped me become the person I am today and if it wasn’t for that I probably wouldn’t have met and fallen in love with Matt.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties I used to think that there was something wrong with me... Click To Tweet

I once read an article that said that everyone falls in love with 3 people in their life and these specific types of love are there to teach us life lessons that we need to better ourselves and ensure that we don’t just settle. While some are lucky enough to find their soul mate (if you believe in all that stuff) early in life and not have to go through the lessons, most people, like myself end up in one bad relationship after another until we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

If you haven’t found that light at the end of the tunnel yet, don’t worry, it’s coming!

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When I was in my late teens and early twenties I used to think that there was something wrong with me. All my friends were getting married and settling down while I was just stuck in bad relationships. At the time I thought that I would never get married and settle down and that I was going to end up having to purchase a load of cats to make sure I didn’t end up alone.

Looking back, I see that although it hurt like hell at the time, I was being ridiculous! When you’re in your early twenties you should be worried about living your life and having fun. Not about why you are not married yet but all you friends are. The other thing I realise is that I wasn’t ready. I wanted to settle down because everyone around me was doing it and it felt like something that was expected of me, not because it was something I wanted. And the truth is, I was a complete mess back then! I didn’t even know who I was or what I really wanted so if I had managed to find someone crazy enough to marry me, we’d have most likely been getting divorced 6 months later.

It's a love that on paper, should work and we spend a lot of our time and energy trying to force it... Click To Tweet

Anyway, enough of that… back to this article!

The Love That Looks Right

So the article states that your first love is the one that is idealistic. This love usually happens when you are young. It’s the type of love comes straight out of the fairy tales, it’s the love that we think is going to last forever. For me, this came in the form of a guy named Jamie. We met at school and I fell head over heels with this guy. He was smart, funny, cool, popular and he adored me – what else could you want right? I absolutely loved spending time with Jamie and even now I often allow myself to day dream about how things could have been if circumstances had been different. Jamie will always be my first love, the guy that made sixteen year old me feel loved and although we are so not right for each other in terms of a relationship, to this day we are still friends.

The Love We Wished Was Right

The second love (and I’ve been unlucky enough to have a few of these) is the hardest of all. It’s a love that on paper, should work and we spend a lot of our time and energy trying to force it to. So much so that we can become addicted. It’s the love that is hard to walk away from, even though it usually hurts. The reason this love exists it to help us to find out who we are, how we want to be loved and more importantly, how we deserve to be loved. The first of many doomed relationships for me was a guy named Johnny. I met Johnny when I was going through basic training to join the Air Force. He was a little older than me, and one of the sweetest guys I’d met until he cheated on me. As you would expect, I found out, I was heartbroken and then we broke up. The breakup didn’t last long though as, just like something out of the movies, he showed up at my door and reminded me of all the reasons I had fallen for him the first time. We got back together and he was the guy I lost my virginity to. We worked hard to keep the relationship going but with us living so far apart I just didn’t trust him and after a lot of arguments we ended up calling it a day.

It's brutal (and funny looking back) but ultimately, it's an unfortunate cycle we are doomed to repeat, each time thinking we are going to get a different outcome and somehow it always ends worse than the time before... Click To Tweet

Then along came Richard, he was good looking, funny, kind and still had that whole bad boy thing going on. Things with him, were great at first and then his true colours came to the surface. He was controlling, manipulative and extremely jealous, so much so that when we were apart I would get phone calls at 3am in the morning with him screaming at me because he was convinced that I wasn’t alone. Looking back, this relationship was probably the most effort out of all of them. He would cause arguments but then somehow it would always be my fault. He completely wore me down, made me feel like I wasn’t worth anything and that no one else would want me. I thought I loved him so naturally I stuck around, trying desperately to convince myself that he would change and that everything would be okay. To the outside world, everything was great, we had the perfect relationship but little by little he was taking pieces of me without me evening knowing. By the time I realised enough to walk away, I was a completely different person and I swore that I would never let myself get in that kind of relationship again. Yeah, that didn’t happen but I was able to realise that relationship was toxic and I actually walked away fairly early!

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Some honourable mentions include a guy who turned out to be gay! And a guy who claimed he loved me and then broke up with me a couple of weeks before I was due to deploy to Iraq.

It’s brutal (and funny looking back) but ultimately, it’s an unfortunate cycle we are doomed to repeat, each time thinking we are going to get a different outcome and somehow it always ends worse than the time before… that is until we have learned all we need to know about ourselves and are finally ready for our third type of love!

The Love That Feels Right

Now this is the love that we never see coming, the love that we are generally not looking for and usually are not interested at first as it doesn’t seem right. It’s not what we think love should be, in fact it’s usually like that annoying ‘friend’ that just keeps coming back every time we try to let them down gently and it’s not the type of love that we have to work hard at, it just accepts us for who we truly are.

This is where Matt comes in, he is most definitely not my usual type and he is the complete opposite of me but in a way that kind of works because we both bring out the best in each other. He was a rebound guy and I wasn’t looking for anything serious when we met each other but some how he was one of the very few boyfriends that I actually took home to meet my parents. Then a year later we were married. This year we will be celebrating out 9 year anniversary. As much as I didn’t see a future with him at first, I honestly can’t imagine my life without him in it. Don’t get me wrong, things aren’t always sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes I want to absolutely kill him but that’s what a real relationship is all about. Any arguments that we have are usually trivial and I struggle to stay mad at him for long because he knows exactly what I want from him. He is my best friend and everything with him is easy, all the other relationships I have previously felt like so much effort and not much reward but with Matt, it is different. It’s definitely a love that feels right!

I’ve been lucky enough to experience all three types of love and even though some of it has been pretty awful, I wouldn’t change a thing. Maybe not everyone gets to experience all three, maybe you found your Mr Right first try, perhaps you’re still stuck in the repeating cycle of the second love that is preparing you for your Prince, or maybe your Prince has been knocking but you just don’t see it yet! Let me know in the comments.

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