TOXIC EVER AFTER

They say that the happily ever after of any relationship is dependent on the foundation that you set your relationship on. There are those who met and the foundation was rocky but they worked hard to maintain the respect and peace in their family and it worked out for them. Others swam in the ocean of matrimonial bliss until shit hit the fan, and they could not handle it, so war broke out and they parted ways. Now in the category of those who parted ways, there are several types of couples. There are those who went ghost on each other completely, choosing selective amnesia when it comes to their previous lover or partner, there are those who chose peaceful breakup and peaceful coexistence, and then there are those who refuse to let peace reign, they prefer violence and chaos over anything else, casualties be damned. 

I know of several relationships that began with the promise of happily ever after until they became addictively toxic to each other.

There is this couple that has been married for close to 32 years. You may say to yourself, 'wow, they have been married for so long, it must be nice’. Sure they have, and it is by the mercies of God that the woman is still alive. That marriage has been built on both verbal and physical abuse. The woman keeps taking it because, initially it was for the sake of the kids, and now the kids are all grown. She refuses to walk away now because 'what will people say' about her. She forgets that when the husband finally succeeds in killing her, society will still have plenty to say anyway. So many stay in abusive marriages because they fear how society will perceive them.

Then there is this particularly peculiar marital relationship that baffles me to date. The wife has on several occasions tried to take out the husband using snippers. The two of them know each other so well, yet hate each other with so much passion. The hate these two love birds have for each other would make Hilter blush in envy. Neither of them would let it go and the game of sabotage is still going strong after 40 years of marriage and 10 years of legal separation. I think they have never moved on from each other, and the toxic sabotage links them. Maybe they will stop when one successfully ensures the other has permanently turned their toes upwards. Or maybe nature and good reasoning will intervene for them one day.

The other couple is a divorced one. The husband was a Cassanova (not one with a pleasant face) and the wife was too verbal. He had a temper and on several occasions (maybe too many occasions) he laid hands on the wife in violence. She luckily escaped one night when he had had enough of her shenanigans and was intending on sending her to life eternal. She never looked back, the abuse was enough. But, as much as she had left that abusive Cassanova, she still kept tabs on his love life. She is always informed on the current fling, and he has had many current flings. For every woman that Mr. Cassanova dumps, the woman gains a new friend. So far the women have formed a support group which I hope is called 'surviving Mr. Cassanova'. 

The final couple has a very short story. It was all roses and rainbows until the wife gave birth to their first child. The husband lost his job and developed anger issues and sadly turned on the wife. He tried his wrestling career on her while she was still nursing their newborn. The child was barely a year old, and after three months of acting as his punching bag, the lady packed her things and left. Normally you would expect that with a child that young, the woman would bring him along, but not this woman. She left the child behind, changed her number, moved to a town where no one knew her, and we never heard from her again, more than a decade later. That is what you call moving on cold turkey.

Toxic love has been on the rise in the recent past, and I hope that we have all observed our surroundings and taken the lessons on display. They say it's all fun and games until you are a casualty of a bad relationship that you could have avoided. So think of yourself and take care of yourself. A temporary heartache might just save your life, so don’t wait for it to turn toxic, walk away. Don’t let a toxic relationship drag you down to depression.