When It Has to Be Good Riddance to Toxic Relationships

If you cannot be yourself, you cannot be your loving self for those who depend on you for the love they need from you to receive.

If you are in a relationship with anyone who is toxic, narcissistic, sociopathic, a gaslighter, the whole idea of their existence in your life is to magnify themselves and therefore to reduce you so you are less yourself, and as a result, less for others.

It should be obvious at this point
that this is not good enough!

But rarely do we question relational states;
we tend more to cover over and tolerate.

When we understand that life is a gift to be given away, because we see so much need of love in those around us, and especially in those who come to depend on us, we see how vital it is that we remain vitalised.

Perhaps it’s our heaviest responsibility; to remain vitalised, to attain and maintain our holistic health. Toxic people tend to tear our health apart. They are incapable of sustaining collegiate relationships, because there is not enough self in them to be able to give of themselves to ourselves and others. The moment they get close to people, damage occurs.

Think about it for a minute. The basic capacity to relate with another human being requires enough self-concept to not be driven to exploit people to prop up the self.

To have a relationship of any kind is to give of ourselves to them, in such a way that we can trust that we won’t be taken advantage of, and that this other person is capable of loving us as well. This is not so much about our ‘neediness’ as much as it is about a more primal need; our psychological safety.

Let’s not beat around the bush.
Our safety, everybody’s safety, is paramount!

We are not being selfish when we require something of another person we are in relationship with. We are being wise to create and maintain what we call boundaries. If we don’t do this, we will then be at the mercy of others who do not respect the relationship, and will adversely affect our health, which will therefore have a knock-on effect in that we cannot give of ourselves in a healthy way to others who depend on us and our love.

Can we say then that it’s important to rid ourselves of toxic relationships? And it doesn’t matter who they are. Now, I do understand that it’s not always that simple.

I love it when Jesus said that his mother and brothers and sisters were those who do the will of his Father. Jesus gives us permission to relate with those who are safe to relate with. Indeed, Jesus is calling us into these relationships.

In theory we should find these relationships in the church. How ironic it is that some of the unhealthiest people you would ever meet have made for themselves a home within the church, to profit from empathetic people, to exploit grace, and to confuse leadership, through an aggressively entitled mindset that drives their behaviour.

Of course, there are complexities we need to bear in mind and take into account. Sometimes people behave in a toxic way for circumstantial reasons; they are essentially operating out of character.

This can make it hard to discern whether people are good for us or not, and whether we should hang in there with them or not. What makes it doubly hard is the type of narcissist who always expects the grace to go their way, but they have no grace to return. How do we maintain a relationship with such a person? Again, it can prove too costly.

The largest slice of our being well enough to love those who depend on us depends inherently on the love we receive. This is a living fact; the common human need; it isn’t something to negotiate away as being from selfishness. No, it is wisdom to require a certain respect be received as we are prepared to give it.

This article isn’t about rejecting and
abandoning people who need us.

But it is about warning people who need to understand their impact on us and others. To make a stand on abuse is the loving thing to do. It’s about calling people to the standard of love, which is humility, the care of compassion, and just a plain considerate reasonableness where conversations can be had, and people can be heard and adjustments to behaviour can be made.

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