A toxic relationship never starts out that way. They start out as a promise for a different future then his past. They start out as a goofy best friend. They start out giving you loyalty you've never had before. They start out as someone you have a different view of then everyone else. A big bad convict who you held while they have cried, who acts like an 8 year old boy playing in the ball bin in WinCo at 2 in the morning, they make you fall in love with them and start thinking how boring and how lonely your life was before you found them. Then, when shit gets rough and they start slipping into their old ways you try to help them back up because you know that this isn't the life they want. You know that anyone else in their life won't help them to get back up because they too are in their downfall. Then when they get arrested you tell yourself this is just a mistake and it won't happen again. You tell yourself that again the next time and the time after that because you have an image in your head of a happy life, of the future they promised you and don't want to give up on that life that is slowly slipping away. You don't want to grasp the fact that they continue to make these choices or that it's no one's fault but their own. You tell yourself that maybe god put you in their life for a reason. Maybe you are supposed to give them something to change for. Maybe if you leave he will fall into the black abyss of the lost and never get out and in your mind it will somehow be your fault. When you finally realize you deserve better it's come to the point where he takes up so much of your life that leaving feels like ripping a part of your soul with him. Then, when you tell yourself you're done once and for all he calls and once again talks of a life you have always wanted. A life different from his past and you tell him you don't want it but every word is torture because you want that life so bad. You want that life with HIM so bad but your mind interrupts your heart with the fear of being a single mother. Of giving up everything for a life that falls apart. Your mind reminds you of the heartbreak he's put you through and the many broken promises he's made. And it will break your soul to do so, but you hang up the phone and move on to the next chapter of your life. You will always struggle to forget the memories you so desperately cling to but life will continue.
