Have you ever had this thought? have you ever thought to yourself âHeâll change. He has to. I canât live without him.â I have to say that I have, and at one point I really believed I could not live without that one man. I had lied to myself time after time and told myself âHe will change, just show him how much you care, show him love and affection that he has never had before, and you will see him change into the man that loves you unconditionally.â I made myself believe that he would change, he would change because I needed him to. He would change for me, he would change for us and even for his daughter. He would change and we would live happily ever after. I thought I needed this man in my life. I thought I could never live without him. I was in a state of denial. Nothing was working out no matter how hard I tried, but for some reason I kept trying, I kept pursuing and I kept getting abused. My heart would ache, emotionally, physically, and even mentally I was breaking down. I became obsessed with the idea of âfixing him.â I became addicted to being with him. He was no longer just my âboyfriendâ he was my drug, and slowly this drug was killing me.I felt like I could not break away, it killed me to leave his presence. Thoughts in my mind were crashing in on me. My mind was telling me if I left him , he would forget about me, and I couldnât have that happen because âI needed himâ or so I thought.His presence was my blanket. His home was my safe place.Although this man did not show me much emotion, love, or even care, some how I made myself believe he loved me, even when he told me he didnât.He would spend time with me, he would cook for me and he would let me be apart of his daughters life. I met his friends, family, we went on a family vacation to the beach, he, myself and his daughter. Although I am young, 21 years old I knew I was not ready to take on the role of becoming a stepmother, but I slowly started becoming a stepmother figure to this beautiful seven year old girl. It was these aspects in the relationship that made me think âhe has to love me or he would not do all these things with me and he would not let me be around his daughter, if he didnât love me.âI let the little things in the relationship override the reality. I ignored all those warning signs we learned about as teens in high school. I ignored all the terrible things he said to me, and I even ignored his lies. I ignored the fact that he would tell me he had no emotions. He had no empathy and he had no love.I would ignore the statements he would say referring to when he would tell me to go put my make up on, I would ignore him when he told me his ex was sexier than I was. I would ignore all the terrible things he would say to me. I would ignore him because no matter what he said, I wanted to be with him. The worse it got, the more I would try to fit his picture perfect image of a women that is not even real, I made myself believe that he would change, and that he would one day love me.The longer this went on the worse it got. Frustration turned into fear and fear progressively turned into panic. I would break down, I mentally could not handle it anymore. My body would go into shock and I would panic at the thought of losing him. When we argued I would break down as if I was a child.I would sit on the floor , hold myself and cry until I could not catch my breath, he would just look down at me and laugh. He would laugh because he didnât understand my break downs, my panic, my fear. He would call me crazy, and tell me I had problems.I knew I had to do something, I knew I had to get out of this relationship, but I felt like I needed him. Although this toxic relationship was breaking me down piece by piece, I was holding on as long as I could.Until the night finally came when I could no longer hold on.The ending of this toxic relationship was the worst I could have imagined, I faced my biggest fear, the fear of not only losing him, but the fear of an abusive partner.It was not until this night that I realized he really did not love me, because if he did, he would not have put his hands on me. This was the night I realized I could not change him, even if I thought I needed him.. this was the night I realized I could not fix him, and I could not make him love me.After many hard dayâs and long nights, I have finally accepted that I cannot be with this man, but most of all I have accepted the fact that this toxic relationship is over. I learned that I do not need him, or any other man to be dependent on my happiness. I now can stand and say, yes I am a codependent, but I am accepting that, and I am moving forward to be a better me.I am learning that he will not change, but, I will live without him
