Please stay single than be in a toxic relationship, because you deserve better. You deserve true love. You deserve genuine love, and not pain and hurt, disguised as love.
It isn’t love if he knows you’re going to bed upset and doesn’t do anything to fix it.
It isn’t love if he gains something out of making you cry.
It isn’t love if he needs to knock you down to build himself up.
It isn’t love if he yells and takes out his frustrations on you.
It isn’t love if he can ignore you and not care that you’re waiting by your phone.
It isn’t love when he calls at two AM and demands something of you.
It isn’t love when you say I love you and he replies, “I know.”
It isn’t love when he cancels even though the plans you made were two weeks ago.
It isn’t love if he can hurt you and not feel remorse.
It isn’t love if he can walk away easily thinking you’ll always be there.
It isn’t love if he belittles you.
It isn’t love if you are some secret and he won’t commit.
It isn’t love if he makes you feel you have to compete for his time and attention.
It isn’t love if he doesn’t meet you halfway.
It isn’t love if he expects things and doesn’t say thank you.
It isn’t love if he can hold another woman in his arms knowing you’re going to bed alone thinking of him.
Related: 4 Self Harming Lies Women Tell Themselves When Stuck In Toxic Relationships
It isn’t love just cause he said sorry.
It isn’t love just because he said thank you.
It isn’t love just because he pulled you in closer because he saw you pulling away.
It isn’t love if he can open your snap and not care to answer.
It isn’t love if he sees your name as you call and he pushes ignore.
It isn’t love just because he’s good at making up excuses.
It isn’t love just because he did one kind thing and that’s what you hang onto.
It isn’t love if your friends hate him.
Love doesn’t hurt you.
Love does not get jealous.
Love does not cause pain.
Love does not leave you empty.
Love does not offend.
Love does not yell.
Love is not unkind.
Love is not one sided.
Love is not sad tears.
Love is not confusion.
Love is not blurry lines.
Love does not leave or give up ever.
Real love is everything that makes you better. Everything that makes you whole. Everything that completes.
Please stay single until you find that, because a toxic relationship isn’t love. A toxic relationship has room for only one person.
The person you think you love and the love they have for themselves.
Kirsten is the author of But Before You Leave, a book of poetry about the experiences we struggle to put into words. Follow Kirsten on Instagram and Facebook.
Written by Kirsten Corley Originally appeared in Thought Catalog
