Toxic

Love can be the most beautiful and wonderful feeling you ever had. You find yourself doing things you wouldn’t normally do. You and your partner become better versions of yourselves. You do whatever you can to show how much you love that person. You work through differences, you raise a family and grow old together. The love never dies.

What about toxic and unrequited love? What about when one partner wants and desires the first kind of love that is healthy, and the other partner takes advantage of that? Is this supposed to be a beautiful story, or a sad story that we have all been apart of? This highlights unhealthy love, the love we sometimes get, but don’t love.

Sheila, considers herself a free spirit. She’s generally happy, and loves to see the best in everyone. She’s beautiful on the outside, she barely recognizes it because she doesn’t always feel that way. However she loves the woman she’s become on the inside. She’s a renaissance woman, who loves, art, food, and culture. She travels a lot and is very popular. Men go out of their way to find ways to grab her attention, but she’s happy having non committed relationships. Her life at the moment is fun and free and she’s been on life’s adventurous ride.

Max is a very attractive man. He’s used to getting lots of attention from men and women. He uses his looks to his advantage. He’s done modeling, exotic dancing, and adult film work. He’s vain and will do anything to keep his looks, and if there were a way he could improve his looks he will absolutely do it. Hiding behind all of his vanity is a man who is sad, angry and insecure. There’s no way he would want a soul to get close enough to him to see through his exterior. He’s been in one relationship, and he was cheated on, and he never treated women the same. He’s also a narcissist, he needed people to worship and glorify him in order to fill a void that was always empty no matter what he did.

Max has been able to get away with doing whatever he wanted because he was so attractive, people would always give him a pass. He never thought he could do any wrong because no one ever put him in his place, if they could just spend one more night, or one more moment with him, everything would be worthwhile. The only time he was put in his place is with the law, he claims to be a good guy with bad habits. His habitual drinking, drug use, gambling, addiction to making money and spending it even faster gives him temporary thrills, and his appetite for sex is huge, although he acts like it’s not. His addictive personality is a huge monster in his closet. Maybe that edge makes him even more attractive.

One day Max was out and about at an outdoor shopping center and he saw Sheila. Sheila was new to the area and she was looking for a bite to eat with her friends. He put on his charm, and he approached her.

He said, “You’re the type of woman I would love to make all my money for, and bring home to.” Sheila was taken back by that and she asked, “where are you from?” He told her New York.

Maybe it made sense to Sheila because she never heard a man in her life approach her in that way. He asks for her number and she was curious, so she gave it to him. After a few weeks of talking a little bit Sheila thinks he’s cool but nothing really special about him so she keeps living her life.

One day she looks at his social media account and she sees him with another woman, and Sheila feels great about it, it’s a good thing she wasn’t invested in those words that caught her attention that day. He texts her the following day expressing how sad he was that they never got together. It was that moment of vulnerability that drew Sheila in, she gave in and agreed to have breakfast at his house.

She went over to his house and he ordered food, they watched movies, had wine, more wine, and then they became intimate, about 6 times. What was supposed to be breakfast ended up being and all day event, and now a sleepover. She became impressed with spending time with him. Max mirrored Sheila’s energy, and she felt like she was on cloud 9. He impressed her much more in person than he did over the phone.

She went home to tell her friends about her very eventful day with the guy she met a few weeks ago. This was almost like a Sex and the City moment. She’s this single woman and she believes she has a little fling with this attractive man. She figures they can hook up when she’s in town and she can continue to live her life. All she knows about him is that he’s a dancer and he always has side hustles to make money.

They end up talking everyday, and seeing each other often. Max ends up in a bind and he needs a place to stay. She offers her home for awhile, and he says two weeks tops. Those two weeks turned into months. He became a tyrant in her home controlling what he wanted, he trashed her place daily. Sheila was doing her best to be a great host, but it was wearing on her. Cleaning after him everyday like Cinderella, allowing any accommodations to make him more comfortable but it affected the household. Her roommates were sick of it.

Sheila was ready for Max to get away from her, she would go out and meet guys and they were wonderful. She wasn’t in a commitment to Max, leaving the house and having dates became like a vacation for Sheila. Something strange was happening, the more Sheila resisted Max, the more she was falling for him. While she was trying to live life a single woman, his spurts of vulnerability would draw her in every time.

He asked her to be his girlfriend and Sheila even surprised herself when she said yes. Their relationship would be very rocky from the beginning. He would start making fun of how she looked. He would have emotional and physical affairs with other women. He made her feel like a prisoner in her own home. She found herself in love, crying and trapped all the time. She would be depressed, she became insecure, and angry. Their arguments were intense and there was even physical abuse often.

Max would justify all of his actions by explaining most women he lived with accepted his disgusting behavior, and his unclean habits. He’s okay with abusing anyone especially if they yell at him. Everything to him is justifiable. Sheila doesn’t know who to run to because everyone who knows about their relationship keeps telling her do whatever she has to do to keep him, he’s such an attractive man, and most women would do anything to be with him.

Sheila feels she’s just lost herself completely. She’s almost given up hope on her life and her happiness. She doesn’t know why she stays, and she doesn’t know why she loves him so much, but she does. They have good times and when they’re good, it feels like heaven, and when it’s bad, she questions whether she wants to live or not.

During their relationship he gets back into adult film work which complicates their relationship even more. He is more focused on the women he’s doing films with, becoming friends with them and trying to impress them, he has no time or effort to even care about his now fiancé. He’s doing more drugs, drinking more, and hanging out late. Sheila is wondering if they will get married, and if marriage is even the right thing to do.

While engaged Sheila finds out she’s pregnant, and with all the narcissistic abuse she has been in she’s not sure if they should have a child together, especially without therapy or counsel. Max begs, pleads, and convinces her to keep the child. She just asks that he supports her throughout this process. The abuse continues and he doesn’t make much time to support her. He does the bare minimum like take her on doctors visits sometimes and he’ll cook food sometimes.

He’s more worried about making money which he says is for the family, he blows the money just as fast as he makes it. Most of the money he makes goes to him and all of his bad habits. They get married and Sheila hopes that this will make everything better but it doesn’t. He continues to be manipulative, a liar, abusive, and more concerned about the friends and coworkers he has, than being a good husband and father.

On her birthday he decides to take her hiking as a way for her to stop complaining about them not ever having time to bond. He rushes the hike, he doesn’t want to spend time in the city they are in, he’s complaining the entire time. He’s ready for them to get back on the road so he could make money. He’s speeding and loses control of the car and they flip over multiple times. Sheila is now 5 months pregnant.

They survive the accident, but Sheila is injured bad. The baby is fine but Sheila has a few fractures, and certain parts of her body is dislocated. It takes her a month to be able to walk by herself again. Although he feels guilty, Max doesn’t change and in arguments he blames her for the accident. He continues to drive reckless and careless.

One night Max gets pulled over and they find drugs in the car. He goes to jail, and Sheila is now 8 months pregnant. She has no money, nothing for their baby, still recovering from the accident, and she’s all alone. Everyday, they keep getting boxes from Amazon. Max spent all the money he had mostly on himself. There was one box in particular that was unmarked and seemed a little suspicious. Sheila angry, frustrated, stressed, and depressed, wrote on that box and all the other boxes “Toxic.”

All alone, Sheila still grieving all that has happened in this relationship up to Max going to jail, she’s ready to become herself again. She doesn’t know how she is going to do any of this, but she starts with clearing all the boxes, cleaning the house, and writing everyday. Her family helps with bills and getting things for the baby.

Max is all alone in jail, calling Sheila asking why is this all happening to him. Sheila remains silent but she knows that this is his karma, and that gives her strength to move forward.