Letting Go of the Toxic Person Who Doesn’t Want to Let Go of You

You can walk away.

Hi there,

This month, we’ve been talking about the difficult decision to leave a connection or a relationship. We’ve discussed the relationships that simply won’t work and when to call it after you’ve put in your best effort.

Today, I want to dive deep into the toxic person who doesn’t want to let you go. I want us to talk honestly about why we sometimes let them back into our lives and to develop boundaries and skills so we can ultimately choose ourselves. 

The word “toxic” gets thrown around quite a bit, but I’m not sure we all have the same working definition. When I refer to someone whose behavior is toxic, I’m using a pretty clear set of characteristics. 

You can tell that someone is truly toxic if:

• they have the emotional intelligence of a child, which means they have very little self-awareness and they don’t understand the difference between treating someone right versus treating them poorly.

• they don’t understand — or don’t seem to care — that their actions impact other people, so they keep doing things that are emotionally hurtful. 

• they lack integrity and honesty. Maybe they’re repeatedly cheating or even living a double life. Maybe they just lie about little things. Often, their actions are not in sync with their words. And they gaslight: They’re constantly making you question your reality. 

• they aren’t willing to change their behavior even when you’ve clearly and reasonably communicated how their behavior makes you feel.

• they do not respect your boundaries — sexual, emotional, or otherwise.

• they only focus on their own needs, and they aren’t concerned with your needs.

The way you feel around a person can also reveal toxicity. Maybe when you spend time with them, you’re reminded of your wounds and bruises. Your body is sending out alarm signals, but you’re suppressing them and ignoring red flags. 

And when you’re out of the relationship, you become acutely aware of the wounds you need to address. You see how you’ve been part of a relationship that was hurting you. You see how you ignored what your body was telling you when it was screaming at you to run the other direction.

But once you’ve managed to leave them, a trademark of a toxic person is trying to convince you to try again. Remember, to them, your boundaries aren’t particularly worth respecting. They’re the kind of person who doesn’t take no for an answer. So they’ll keep reaching out to get you back. Even if you’ve been clear about ending things.

And this moment — when the toxic person shows up and we decide to give them another chance — is when we become complicit in toxic cycles. 

This is where we must get reflective. We have to ask ourselves: How does this person make me feel? Am I happy when I’m with them? What am I settling for if I let them back into my life? Why do I feel compelled to keep giving this a chance to improve when it hasn’t? What am I afraid of?

If you take one thing from this newsletter, I want it to be the validation that you have another choice here. You can be honest with yourself that it’s never going to get better, no matter how much they promise you it will. You can look at how you have been treated and how you’ve tried to ask for changes and how they never came through. You can simply put up a barrier. 

You can block them. You can completely walk away. You can choose to never, ever look back. 

And when it comes to toxic people, the boundary has to be very, very firm. Any amount of flexibility can be manipulated into another chance with you. You do not have to stay friends. You shouldn’t stay friends. It can — and should — just be over.

Because walking away means choosing yourself. It means choosing your sanity. It means choosing to have agency over your life. And to do those things means making the decision that you don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who treats you this way anymore. It’s making the decision to want something healthier. Choosing yourself means making decisions in your own interest — like finally healing the wounds that have been exposed. 

As we get older, we really have to recognize that a person’s character is everything. It’s the most we can get from someone and the most we can give. And as we mature, the world has more needs from us: We might have to care for children or parents, we might have demanding jobs, or we might be involved in helping our community. There simply isn’t room for toxicity.

So it’s time for the boundary of goodbye without leaving the door open at all. And remember, once you get over the initial withdrawal from this person, your life will become infinitely better without them in it.

You can do it. 

Love,
Jillian