Walking Away From Toxicity.

I have not written anything since April. I find it interesting that, as I write again, what I’m about to write about stems from the core of this blog. You see, I first began this blog after experiencing my first emotional pain from love. Being guys, these issues are difficult to discuss because there is a shame that a man carries when a woman breaks your heart. There’s a “how could you be weak” attitude towards a man experiencing such pain. And so, I started this blog. So, guys can find a safe space when they experience such. And about 10 years later, I am about to write about the same pain once more.

I recently broke up with my girlfriend. Well, separated. And like all situations in life, when you leave an environment, and begin to observe it from the outside, you begin to see it differently. As I now stand outside of it, I am beginning to appreciate just how toxic the relationship had become.

I do not ignore my wrongdoings in the relationship. Indeed, there are moments when I reflect on the relationship and realise that in certain moments, I should have acted differently. Like when our child died

in her womb, I was out celebrating my 30^th birthday. I was naïve, foolishly enjoying a day that comes around every year. While she was alone, in pain, crying at the loss of our child. In the entire 3-year span of the relationship, that’s one thing I sincerely wish I could turn back the hands of time and act differently.

We managed to work around that awful moment. We managed to find a way. But if I am being honest, the more I think about it, the more I realise that was the beginning of the end of the relationship. Because before that moment, she would call every day at 11 am or 3 pm. Even though we were in a long-distance relationship, we managed to work it rather well. The relationship worked. But after that fateful moment, things were never the same.

It first began with the calls. They ended. From getting morning and goodnight texts, they became sporadic. From being called sweet names, I was addressed by my first name or nothing at all. One would say that it is natural for women to be done with a relationship before being done with the relationship. But here’s what conflicted with me at that time.

When I met this girl, it is safe to say, I had overdosed on the red pill. She even found my journal where I basically describe her as a girl who doesn’t mind getting experimental in the bedroom. Cause at the beginning of the relationship, that was my only intention. I had no love for her. I had just left a relationship with a woman whom I wholeheartedly loved, so at the time, a relationship was just to serve my sexual proclivities. Nothing more.

What I found weird about that time, she loved me. She loved me so deeply that she cured me of my overdose. I found myself falling in love again. I had vowed never to give in to that emotion, but at the moment, I understood what the scripture means when it says that God is love. She indeed found a way to crack open my cold heart, make a fire and warm me up to the idea of love.

And that’s how I found myself in love with this woman. So fast-tracking to the event around my 30^th birthday, when we found a way to settle our issues, I fell into the belief that love conquers all. But I guess I was wrong. Because shortly after, around December 2024, the toxicity began.

As mentioned, the phone calls and texts started getting fewer. Conversations about how her day went, about challenges she was experiencing, for a brief moment, were replaced with things like “Thando, give me money,” “A man must give his woman money.” I never gave her money when she said such things. When that stage finally ended, she entered a nonchalant phase where it is safe to say that when that happened, I was no longer her man.

During the year of 2025, again, under the guise of being in love, I tolerated her behaviour. I told myself that perhaps this is the karmic debt for hurting her around my birthday. I tolerated the behaviour and humbled myself to her toxicity. You see, when she became nonchalant, conversations no longer existed. There would be one text a day, sometimes a week. I would express that her lack of communication is hurting me; she did not care.

What was more baffling, once in a blue moon, she would turn around and say she loved me. In her nonchalance, she had mastered the art of the push/pull. Moments when I would lose my patience and be ready to leave her, she would send a text saying, “I love you.” This manipulation technique would make me so confused. But in the confusion, it would pacify me.

You see, she would disappear for a week or a few days. After that week or days, she would return and say she was sick. During that week, she would say she was in Limpopo, her home. But she would forget minute details in her communication that would confirm that she was actually in Pretoria, essentially, her second home, or something that would clearly indicate that she was never in Limpopo.

I would ignore all the red flags. I mean, I have dated girls who were “sick” only to find out that they were with another man. Now that I know better, I am ashamed to say this, but I was once with a married woman who would be at my place in Durban for a weekend, and when her husband, who was usually away with work, called, she would put on an Oscar Award-winning performance, feigning to be sick.

Now that I am outside the relationship, I question the validity of her very time getting sick. Because trust me, she gets sick every month. Close to the end of the relationship, she began getting sick almost every week. I am not exaggerating. At least once a week, she was sick with something, and of course, when she was sick, she was totally unavailable on her phone.

At the beginning of the year, 2025, she would call or text around 5 pm on Sundays. Then suddenly, on Sundays, she became unavailable. At the last stage of the relationship, her Saturdays began to be unavailable as well. She was either 1) sick, 2) at a funeral, or 3) her phone was broken. Again, naively in love, I turned a blind eye. But now, as I really think about it, something was amiss.

Cause in November 2025, when I was trying to understand why she was treating me so terribly, I pretended to be a rich Zulu guy called Bongani. As Bongani, I talked with her for a week. In that week, she was so sweet to Bongani. She was the girl I had fallen in love with.

You see, there was a day when she ignored me completely the whole day, but she had time for Bongani, even trying to call him twice. This experiment was too much for me to bear, and I really believe that because I cracked under the pain, she realised something was amiss and ended up talking with Bongani. After all, she isn’t stupid.

About two weeks after that experiment, I took a trip to Pretoria. I told her that my only intention in being in Gauteng was to see her. And so, I packed my things, poured petrol in the car, booked a place and off I went. She did not know about the Bongani thing as yet. I arrived at my sister's house. The plan was that I would stay at my sister’s place for a few days and then, from Thursday until Sunday, I’d be with her. The day when we were supposed to meet, she absolutely ghosted me.

I remember that day so well. I sent her a text saying that she should tell me when she is ready for me to pick her up. Nothing. I call her. That phone call was as cold as chugging a freshly brewed slushy. Indeed, she had mastered the art of being nonchalant. She showed no emotion. For someone whom we had not met since June of 2024 (remember, this was November, 2025), she showed zero emotion about meeting up. Nothing. For someone who, when I was still in Gauteng, if I had not seen her in a week, would hint that the salt build-up in her was getting real, to suddenly show zero emotion, after not seeing her over a year, I believe you can put two and two together.

We were to meet at 12 noon that day. Nothing. I called at 1 pm. Nothing. Called again at 2 pm. Nothing. At this time, I realised that I had been stood up. I had sold this girl to my sister as a good girl, so I could not go back to her place. What was I going to say? She is my sister. She was going to see that I was hurt, and she was going to know it had to do something with my girlfriend cause I had told her that I was going to see her. So, with a tail between my legs, I went to the place I had booked.

I was not in a good state of mind that night. So much so, I had the wild idea to download Badoo, the dating site. I wanted to see if I’ll find her on the platform. I even paid for the weekly premium price to have unlimited swipes. And swipe I did. And yes, after you have put two and two together by now, you probably guessed it; I found her.

You know, she had a picture there that I once complimented her on. Seeing that image on that page, it became the visible personification of the pain I felt at that moment. And her bio and the answers she gave to the questions provided for the site went against the woman I had met. The woman I had fallen in love with. She was indeed a different person. I was beyond hurt.

In my hurt, I made a very rookie mistake. I sent her over 50 text messages telling her how I was feeling, and even told her about Bongani. In the morning, when I regained my strength, I realised that sending so many texts was a moment of weakness. It’s not something I am proud of, to be honest.

Later that day, I decided to end the booking early. I went back to my sister’s. She was at work at the time. I decided to call my girlfriend and try to get some answers. Her words were cold; she wished I were a fuckboy or I were from the mountain. She wished I had that thing like “something died in me.” She said that I became such a good boyfriend that she lost respect for me. I say this because it is important. It is true that when people are angry, they often speak their truth. Even though somehow I found a way to forgive her, even after she stood me up, even after pretending to be Bongani, even after finding her on a dating site, naively in love, I continued to believe that love conquers all.

We somehow found a way to patch things up. For a moment, it felt like we had just survived a really bad storm. It felt like realising that you are still alive after experiencing something that should have ended your life. But this feeling did not last long. She went back to the nonchalance. She went back to treating me like I am nothing. She went back to making me feel unwanted. And naively, I stayed.

But I was no longer as naïve. After the whole November saga, the gears of change began rotating. I felt like a baby chick breaking the shell that was closing me from being alive. Slowly, I was starting to regain my senses. Slowly, I was remembering that I am a man. I was remembering that I have dated (and tallied in my body count) models who appeared on billboards and influencers with 100k plus followers. The confidence in my ability to replace this girl was getting back. Yes, it was not an overnight event. It really did take time.

Until now, I sent a very direct and honest message that her actions continue to hurt me. You see, lately I am convinced that she is entering a stage where a lot of beautiful women enter at least once in their lives. I believe she is in a stage where she is surrounded by other women who are opening her eyes to how her beauty can elevate her life. She is giving off the vibes of a girl who is being influenced by the more popular girl or girls.

I know this because I have dated beautiful girls who went through the same stage. The behaviours, the actions, the attitudes towards men, they are 99% similar. The 1% difference is that one girl was short with an hourglass body, the other had all her fat around her thighs and glutes with impeccable soft skin, and she, my girlfriend, is tall and has a more traditional model-like body.

And because I can feel my confidence in my ability to approach and seduce women coming back, I realise that I don’t need to stay or wait for her stage to end. I mean the short girl with the hourglass body, I stayed. Only to discover that while I stayed being a good boyfriend, she was flying over the country in private jets to private resorts, being a sugar baby to one of the country's top leading marketing strategists.

The other girl whom I dated who all her fat deposits are around her thighs and gluteal muscles, when she entered this stage, she ended things with me abruptly one blue Monday because she was being ferried all over the world by rich politicians. I am sorry, but I will not endure such mockery again. I promised my soul that it would never be insulted like that again.

And my confirmation that she is indeed in this phase came in the form of a phone call just recently. Hence, I mentioned the words she said in the phone call in November. She said the same things, just worded differently this time.

The danger of dating beautiful women, especially when they enter this phase that I am talking about, is that they become narcissists. Maybe not full-blown narcissists, but like Narcissus, they have such an inflated self-importance and ego about their beauty that they see men as things to serve them.

She did not realise it, but in the conversation, she basically said that she sees no value in me, I am useless, and there are better men out there who can serve her better. If she were to read this paragraph, she would vehemently disagree. But again, because she is in his phase, surrounded by other people in the phase, to her, her words were perfectly okay. And like all narcissists, to her, I am the one who did not hear her right. And yes, in the call I did indicate this, and yes, she denied it.

As I write this, we are separated. Couples therapists will tell you that we still do love each other, but we are in different stages in life that make compatibility difficult. As for me, this separation allows me to revisit myself. It allows me to remember I can pull 10s with ease. It allows me to remember that no matter how beautiful a girl is, there is always one better.

For me, this separation is showing me how out of love, self-pity, self-deprecating, and absolute surrender of my confidence I was allowing myself to be played again; to be taken as a fool. I realise that I fell for the nice guy trap that kills all men.

This separation is allowing me to remember who I am. The universe has a tendency to return women I loved to this extent back to my life. Sometimes in a month, sometimes over years. Perhaps she will return. Perhaps she will not.

When they return, sometimes, rarely though, life smiled on them, and they were able to transcend to higher echelons. Their gamble to find success using their beauty pays off. Sometimes, though, most of the time, they realise that, unfortunately, in the real world, a woman’s beauty has an expiry date. After that date, a woman with no inner beauty becomes the woman with no beauty who sees the world as it truly is: unforgiving.

But whatever that may happen, this relationship reminded me that at the end of the day, never give your heart, as a man, to a woman. Especially if she sees it as food to feed her ego. Nothing good will come out of it.

I thank the Lord for this relationship. It was character-building that I definitely needed. Cause my confidence is back. Confidence that had lain dormant in this relationship, especially in the last year. The return of my confidence was the key to unlocking the dormant potential that was locked away by employment.

It is weird. I know. But alchemy will tell you that the alchemist has mastered the ability to turn bad into good. That’s how I feel about this relationship. It reminded me who I am. And not only that, but the separation from the toxicity of it has also reawakened my confidence.

I feel complete. I feel ready to achieve my dreams. I feel ready to be alive again.