There comes a time in your life where you have to face your demons. Face the things that don’t make you happy. Let go of those things. Move on and begin to heal. I’m on my first step.
I put on a front like all is well and good with me. I’ve perfected this facade since before I can remember when the reality is the men in my life have always let me down. The result of this is that I give unconditional love to people who don’t deserve it. People who lie, cheat, abandon, gaslight, blame shift, project, deflect and deny responsibility. People who built me up just to let me down and in some cases…beat me down. I’ve been this way since my Dad abandoned me for my step mother. When I say abandon I mean this guy secretly got married in Hawaii when I was 13. Told me later and now seems to think that I should have been able to find out about it and make my way there as a preteen. Go figure. I developed a fear of abandonment and it has caused me to do and put up with some really stupid shit for decades.
When I started this blog I was really excited about it but, I quickly lost the drive to keep going for a couple of reasons. One being the fact that my husband was jealous of the amount of time I spent on the very thing that he initially encouraged me to do(not uncommon for him actually). Another is that I ran out of material because my material was coming from my facade. Yes I love to entertain. Yes I love to travel. Yes I love cooking for my family and friends but, I didn’t know how to love myself. I knew how to say I loved myself. I knew how to act like I loved myself. Deep down though, I had allowed the men in my life to turned me into a person who doubted everything about myself including the doubt that I deserved to be loved…. even the love I should have been giving myself.
Alright-enough with all this. I’m just hoping you will follow me on this journey to get my shit together. I’m going to be unpacking my life and sharing the lessons I’ve learned and I’m still learning. I’m going to share info about toxic relationships, narcissism, self love, therapy….a whole bunch of the real Jennifer and more.
I want to end each post with a question for my readers. Here’s the first one:
Have you ever been in a toxic relationship and if so, how did you recover?
Brown Sugar and Spice 
Hello. So very nice to meet you. I absolutely love this post and can’t wait to ride this journey with you. I myself have had my share of toxic relationships. I have what people may call a “build-a-man” syndrome. I feel like if you’re honest with me about what you’re going through, I can be there for you and not just up and run when things get tough, but I’m usually the one building you up and helping you pick up all your pieces for you to be with somebody else. So by overcoming that, I’m very open about things that I want as far as a relationship and never compromising myself or my sanity.
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Nothing better than authenticity. Our best work comes from this place. Looking forward to reading from the real Jennifer!
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I’ve been in plenty of toxic relationships! But, they’ve taught me sooo much about myself and now, I am unstoppable!!! Those were lessons I needed because it taught me that it’s our own love that we need first and the most!
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