A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP IS SLOW DEATH

EVERY MAN HAS THEIR BREAKING POINT: A STORY ABOUT SLOW DEATH IN A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP

I used to think I was strong.

That no matter what life threw at me—I could handle it. That I’d always land on my feet.

But I had no idea how much one relationship… one lie you keep telling yourself… can slowly eat you alive.

It started when I split with the mother of my first son. He was two years old. I thought we’d figure it out—two parents, doing our best.

But when things didn't work out, she moved in with her parents, and everything changed. They only let me see my son when it was “convenient.” I was treated like an outsider. A nuisance. A burden.

I fought in court for a year—$30,000 in legal fees—just for the right to be a father half the time. 

The courts made me feel like a visitor in my own son’s life. Like I had to prove, over and over again, that I deserved to be their father. One of the hardest pills to swallow was realizing how broken the family court system really is—especially for men. 

That broke something in me. Not the money, not just the stress, but the feeling of being powerless to protect my son. Powerless to lead. Powerless to matter. 

Years passed. We tried again. She got pregnant.

I wanted to believe we’d grown. That this time, it would be different.

It wasn’t. 

She did the same thing—cut me off, disappeared with my son. Another year and a half in court. Another $10,000 just to be in his life.

And when I finally brought him home… I knew something was wrong.

Tests confirmed it.

Autism. Cerebral palsy.

I still remember the day I got the call from the doctor. I dropped the phone and just… crumbled.

And then the guilt came in like a flood.

What if I had fought harder? What if he needed me in those early months? What if… this is my fault?

My confidence was wrecked. My mindset was survival. I was no longer living—I was enduring.

And as a men’s coach, a man who helped others build their lives, I found myself asking:

How can I help other men create their reality… when I can’t even protect my own son?

I started attracting women who reflected that shame, that pain.

Then came Mary.

We met at a tiki bar. Hot chemistry. The first year was a blur of sex, passion, and intensity. For the first eight months, we’d go 4-8 hours a day. It was wild. It was sexy. It felt alive. Real.

But looking back, I was just numb. And that intensity? It was fire covering rot. It was an escape. 

She had panic attacks weekly. I say something innocent—she’d run. She lied. She stole. I caught her. Kicked her out. Then let her back in.

Over. And over. And over again.

8 years.

All the red flags were there, flying high, right in front of my face, but I ignored every one of them. The crazy mood swings. The overdoses. The pills. The manipulation. The different personalities. 

She’d gaslight the fuK* out of me, and I’d convince myself I was the crazy one.

The thing about staying in something toxic too long… is that it doesn’t destroy you all at once.

It erodes you slowly. Silently.

Like a frog boiling in water.

One day, I realized I couldn’t think clearly anymore. The brain fog. The depression. The pills. To wake up. To survive the day. To sleep.

I stopped recognizing myself in the mirror. I was surviving—but I wasn’t living.

I started abusing the meds. I lost my creativity. I lost my joy. I even started believing the world was coming to an end.

And in many ways—it was.

My world was.

I’ve always been a powerful manifestor. For most of my life, I attracted incredible things—beautiful women, wild adventures, synchronicities that felt like magic. But when I sank into that dark place, I realized something terrifying: I was still manifesting…

Only now, it was everything I didn’t want. Chaos. Toxic people. Constant fear. Pain. The energy I was living in became the magnet—and it was pulling in a reality that reflected my inner hell.

I was seeing demons. Spirits. Being haunted. I literally witnessed death come for people. My face would shapeshift in the mirror. I had full-blown spiritual attacks, one after another.

I got diagnosed with skin cancer. Got into a head-on collision. I started thinking I had Lyme disease. Mold poisoning. Anything to explain the pain in my body… the sickness in my soul.

And still, I stayed.

Because some part of me thought maybe I could help her. Maybe that love would be enough. Maybe I could fix what was broken. She had 2 boys who considered me to be dad, which didn't help. 

I remember trying so hard to figure out what was really wrong with her. She’d been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, severe anxiety, and addiction issues—but deep down, I knew there was something more.

I spent countless hours researching, trying to understand, trying to help. One day, I found a video that explained how a demonic entity can take over someone’s body—how it can literally hijack their personality.

I told her, “You need to watch this. This is you. This explains how you go in and out of being two completely different people.” She agreed. We sat in the car and started watching. And I shit you not—halfway through the video, I looked over, and her face was swelling.

Her lips, cheeks, nose, and ears—like she was having a full-blown allergic reaction. But she hadn’t eaten anything. Nothing had changed… except that the video was calling out whatever the f*K was inside her. It was like that thing inside her was reacting to being exposed.

I thought, WTF is happening right now... We ended up stopping to get her Benadryl.

You’d think realizing I was sleeping with the devil—or at least a woman with a demon inside her—would’ve been the final straw.

I literally said to myself, “I’m fucking a demon...” and nope. still, I stayed. I don’t know what part of me thought I could handle it… or fix it. But the longer I stayed, the darker and more surreal everything got. And the more broken I became.

Until one night, sitting with a friend, I heard a voice—more powerful than any thought I’d ever had. I heard it above me, below me, to the left, and right. It seemed like the voice was everywhere.  It vibrated through my bones. 

“If you don’t do what you came here to do, you don’t have much time left.”

It wasn’t a metaphor. It felt more like a death sentence. But I ignored it and kept living as I was. 

A year later, I heard the voice again.

"Get your affairs in order. Say goodbye. Your time is almost over."

This one hit different. It scared the fuck out of me.

I started replaying my life—thinking about how I might die… what it would look like… who I’d leave behind.
And I made a decision.

If I were really about to go, I wanted to spend whatever time I had left with the people who mattered most.

That night, I kicked my girl out. It was finally over. 

I started making peace with everything—my past, my failures, even my mistakes.

Everything except one thing:

The thought of leaving my boys behind.

That wrecked me.

And then, I had a vision…
I was outside my boy’s mother's house, looking in through the window.
My boys were inside—going about life, without me.

And in that moment… I already felt dead.

The sadness on their faces… that broke me.

But maybe it was also what saved me.

That was the night I knew I had to rebuild—from the ground up.

No more lies. No more pills. No more pretending.

I had to finally get honest with myself.

I had spent years preaching that men were the creators of their reality…

But I had been avoiding the one reality I couldn’t stomach:

That staying in a toxic relationship—whether out of guilt, shame, codependency, or fear—will eventually destroy you. (No matter how strong you think you are)

You can’t lead if you’ve abandoned yourself.

You can’t love if you’re drained to the bone.

You can’t raise kings if you’re a ghost of the man you once were.

Brother—if you're reading this and you're in a relationship that is slowly killing you…
If you’re convincing yourself to just make it work, to be the bigger man, to help her heal…

Let me say this as clearly as I can:

That is not love. That is self-abandonment.

And the longer you stay, the more of your fire you lose.

You owe it to yourself—and the people who need you—to get out. To heal. To remember who the fuck you are.

I did. And I’m still here. 

Not because I’m stronger than you.

But because I finally got honest with myself.

And that saved my life.