Stop trying to love the RED FLAGS out of people.
By: B Ellis
Tags: Advice, Love Yourself, Self Love, Reflections, Love

Are you going in the wrong direction in your journey of loving yourself and loving others?

I was never the girl that dreamed about her wedding, the floral arrangements and the perfectly expensive wedding dress. Something about questioning my sexual identity while growing up in a Jamaican household, kind of put a damper on that idea. Although I didn’t skip through life with these fairy tale hopes, I am the epitome of a hopeless romantic. I’ve learned that the abandonment in my life made me the perfect example of someone who shows love in order to be and feel love in return.

Despite not dreaming of the perfect wedding, I have always dreamt about my perfect partner. A success-minded woman that loves me flaws and all, values honesty and communication, someone that does not want to go to bed mad at one another. A partner that chooses us endlessly, and fights to keep the healthy love we created all while being the mother to my future vegan world-traveling children (also super attractive and a pornstar in sheets).

What I have learned is that sometimes we (and by we, I mean I) can want the idea of people that we’ve made up in our head or we want the idea of love that we’ve created so bad that we ignore the red flags in people.

Let’s be honest, we ALL have toxic traits, myself included. We all carry the ability to be toxic and do toxic things, especially to undeserving people. We fail to recognize our own faults and flaws and address them accordingly with openness, vulnerability, and honesty. But how do you identify a toxic individual?

Well here’s a quick list of identifiers that I noticed some of my past relationships:

Drains you of all of your energy: This person may take advantage of your love, kindness, and generosity. This does not have to be done maliciously either. This person is willing to take what you have to give emotionally and mentally, but they are unable to give out what they recieve. This person loves how you make them feel, but they cannot reciprocate those feelings. They make you question where you stand in their life. They are half honest, leaving you to feel like a detective when you notice differences in their behaviors. This person can even make you feel like you are at fault for their poor actions and decision making. Not knowing where you stand with someone is draining. Periodt. Not receiving what you give out is draining. Periodt. Lacks communication: These people make communicating a daunting task. This kind of person finds it difficulty to discuss any topic that is not filled with happiness, puppies, and sex. When times call for real and genuine communication, this person often distances themselves before or after the talk. They refuse to be open and honest without someone poking and prodding for answers. They lack the maturity to return to an unfinished conversation to bring clarity and understanding to their partnership. This too is draining! When someone is unwilling to communicate and bring forth dialogue, it brings resentment to the person on the receiving end of the ‘negative conversation’. Communciation is a base layer or foundation for anything Lack of trust: This person doesn’t trust you or themselves fully or genuinely. They find it extremely difficult to be honest with themselves so the idea of being honest with others is daunting. These people do not hold themselves accountable for their actions, lack integrity, and or respect for their partner (again, this does not have to be done with malicious intent). When you call them out, they may even acknowledge their actions but do nothing to rectify them. On the receiving end you feel as though there are pieces to the puzzle that are missing. You wonder where the truth and the lies cross paths. Also, let’s be honest, omission of truth is still a mf’n lie for all those in-betweeners out there.

There are way more red flags to add to the list. Reasons such as still holding space for their ex-partners, testing your boundaries that they are aware of, secretive past, victimizing, underminding your thoughts and actions, abusive patterns, isolation, lack of maturity, unwillingness/excuses to seek professional help, up and down see-saw attitude towards you, amongst many other things. The other hard truth is we notice ALL of this shit and yet we still ignore these signs out of hopes that this person will see the best in you. Or better yet, that you are worth the change to begin addressing these issues together.

Anyone can tell you that they love you. All it takes is the courage to say those 3 little words. When someone says, “I love you”, it can feel like a commitment but the truth is saying I love you takes no commitment at all. It’s the actions that come after the sentiment that prove the worthiness of the statement. Ultimately, if someone loves you, you will feel love in their actions.

Story time…

I met a woman who I can honestly say I fell for in the blink of an eye. She found me on a dating app and we hooked up. The night we hooked up, we spent hours exploring each other’s bodies in between laughing and storytelling. She turned my world upside down and in the matter of months, I made the leap and told her I loved her after determining it was love and not lust. She didn’t return the gesture that night, but later she expressed her love, we discussed moving away together, how she could imagine marrying me and blessing me with babies. Just as quick as she made those remarks that lit up my world, she took it back with her actions. Her words felt like a commitment. That we would choose to figure out what we have together open and honestly. What later came to the surface was that she was a runner who was unwilling to talk about the unresolved issues within herself and how they manifest throughout her day-to-day relationships. She was not willing to communicate open and honestly about negative emotions and became an icebox towards me before and after hard conversations. I knew after a hard talk, she would not want to touch me. That feeling alone was hard to sit with as someone with physical touch as a top love language. She was unwilling to be honest with herself and me about where she stood with her ex. As a matter of fact, the only time she was sure about anything after the moment of I love you, was letting me know that she planned on maintaining a ‘friendship’ with her ex who was very much still in the picture.

The red flags I ignored were the fact that she was not over her ex. I was the rebound to her running away from an ex and I ignored that first flag. She still was very much tied to the idea of nourishing and maintaining that old relationship rather than cultivating something new, with someone new. She was unwilling to communicate without being asked, and she resented me for the uncomfortable discussions. She struggled to have honest dialogue with her own friends and family which was not a flag to me until I realized I fell in the same category. The truth is, I still love her red flags despite how long or short our time was together and all, but I’m figureing out how love me first and foremost.

As I mentioned before, we ALL have toxic traits. After getting fed up with how much I was putting myself out there, I had to identify the red flags within myself. I was too willing to put aside my happiness or frustration to make her feel better about her actions that I perceived as poor or negative. I pushed too much to know where I stood in her life. When in fact, me not knowing was the answer the whole time. I ignored the anxiousness I was feeling in order to feel only moments of reassurance. I noticed how needy and insecure started to feel. I needed to know where I stood and how she felt so I could move accordingly. This in turn I’m sure felt like I was moving too fast. I began to harp on the negative. I didn’t understand how I could make someone feel good all the time, and they allow me to sit in a space of feeling like shit and yet all I still wanted was to be with her… to get her to see what she was passing up on. That was my red flag because a lot of these things were not her responsibility, it was mine. I’m sure I had more red flags but these were the most visible ones that I noticed within myself that stemmed from my abandonment issues, self-worth, and self love.

Be straight up with yourself…

You see the fucking red flags, but you are choosing to ignore them. Your gut is talking to you, but you are choosing to ignore it. Your mind is telling you the truth, but you rather submerse the truth with the fallacies in your head. Stop doing that shit to yourself. People show you who you are. It is not your job to change them. It is not MY JOB to change anyone or make them see the love, light, and genuineness in me. It is my job to be straight up with myself and give myself the harsh truths. It is my job to find acceptance in what I cannot change and what I do not like. Be straight up with yourself y’all, you see the red flags. You know how far you have come in your journey. Walking away does not make you a runner, it makes you the controller of your happiness. Walking away from red flags does not mean that you do not care or love that person, it just means you love yourself more. Be straight up with yourself, know where you are in your journey and do the work to get where you need to be. Be straight up with yourself to identify your toxic traits, address your issues so that your toxicity does not bleed into the lives of the other individual. Be straight up with yourself, your looking for a fuck and fling, say that sh*t. If you are looking for the benefits of a relationship without the requirements, say that sh*t. If you are still hurt and stuck on your ex, say that sh*t. If you are learning to love yourself and are not sure of how to love others , say that sh*t.

Point being, stop trying to love the red flags out of people. Love the red flags out of yourself first.