A woman named Angela shared her harrowing experience of being in a five-year relationship with a toxic partner.
Angela, who wishes to remain anonymous, described how her boyfriend's behavior gradually escalated from snarky comments about her sense of style to physical abuse.
'I enjoyed college, loved my friends, and I was pleasantly extroverted. I got along with lots of people and had so much going on,' Angela said.
However, her boyfriend's behavior changed over time, and he started complaining about her dressing and friends. He wanted to change the things that she enjoyed and liked about herself.
Throughout their relationship, Angela experienced a campaign of emotional and physical abuse and coercive control that threatened her life.
By the time she left the relationship, Angela was a shadow of her once-confident and vibrant self. She had stopped caring about her appearance, withdrew from family and friends, and barely spoke in her partner's presence.
'I was an entirely different person,' Angela said. 'It took me a long time after leaving him to get back to a quarter of who I was because everything had been crushed to dust; the self-worth, the confidence. He'd made me feel powerless, like I couldn't do anything without him.'
According to Cathy Holden, a Psychotherapist at the Almond Tree Wellness Centre in Karen, knowing when to walk away from a toxic relationship is crucial.
'If you are dealing with someone who is very overpowering, who cannot take no for an answer, who wants to stifle your voice, and is not willing to change, you do not have to continue dating this person,' Holden said.
The tell-tale signs of a toxic self-centred partner include a lack of personal responsibility and remorse, manipulation to get what they want, being preoccupied with perfection, constantly steering the conversation towards themselves, less empathy, and not taking criticism.
Dr Eli Kimutai, a doctor and father of two, shared his experience of being in a relationship with a partner who exhibited these traits.
'When I first met my wife, I was attracted to her because she was confident and strong-willed. However, after the birth of our children, she became overly opinionated and had frequent outbursts of anger,' Kimutai said.
Highly opinionated and self-centred partners can become abusive when they cannot control their spouses.
A friend and chama partner, who wishes to remain anonymous, shared her experience of being in a relationship with an overbearing and opinionated husband.
'He began accusing me of stealing his money and threatened to hit me,' she said. 'The emotional abuse is becoming too much.'
Nicoleta Mungai, a psychologist and family therapist at KMC Nairobi, explained that an extremely self-centred person never sees the other person's side of the story and cannot admit that they played a role in something that went awry.
'If you're lucky and your partner is willing to change, then seeking counselling and therapy will help identify and deal with the issues ailing your relationship,' said Cathy Holden.
