Have you ever been so in love that it defies all reason? That love that is irrational, wild, rebellious and vicious. Where your partner is perfection and can do not wrong. The love that has you curving other men ruthlessly and any compliment that isn’t from your man disgusts you as if it was an insult. You cut off all your friends and family (and common sense) just to be with this man. You break down all your walls and use the debris to build a statue of him that you idolize and worship every single day. You put him on a pedestal and build him a shrine in your heart, soul and mind.

You know exactly what I’m talking about.

We’ve all had a man own us at some point in our lives and some of us more than once. When a man says and does all the right things you almost think that God is whispering all your cheat codes into his ear. You wipe down your whole house checking that he hasn’t bugged your house. I mean how else would he know all these things about you? If he’s not a mind reader then it’s probably witchcraft yeah?

Nah girl, its none of that. I know you were probably thinking that its true love. That he is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. And as LL Cool J would say it, “You’re Siamese twins connected by a brain.” That’s not even it, here’s how he probably mastered the art of owning you.

  1. You Told Him Everything

When we are in love we are such Chatty Cathy’s. We want to text him every minute of the day and see him every living moment that we can. We start saying things we probably shouldn’t be divulging at such a young stage of the relationship. And contrary to belief, men do listen. They do. They have selective hearing and information storage. You thought he heard nothing but girl, he heard everything you were saying with your mouth and your body language. He read you like a centerspread of Playboy magazine. He knows what your hang ups are, he knows how your ex messed up and he knows exactly what you want to hear. And he plays the game using the cheat codes.

  1. You Wanted It Too Badly

I’m not excused from this one. I too have wanted a man too badly before, where he could have asked me to go fetch him Judas’ 30 pieces of silver from the past and I would have. I was a genie guys, his wish was my command. And he knew this very well and used it against me. Every damn time. I was tired of starting over. I was done with failing at relationships. A married friend of mine had said, “Thembi, you can’t stay in a relationship because every time the tough gets going you get going. You need to stand by your man and not be so impatient.” She was married, I assumed she was giving me the keys she used to enter holy matrimony. She had come for my ego and the challenge was accepted. Not only did I want to prove her wrong, I wanted it too badly. I stood by my fool and let him do as he pleased. I need this to last. I put in the work. Until I got tired and realized I don’t need it that badly. You know what I did need? My sanity.

  1. Weak Sense of Self

We’ve all been beat down by life in one way or another. There are some wounds that were created when insults were hurled at you and you still haven’t recovered. You walk around thinking that nobody see the scars but some of us do. Especially these penised predators. They can smell weakness from a mile away. I don’t know how but they just do. And they come around with the thing that you crave the most whether its validation or compliments. He’ll run up on you with it by the truckload. Your weakness will be his strength. We fall in love with people not because of what they give us but because of the way they make us feel when we are around them. If he makes you feel pretty when the world told you that you are unattractive of course you’re gonna stick to this blind bat. Stay woke. See it for what it truly is and don’t let him own you.