Excerpt
I’ve learned that the “side chick trap” isn’t always entered through foolishness—it’s often entered through manipulation and emotional hunger. The lines sound familiar: “My girlfriend is crazy.” “I can’t leave because of the kids.” “We’re not really together.” And somehow, you’re expected to believe the story even when the receipts don’t match.
What gets me is this: it’s not that women are unintelligent. It’s that emotions get tangled. Hope gets involved. Attachment forms. And then once the truth comes out, you’re already in your feelings—trying to decide whether to walk away or stay and fight for a slice of love that keeps shrinking.
But I’m not here to villainize anybody like I don’t understand pain. Hurt people reach for relief in whatever form they can find. The problem is relief isn’t healing, and attention isn’t commitment. Two broken people can meet for comfort and walk away with more brokenness than they started with.
I’m learning to choose wholeness over temporary highs—and to let God teach me the difference.
Reflection
I had to face how easy it is for manipulation to sound like intimacy when I’m craving connection. Some men know exactly what to say to keep a door open. And if I’m not grounded, I can start believing I’m special—when really I’m convenient.
What I also had to admit is that staying isn’t always about them. Sometimes staying is about the ache in me. It’s the part of me that wants to feel chosen. The part of me that wants to prove I’m worth it. The part of me that thinks, If I just hold on, it’ll turn into something real.
But it doesn’t. It usually turns into anxiety, comparison, and compromise. It turns into me performing, bargaining, threatening, overthinking—just trying to get a reaction that feels like love. And then later I’m looking at myself like, That didn’t even sound like me. That didn’t even represent me.
That’s where grace comes in. Because I can name what happened without living in shame. Pain spoke loudly in some seasons, but pain doesn’t get to write my identity.
I’ve been learning that I cannot be someone’s relief while I’m losing myself. I can’t be a placeholder. I can’t be secret therapy. And I can’t build a future on a foundation that requires dishonesty to survive.
I want love with a real foundation—trust, safety, and God. Not illusion. Not optics. Not a cycle.
And healing looks like choosing better before I hit rock bottom.
Prompts
Have you ever mistaken attention for commitment because you were craving closeness?
What “lines” have you heard that sounded convincing in the moment but didn’t match the truth later?
When you think about past choices, what part of you was really speaking—love, fear, loneliness, or pain?
Where have you been tempted to become someone’s relief instead of choosing your own healing?
What boundary do you need to rebuild so you don’t have to recover from the same pattern again?
Listen
Listen to the episode.