Ending a toxic relationship in the midst of your attachments

How do you ever really know when a relationship is toxic? What does that really mean?I know of no litmus test for this type of thing. Or at least in my habitual life I didn't, but I do now. I actually experienced it today in fact. Resolution. Some call it closure, its that knowing that someone wants to move forward, that they desire the letting go of baggage from their self and Self, for whatever reason. They actually want to stop being angry, fearful or hurting. When it becomes clear that someone wants to stop the experience of these emergencies emotions, that they actually want/need them to stop, but not before fully honoring and expressing them, that is closure. When all of that is not in vain, but is the start of a real intimacy within that relationship. There is a very real need to explore, provoke, process and even celebrate in and all around one's own emergency feelings. They are important and have their specific place in a person's life. But when this end, this completion of sorts, seems to be either way too distant than one can venture, or worse, completely invisible and seeming to not even exist, be aware. For this is the sign of someone who is in far too much pain possibly expell it all in one place in a healthy way. Please note, that this is not necessarily the time to run, but to at least be willing to accept that the relationship will become toxic soon and that it will need to end, for your sake. Here is where the attachments come in. Ever heard of beating a dead horse. There is clear value in the plain and simple english in this anectdote. When you get to a place that looks, not oddly mind you, but all too familar, where the words, again not unknowningly, seem as though you can still taste them on your tongue as you are about to same them again, this is a clear sign that you have an attachment to the end not occuring for you. When it seems like the lesson plan is the same and the curriculum is a broken record spitting the same song lyric out over and over again, this is when it is time to swallow a big gulp, hold on for dear life (for we know what is coming next) and jump! Into what you might want to know...well, you actually already do. In fact, at least for me, it is at the heart of why I am only now able or even willing to call a customer of mine, and request a firehose of negativity so foul, so venomous, that I want to vomit. That it has taken me 33 years to finally WANT, or now I am realizing need, this type of feedback. This is my life, right here, right now (bad EMF reference). This whole experience to me, only 6 months ago, much less 3-4+ years ago, would have literally crushed me and fired me like a megaton warhead right into the heart of my sex addiction. I would have attempted to numb myself from this for weeks, months, or possibly even years, depending on the depth of the pain in me. That pain in me, I know realize, has everything to do with my value in this world. This would have sent me so far off the deep end because I knew no direct consistent access to my own self worth, without using someone "out there" to mirror it for me. This creates a deep conflict in me. As I know I am not this horrible, vicious worthless POS (as this feedback from my customer suggests), but I cannot seem to connect to it and nourish myself from it on my own. Then of course with the attachment of needing to be/feel/look okay, I NEED, in a very real and physical way, to maintain this relationship. This now toxic marriage of someone who loves himself and wnats/needs/loves forward movement to someone who is so deeply hurt, that I, nor likely any one person, could ever be enough to seem them completely out of it. That is, assuming that they want out of it, as that is another very real possibility in this world. So, how to end a relationship that is known toxic, whilst having clear attachments to it for any reason (financial, my case, emotional, core, spritual, etc). Well, the good news, is that relationships don't actually end, they just change form. Forms however, do die, often in fact, and it is by design. All forms are dynamic in nature and never meant to be permanent, especially between human beings, some of the most dynamic beings on this planet. It is the form of this relationship, for me, that is what I am attached to. How much money it has been providing me, how I have been able to take care of my family because of it. I certainly feel as though I need it. But it has died. It needed to. It was stagnant and uncared for, partly due to my lack of watering. I also realize now that the other person in my case, wants, maybe even needs it to end, because of its real clear representation of pain for him, possibly, there is nothing I can do to stop its death. I can, though, dive in and exhume as much lesson material as I can, before realizing that I just need to let go of this version of it. That if attempt to go back and revive it or relive it in that form again, it is I who am beating the horse. And here, is where it begins to kill me. Poison me with the stagnation this is made of and invariably closes off my access to growth, love and any possible chance at real intimacy in this relationship. This doesn't mean that I simply walk away. In fact, this is the true sign of my healing and release of my attachments. That I can go back there, in a new way, with an emotionally present detached outlook, and only participate in what I know is safe and healthy for me, and simply leave, intentionally of course, when it does not serve me. Ah, the core of a real relationship. What I have been dreaming of my whole adult life. I leave them with their stuff and proudly bear mine, in confidence.