Have you ever felt like crying so badly, the tears won’t even flow?

OK, rewind: it was a Sunday morning and I stared in shock at my laptop screen. I had a funny feeling that my writing client was trying to skip out on paying my invoice.

He’d shown signs of bailing on me a few days earlier, but he claimed that he’d keep his word and pay me as we’d previously discussed.

Although my gut warned me that I probably had a rat on my hands, my memory reminded me that the fellow behaved like a reliable gentleman during our first transaction together. Still, I braced myself for the worst and sure enough, the worst took place. The client coldly and arrogantly informed me that my invoice would not be paid and that I should have no issue with finding other sources of work elsewhere.

I was now short hundreds of dollars and oh yeah, three of my bills, including my rent, were due within a few days!

Has anything like this ever happened to you? Maybe you’ve dealt with a client that left you feeling spent, dizzy, tired and shocked. If this has happened more than once, you might ask yourself why this keeps happening to you…again and again. You might ask yourself if you’ve missed signs, if you spelled everything out to the client in the beginning. You might question if you were naive in any way.

Don’t feel bad.

You’re not alone and the good news is, there is a way for you to keep these toxic client relationships from happening again. I’ll let you in on a secret: It’s my firm belief that the laws of business and the laws of love often overlap.

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