Have you ever had a toxic boyfriend or girlfriend? If you ever were in a relationship like that, you know how confusing it can be and how difficult it is to leave it.
This is my story. I’m sharing my past dating history, which was often marked by love addiction and codependency. Eventually, I was able to change my unhealthy relationship patterns. But to be completely honest, there is always room for growth.
I saw the red flags.
Writer, drinker, bachelor, 14 years age difference…
I saw the green eyes, the feminine softness of features, and the carelessness with which he regarded me.
But I couldn’t help myself. I already named our future children.
We met at a local poetry reading and immediately bonded over a shared writing ambition and a love for all things Russian. He just came back from Saint Petersburg, enamored with the city, and already planning the next trip.
“I find the United States so incredibly boring, so mechanical, so clinical,” he said. “Russia saved my sanity. Russia is simple. They’re very generous sentimental people.”
I swooned and moved closer.
A handsome American writer who loves Russia?
I think I found the One.
Soon we began our version of a dating ritual: meeting for drinks, hasty passionate sex at his place… And in the morning he would take me back to my apartment, kiss me goodbye, and disappear for days until he was hungry for me again.
Days when he didn’t call or text passed slowly, uneventfully, in a cyclical pattern of self-medication and numbness.
Bridget Jones chose vodka and Chaka Khan.
I opted for marijuana and Amy Winehouse.
“This ache in my chest as my day is done now
The dark covers me and I cannot run now” – sang Amy as I inhaled my anxiety medicine.
Checking the phone every hour quickly became a habit.
And so was crying while looking through his pictures, and swearing never to cry over him again.
But as soon as he’d text me with a casual “Wanna hang out?” I’d forget my misery, spend hours getting ready, and act like nothing’s wrong when I see him.
A textbook commitment-phobe in the midst of a raging midlife crisis is not meant for a fulfilling romantic relationship – that fact didn’t completely escape me.
But I was hooked.
I eagerly accepted any crumbs of affection he threw my way and lusted for more.
It felt like an out-of-body experience.
I saw myself as if from a distance, not fully understanding why this person acts the way she does.
I saw her pattern: she gets in too deep too quickly, and when the guy doesn’t respond with the same intensity, she gets disappointed.
She’s a total doormat. She never stands up for herself or demands respect. What if he won’t like me anymore?
But most regrettably, she is afraid of being vulnerable, so she chooses “safe” aloof men who keep her at a distance. She’s a coward.
Yet I couldn’t reach her.
She had a mind of her own.
She didn’t want to seem needy, so she tolerated the last-minute texts. And she didn’t want to seem difficult, so she didn’t challenge the lame excuses when he didn’t show up, or when he showed up late and drunk.
She also eagerly attributed his reluctance to call her his girlfriend to past heartbreak.
A lot of people have relationship fears, she’d defend him to concerned friends. People have neurosis, depression, and bad breakups.
People are 43-year-old loners who put condoms on their cocks and on their hearts.
Give him time, she’d say. What did they know anyway?
A woman in love has to walk a thin line.
You have to be available but not so available that he takes you for granted.
Be mysterious but not too mysterious – he doesn’t have the patience to be solving you day and night.
Be agreeable but not too agreeable, that’s boring.
Oh, and be beautiful – but don’t act like you know you are.
I remember a sense of starvation, a never-ending hunger for something I couldn’t quite define.
It was a physical sensation, as though my body was revolting against the relationship. My mind was revolting too, hence the constant internal struggle to let go of a man too self-centered to love me.
But something in me craved him – something primal, sexual, irrational… Something that’s older and more basic than the mind.
I couldn’t shake him. I felt trapped.
They say everyone has a breaking point.
Maybe I reached mine.
As time went by, I resented him more and more.
I poured over self-help books, listened to podcasts, talked to friends and kind strangers…
Basically, I looked for answers. I still loved him and wanted to be with him, so I was trying to understand why our relationship was so tumultuous. My quest gave me a lot of insights into our predicament, especially what I truly needed from my partner (affection, support, respect, transparency, dependability, etc).
Then I started being more honest about how I felt and – dear God! – voicing it. A few times I even prioritized my needs over his.
He didn’t take my newfound assertiveness well. It seemed that he liked me best when I was convenient and submissive. Now that I was speaking up, I was bad.
“Love is joy,” a friend once said to me. “If it turns into a nightmare, there’s something else going on.”
He became colder, meaner, and his silent treatments grew longer.
However, they didn’t have the same effect anymore. I used to be tormented by his punishments. Now I felt numb. It’s like I had nothing more to give.
The infatuation was gone, it seemed.
But not the addiction.
I still craved him and wanted him to want me. Yet, I couldn’t deny that something broke…
Seeing him used to be exciting. Now it filled me with a sense of dread. What will go wrong this time?
A careless word, a funny look, or even silence could provoke an explosion of insults and accusations.
I didn’t have the stamina to fight anymore. So I started avoiding his calls and texts.
At first, it seemed to infuse him with a new passion for me, but even he couldn’t deny that things were different.
Our nail-hammer romance began to fizzle out.
I still can’t figure out what was that final straw. We broke up so many times before, but I always went back to him. Until the day I didn’t.
I looked at the person sitting across from me and I saw a stranger.
Suddenly the jig was up…just like that.
“You’ll never find anyone better than me,” were his parting words. I just walked away.
What I should have said was: “Then I’d rather be alone.”
NEXT
7 Sneaky Tactics Emotionally Abusive People Use to Get Their Way
13 Signs You’re Texting with a Narcissist
7 Proven Ways to RESPOND Not REACT to a Toxic Person
I truly admire the way you cut him off from your life. And how you were able to see the red flags. I am almost 18 and I have so many toxic people in my family that I, however, never knew how to sense one. I managed to lose friends through the years because my narcissistic grandmother preferred that I, ‘the golden child’s, should just sit there, stroke her ego, be her little minion and foolishly want to be like her. Well, I did. And the worst part was that in high school, I managed to get acquainted to one control freak. I saw the red flags, but because my grandma approved of her, I went along. I couldnt even see my new friend starting to control even my breathing till my mother told me.
My mother and I have been living with my grandmother since I was born. A failed marriage, which was actually arranged because my grandma wanted to get rid of my mother as she rebelled then. Both of us have suffered emotionally, but my mother has also been physically abused, both by her ex and by my grandmother. As a result, we both have incredibly low self esteem. And now we have decided to pull ourselves together.
We are Christians. But my grandmother turned it all in a way that if we didn’t do what she says, we would sin and God will punish us. It’s been a toxic life with religion as well. She even would go to lengths to not allow my mum and I to talk so she can have all my attention.
After finally figuring out what my grandma is like, my entire life falls into pieces of a puzzle, everything making sense. But the worst feeling is the feeling of being used and becoming a footstool. I will soon go out to uni and my mum will follow and we will let go of my grandma. But at this moment, it feels like walking on egg shells due to this quarantine period…..
Hi Robyn,
thank you so much for sharing your story, and for your honesty. That’s a lot for a young person such as yourself to go through, and I admire you for being as strong as you are.
I also admire you for being as intelligent as you are at such a young age. I was well into my late 20s when I started to connect the dots and understand the truth about toxic or narcissistic people. You are so ahead of the curve! I know it doesn’t feel good now but it will serve you well for the rest of your life to be able to recognize these types of people, and to stay away from them. This is a university in and of itself.
Like you said, you will soon go off to college and leave your narcissistic grandma behind. When you do, try to leave all the damage, the abuse and the low self esteem behind, too. Have a fresh start! You don’t need all of that baggage with you. You’ll be just fine.
Sincerely,
Lana
I had to divorce my wife coz she became a narcissist. Nothing could budge her from her selfish demands. she kept seeing the guy and cheated over and over again. I tried every possible communication both personally and routed through friends and relatives but didn’t work. This happened after being in a marriage of 5 years. But the relationship couldn’t last even a year after marriage coz I came to know all that she was doing behind my back. Cheating is cruel and it feels horrible..A tip to all those men who have faced this mental trauma is to monitor the person’s every possible way before settling down with her. If u feel the person might be cheating discuss right away and don’t wait for the person to realize.
John,
I’m not sure secret surveillance is the best way to start a relationship…I think you just need to trust your gut and watch out for the red flags, cause there are many. But to each his own! Hope your future relationships will be going better.
Lana
Lana, I think “John” is a spam reply.
Oh, I see it now. Thank you.