The End Stages of a Toxic Relationship
The only thing he could tell me about his ex was that she was a bitch… and that she cried when she left him (for the last time).
Next time, I won’t need to look any longer than that.
I will walk away.
But this last time, I was a stupid girl and I followed the wolf into his den, tossing my own fur and fangs over the nearest cliff.
Ah, the rose-colored glasses work such magic…
or maybe self-sabotage is the most addictive coping mechanism of all… because I walked right into those red flags, letting my best friend’s hand slip from mine as the gray surrounded and consumed me, once again. I’d been there before, and I didn’t want to make her watch me go back, but I just couldn’t help myself.
How toxic is that? Now I’m in the aftermath, picking up the pieces and trying to claw my way out. I remember laughing about the red flags in the beginning when our values were so obviously incompatible, and knowing even as I pushed my wise and caring friend away, that what I was getting myself into was going to hurt, a lot.
It was worse this time than ever in the past, this one really knew how to play games where the others did it mostly by accident, but the shame of knowing exactly what I was doing as I started down this path makes it harder than ever to reach out and accept the support I know it takes to pull me back together. At least with the ones before, it was an accident that I wound up in a bad situation. I tear myself down when I think too much about how I got where I am.
The lessons learned don’t make it worth it… but there were lessons learned.
Maybe I’m just analyzing instead of feeling, but I believe I’ve learned something really valuable this time. In the past it was so easy to leap right out of the mess and drop the toxic relationship once I’d hit my limit… but this time, I had to stay. I didn’t have the means to go. So, I had to get intentional about noticing when I was being manipulated and breaking the cycle.
I learned that I can be toxic, too.
I can be competitive and spiteful when I realize there’s a game at play — ie. when I notice someone’s intentions are to manipulate and cause harm. There’s a vigilante side to me that wants to play it out, be cat-and-mouse, and let him see just what happens when he plays with girls’ self-worth to stroke his own ego… and my own ego burns a little hotter watching the vigilante speak her piece when she calls him out in the end, citing every incident, showing every detailed note and the evidence backing up his misbehavior. And so, as the cycle of emotional abuse played round and round between us, I found myself becoming abusive as well. I think so, anyway. Bitter, spiteful. “Snarky,” he loves to call me. There are lots of moments I’m not proud of, things I don’t wish I could take back, necessarily, but that I wish would never be attributed to me, associated with my name, known as things I’d done. I don’t want to be known for being able to think in vindictive, calculated ways. But I’m not leaving this in full innocence, and it might eat at me if I don’t make sure not to frame it as if I am blameless.
At first, it was a biting back… but it’s true that it became pre-emptive over time. I’ll bite first so he won’t get the chance to try anything. I’ll bite first, maybe he’ll feel the sting and realize it hurts when someone does these things to you. I’ll bite first, he deserves it. Part of me was glad when he squirmed too, finally. When I realized I could make him feel as uncomfortable as he had so intentionally made me feel for several isolated, dark, miserable months.
I watched my gentleness and kindness and compassion fade into depression and then flicker back to a half-life of resentment and rage… I became venomous and it worries me a bit just how justified I felt with each strike. How I longed to leave, but if I couldn’t, I’d hope to at least return every lashing so that he might be forced to seek help and become a better man when this is over with.
Emotional abuse comes with wounds and wrongdoings that aren’t easy to name.
I think back to what I know of his exes…
Will he tell the next girl that I was difficult, that all he can remember is that I was emotional? That I was always upset about something? Probably.
I bet he conveniently forgets all of the somethings I was upset about, just like he forgot why his ex before me was always such a bitch, and why he loved her and stayed with her so long in the first place, if that was her one and only substantial quality.
What will I tell my next love about him?
Nothing at all, I hope. I hope he leaves my mind forever, that I heal the wounds that make me feel safe in the arms of someone like him, and that I create a life where these memories aren’t able to intrude.
I think of the fights we’ve had.
The enabling constantly taking place with his family, how he could never tell them no or even ask to adjust plans ever-so-slightly to be more convenient or appropriate for what he (or we) had already planned.
The many, many times I had to ask for things to stop when they made me uncomfortable. The way I had to cry and recount the trauma invoked by the things I begged for him to stop doing. Name-calling and touching-my-privates kinds of things.
I think of the inconsistencies, the ways he treated me as less-than others in his life…
How he apologized a thousand times, stating it took a long time for him to break bad habits… yet how I noticed, when asked by a male, he seemed to be able to break habits and stop doing things the first time he was even subtly shown that it was not appropriate.
The way he acted like asking not to have fingers jammed into my crotch out of nowhere was as strange as asking someone not to say “hello” upon seeing you, rather than a disrespectful and crude behavior… and one he certainly didn’t reveal to me in the first two months of our relationship.
The way his lack of boundaries knows everyone except for me, my conflicting feelings of appreciating that he felt safe enough to have boundaries with me and yet resenting being the one person he would be blatantly inconsiderate and obnoxiously defiant toward. As the weeks turned to months, those boundaries revealed the mind-games and power plays they really were. Mostly unconscious, probably. Maybe. But when I spoke up gently about the inconsistencies and the way things were unfair to me, it went unheard.
I think about when and how I started to see myself as the villain.
When my words spoke loudly enough to be heard, I became the most vile sort of villainess. I became a difficult woman. I became difficult to love. And the more difficult he assured I had become, the more I believed it. And that, my friends, is how you transform love into venom.
There’s so much to be healed once abuse has been named.
The damage, the bad habits, the questions of how and why I was so attracted to this kind of person in the first place.
The way I wrinkle my nose and recoil at anything to do with any male, now.
I wonder why I write about it, but then I remember:
When I speak about what I’ve been through, it starts to sink in that emotional abuse is real abuse. There’s a cycle we’ve gone through over and over where I, with my anxious attachment style and childhood wounds seek love and validation from others — and even when I’m giving it to myself, I can become easily distracted when it’s offered from someone else — and he with his avoidant attachment style (which he’s convinced is secure and rational and not-overly-emotional and simply realistic, of course) enjoys being needed and in control of the level of certain emotions he and I are both feeling…
The experience of emotional abuse cycles is something you can only fully appreciate the impact of when you’ve been through it yourself.
In a cycle of emotional abuse, there’s a constant push-and-pull.
The building up… and setting the stage.
I experienced it as the intentional building up of my self-worth until I feel secure, and then as him both intentionally and unconsciously denying the often-subtle affections that provided that security in an intermitent way. This caused me to doubt the experience, to question myself, to feel a little crazy, and gave him a quick win when he said I was being dramatic, imagining things, or was overly sensitive and needed to take responsibility for my own emotions. (And that was always the kill-shot, because I do need to do that. And so, the discussion was no longer about whether or not his behavior was appropriate, but instead became a calling out of my issues and entirely deflected any responsibility for awareness, consideration, or change from him.)
The breaking down…
Properly shamed, my self-worth and confidence would hit rock-bottom. I’d have no energy, I’d be angry with myself, I’d feel so foolish and apologetic for creating such a mess of a situation with my silly, too-strong emotions and my impulsive need to express them (forgetting entirely about how I’d tracked and monitored those “silly, impulsive” emotions for weeks beforehand ensuring they were “real” and not just a fleeting moment, mind you)…
The impact…
The best way to break the cycle was to fill my own cup. To validate and love myself, and to do things that reaffirmed my confidence and sense of self-worth… things like talking with strangers, volunteering, writing, making new friends, hanging out around wonderful women…
But the cycle was exhausting and the way I didn’t trust myself and the embarrassment I felt at my immaturity and impulsivity let me too worn out and ashamed to go out and be social. I felt like a burden, everywhere. I felt like I needed to heal and improve before I was suitable for female friendship. And so, my cup failed to get very full until, at last, a drop of rain in the dessert, he decided to once again choose me. To show me caring and affection, to make me feel worthwhile. Probably at the point which I’d punished myself and apologized to him enough that he unconsciously felt I deserved the affection.
And so, together, we reaffirmed this childhood wound that love and belonging are to be earned — that I have no inherent worth and that kindness and decency is not a basic human right when it comes to me, regardless of how much I believe it to be inherently deserved for everyone else.
Emotional abuse leaves wounds you can’t exactly see.
It leaves the wounded wondering if it was real, believing they deserved it, and blaming themselves for the entire situation.
Emotional abuse is so often not even perceived by the abuser or by those who abused them, whom they are often still surrounded by and actively enabling… because in order to recognize emotional abuse, you have to be willing to look at and acknowledge the existence and power of emotions.
I’m still raw in this whole line of thinking, but here are some concluding thoughts:
A thought I am still processing, one of many, from all of this is that men who believe they respect women, but who hold no regard for the importance and reality of emotions, are not yet actually capable of respecting women.
A lesson…
One lesson I am taking away from this is that someone who does not value the sharing of emotions is not a safe person for me to be around, and that is a red flag I will never ignore again.
A worry…
I worry that I could get lost analyzing this horror I’ve been through and trying to catch every lesson I could have learned from it or trying to flesh out each of my own missteps and punches that ought not have been thrown… but I also worry that not studying it closely enough will result in my repeating the pattern all over again.
The direction I’m going next:
For others going through these things, I want to share the solution I’ve come up with, for now, because I think it is full of grace, holds space for growth and understanding, and also offers a sustainable and long-term approach to healing… It’s tempting to try to fix it all over night, to become someone new by the morning — as if I could read enough Independent Woman quotes on Pinterest in six hours to no longer have issues with self-validation and attachment. But I know that’s not really possible. Yes, I can wake up in the morning with a new attitude and renewed sense of hope and strength… but it’s going to take more than that to peel myself out of this shell of a relationship and truly fill the cup of my soul.
1 | Emphasize community, especially women. (AKA Reduce isolation.)
Where women gather, people are healthier. One of the things I found in this relationship was more jealousy, fear, and insecurity around women than I have ever experienced in my life. With my own needs so severely unmet, I saw everyone as a threat. I was jealous, afraid, and defensive almost constantly. The mind games didn’t help, but even without them, I feel sad when I think about how many wonderful friendships and beautiful experiences were completely missed because I was so full of mistrust.
The best friendships and relationships I’ve ever had have always been spaces where a new woman coming into the situation was a delight, a joy, and something to look forward to. I’ve noticed where women gather, people tend to thrive. Communities come together, children grow, even the men are kinder and more respectful.
Despite the way I’ve so desperately sought love in romance, when I really look back on my entire life, it’s the female friendships that were the most mutually rewarding, delightful, and joyful. They were the least destructive and the most genuine. This isn’t anything against men, but there’s something truly magical about genuine female friendship, and my biggest shift of focus in this healing is to seek out and create more community around myself, especially a circle of lady friends.
2 | More therapy. For getting to the root of the problem and for adjusting current habits and coping mechanisms.
I actually really love therapy. I’ve been in it pretty consistently since I was a child and I appreciate the structure and feedback system it creates for me as I heal, grow, and learn to cope with new life experiences as well as working through trauma.
I used to compartmentalize my life quite thoroughly and I tried to keep my current romantic relationships out of therapy, focusing instead on childhood trauma and learning to manage depression and regulate my emotions.
More recently, I’ve started opening up about my relationship in therapy and I’ve found this actually really helps to pinpoint things like attachment wounds and inner child work that could help with the patterns and cycles creating trouble in my life. When I started recognizing how toxic my latest relationship was, my therapist was the first person to hold space for and validate the experience — and I might not have been able to acknowledge and begin healing even still if it weren’t for her support.
3 | Decorating my future. (AKA: Focus on the building, not just the tearing down.)
I’ve been studying a book called Welcome Home by Najwa Zebian for a couple years now. In it, she walks readers through the process of building a home inside of themselves — starting with a foundation of self-love. She teaches readers how to literally lay the bricks of this emotional/identity foundation, and then guides readers through creating and decorating each room of their internal home. She talks about some dehumanizing relationships she experienced and how her lack of a home inside herself made it possible, as well as what it might look like if a similar person came into her life but she had the home inside herself already built. It’s fascinating and so helpful, especially when I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work I know there is to do before I stop seeing myself as a tragedy and instead see an actual human being in the mirror. (Spoiler alert, I’m already a real person. I don’t have to earn it. But if we’re being honest, that’s where my mind often takes me when it’s left unchecked.)
Instead of only focusing on what was wrong in this relationship, ways that I messed up, and what I want to do differently next time, I’m also making sure to look ahead. I’m creating vision boards for the years ahead of me, thinking about exactly what I want my community to look like, what I want to do with my wonderful friends, and how I’d love to spend my mornings and evenings. Then, I’m choosing little things I can do right now to set that in motion. Go to the library, talk to a stranger at the book store, walk my dog somewhere new, practice guitar, follow voice coaches on social media, learn to bake bread, read about healthy relationships. These little experiences will come together to create something amazing… and once you get a little momentum in one direction, you tend to keep moving that way. I think of these little actions as “decorating my future.”
Final thoughts…
This is such a messy experience and there really is a lot of shame on the path to recovery… I meant to say something in here about how the person who hurt me isn’t all bad, but I don’t have it in me to form something detailed and coherent like that, so I hope this sentence will do. I also meant to say a little something about how, when that vigilante part of me comes into play, I know it’s not really going to work — it’s not worth sending myself down the path of doing things I’ll regret and feel ashamed about… because you can’t ever force anyone to recognize or heal anything, and trying is only an act of force and aggression in itself, anyway.
This healing isn’t a one-time thing or a destination. It’s a process and a journey, and I know I won’t always get it right. But I’m grateful for the wonderful people who surround me, for the loved ones who have heard me cry over the same thing too many times and who still hug me just as tightly and remind me of my inherent value and importance. I’m grateful for the grace I show myself as I get up off the floor, once again, and set of with big hopes and better intentions.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you relate to in all of this, I’m glad you’re here, and I hope that your struggle is about to get much lighter. Keep going. You can do this.
