Saturday, 30 April 2011

• Bad Relationships Don't "Get Better"

  

  It began well enough. He was a little bit older, but my parents liked him and got over it quickly.  I could only see him on weekends, and I always cried and waved when he pulled out from the driveway. He was strong and handsome and funny and charming - or at least, at 16, I thought so. I truly believed I was in love.

  My boyfriend and I were pretty frustrated with each other around the year mark, and I suggested an open relationship. I dated a coworker - by that I mean, we went to the movies once and ice cream twice - but that didn't work out. He never told me what he did during this time...I didn't want to know. I felt empty in my current relationship but too scared to end it. But I decided that an open relationship wasn't sewing the hole together, it was just drawing us further apart.

  So we decided, on the year anniversary, to start again. And I loved him - maybe that's why I couldn't see everything wrong in the relationship. I knew that ending it would destroy him, and it wouldn't do me any good either. I thought, if I loved him, and he loved me, we'd work through the rough patch.

  But it didn't work out that way.

  He drove me crazy. He was one of those men who would talk without end or purpose. As Steve Martin said beautifully in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: "By the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea - have a POINT. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener." My friends couldn't stand to be around him. I forced myself to spend time with him, the whole time mentally pushing him away. It was a weird sensation - on one hand, I was reaching out for him. I longed for the physical contact, I longed to be held.  I knew I loved him - or at least, there was a time when I did. 

  But then he'd open his mouth and I was literally repulsed. We took every opportunity to fight with each other. Driving with him in the car was the most frustrating experience I have ever lived through. He would turn the radio on country - full blast - (I HATE country) and sing along. Very poorly. With the wrong words. He would attempt to screech sing louder than the already unbearable music. When I tried to turn it off, he'd slap my hand and sing louder. The guy was four years older than me - a full-grown man by most standards - and acted like a two-year-old.

  He started getting weird. He would talk to himself. He lost all contact with those in his university, and everyone in that city. He spent too much time in his hometown two and a half hours away.  His mother had been very overbearing from the start, and this only seemed to get worse as his mental state declined. She did everything for him - laundry to homework - and still found the time to send me a hateful message on Facebook telling me all that I was doing wrong.

  When he started showing up at my house - 2 hours from his university - at odd hours completely uninvited and without warning, I started to become scared of him. I encouraged him to pick up old hobbies, anything to give him something to do (other than intrude into my life at 2 in the morning). So he picked up TKD and kickboxing again. He even bought a new paintball gun. And a new rifle. 

  My ex-boyfriend never hit me, but he began holding me down. Seeing me struggle turned him on. It also caused me to wear long-sleeve shirts at the end of my senior year, and seek a physiatrist. I didn't even tell her what was really going on, though I probably should have.  Deep down, I thought if I let him do with me what he wanted, then at least he wouldn't seek out another girl on the side....

  Part of me thought his mother was right and it was all my fault. I was an emotional wreck. Anything good and pure from the beginning of the relationship was gone. I was afraid of him. I saw him because I felt indebted to. My parents liked him and invited him to all the family outings. I figured, if they didn't see the change in him, then the change was really in me.

  Old friends from grade school - really one in particular - saw that I needed help. One, Steve, became my sanctuary. I never slept with him, I never kissed him. We never did anything like that. But he talked to me & listened to me. He comforted me. And the boy I had attempted to date the last summer, he saw my pain too. He saw the physical bruises on my wrists and the blistered bite marks on my thighs - working as a lifeguard meant wearing a swim suit, with make-up only covering so much.

  But even with all the comforting and counseling, no one could really help me. I wasn't even sure what was wrong, let alone how to fix it. But I knew I had to do it on my own.

  When I found out I was going to Germany for a year, I finally knew what I had to do. With tears rolling down my face, I drove home from my interview with the program director and practiced what I would say.  A break, I assured him.  Just some time to figure my life out.

  But he didn't take the hint. And when he kept showing up at my house, at my school, at my work...I really started getting scared.

  When I moved to Germany two months later, I had the luxury of cutting off all contact with him. My dad, who worked with him on the weekends, let me know that he had been fired from his job. He had also quit school and - surprise surprise - moved in with his mom. He's in training to become a Marine now - at least something came from those hours of shooting practice.

  And after months of no contact, and finding a wonderful man who became my loving boyfriend...I got a letter. From him. Confessing all of the times he had cheated on me, down to the last cum-sucking detail. He told me all the things "wrong" with me - or should I say, repeated what his mother had already written. He preyed on all my weaknesses, all the worries I had earlier made about myself. He wished me misery and told me how he would relish the moment I died.

  His mother sent 5 consequent e-mails, of course, affirming everything he had written. She also said she had encouraged him to cheat on me. She even called me a whore for being with a "foreigner" (a detail I guess my dad had let slip). But you know what, I don't care anymore. There was a time where he could hurt me - he could physically cause me pain, he could intimidate me, he could flat out annoy me, or worst of all, he could make me doubt myself.

  But, you see, those days are long gone.

  I know the only thing I ever did wrong was to stay with him for so long. To think I could help him or change him. The truth is, a good relationship has its ups and downs - but no healthy relationship should lead to the total deterioration, demoralization, or denigration of either partner.

  Maybe one day I'll be able to look back at the relationship and remember the good times, before he went off the deep end. If not, I'd be perfectly happy with that, too.

  Ever have a similar experience? Thoughts?

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