I broke up with my boyfriend today. Admittedly, we did the whole "break up, get back together" dance a million times, but today was different. I found myself crying, not because I lost him, not because we broke up, but because I realized how I let him make me feel. I realized that my self esteem was shot, and the relationship had become completely one-sided.
The night before I brought over a house-warming gift (an air purifier) and a 4-month anniversary gift, an expensive bluetooth speaker. I accompanied the speaker with a card. The speaker had some sentimental value between us, if you could call it that.
This man loved to listen to rap. He would listen to gangster rap in front of his children, while we were cooking dinner, while we were riding in the car, while we were hiking, biking, at the pool. You get the idea. I am deaf in one ear so many times it frustrated me when the music was loud because it meant that my brain was absorbed in this world of hoes and money instead of talking and connecting with my boyfriend.
One weekend we were camping, and got into a fight. He sat up and played rap music from his bluetooth speaker until the wee hours of the morning. I laid in the tent all night unable to sleep from the noise, and listened while I overheard other campers in other campsites make complaints about the noise.
The next day when I mentioned it to him and mentioned the designated quiet hours, he said that if other people were bothered by him they should have left their tents and campers in the middle of the night to confront him and let him know they were bothered.
So that day while we all played in the water and enjoyed the sun, I found a moment alone with the speaker. In an overjoyed frenzy, I tossed it into the brush knowing that my boyfriend would be too drunk and scatterbrained to notice.
I felt good. The silence felt even better. To not have to listen to songs about money and hoes and drugs and Drake was pure freedom.
After we returned from the trip I discovered that he had a backup speaker. A less expensive one with not so good sound quality, but fully capable of playing noise nonetheless.
One night I went to his house to cook dinner and showed up late, stressed, and exhausted. He of course had his gangster rap playing. I asked him to turn it off. He did, only to turn it on full blast later on in the night while we were trying to talk.
I will sum up the rest of the night to say that we ended up in a huge fight, and he told me that he felt like I was stifling him by asking him to turn it off. How dare I stop his party! So he ended up throwing me out of his house and physically throwing all of my things out the door. I was enraged by the disrespect.
So the next day I went to his house while he was at work, knowing that he keeps his door unlocked. I took the speaker back to my house. I found a hammer, and it did what hammers do. No more speaker. No more Drake. It felt really good to feel that silence.
Let me just say this is not how I usually react to things. I am not a vindictive person, and do not have a history of destroying other people's property (unless warranted, like the time I caught a (now ex) boyfriend sexting another woman). Honestly, I can say that I was a little perplexed by my actions. I knew where the anger was coming from, but normally I'm a direct, scream-in-your-face kind of person. I guess deep down I knew all along that he wouldn't have listened to me. He only cared about what he wanted, and destroying those speakers was the only way to get him to listen.
A month later, I felt that some proverbial corner had been turned in the relationship. We seemed to be more committed to making each other happy and listening to each others' needs.
Surprisingly, once I admitted to him what I had done (during another crazy fight) he never seemed to hold it against me or make too big of a deal about it. I mentioned that I planned on replacing the speaker on a couple of occasions, and I thought our 4 month anniversary was the right time.
I don't normally celebrate an "anniversary" monthly, but no one expected us to stay together that long, including us. So it felt like something that was worth celebrating. I included a card thanking him for showing me grace and giving me room to grow in the relationship, referencing him not making too big of a deal about the speakers.
He thanked me multiple times and seemed genuinely thankful for the speaker. However, later that night I asked him to be careful about the way he kissed me because I had a cold sore on my lip. He was always fine kissing me with a cold sore, and that was totally his choice. I just didn't want him to kiss my lips and then kiss other parts of me in an irrational fear that he would spread it. (really not sure how scientific that fear is)
Immediately he began telling me how sexually naive I was and how boring I was went it came to our physical intimacy. I told him that I didn't understand why he was all of a sudden attacking me just because I made my desire known. As usual, he was taking the most vulnerable parts of me and using them to hurt me. We went to bed solemnly.
The next morning he tried to kiss me, and I immediately brought up his words from the night before. What was that all about? He said that I was attacking him so he had to attack back. What?
As our conversation unfolded, I began to cry. Two weeks prior I helped him move apartments in 90 degree weather. I watched his children while he cleaned and put furniture together. I offered up a rug I had in storage for him to use in his home. I bought gifts for his daughter's birthday, and ran around on his behalf when he had to work late the night of her celebration. I had bought him these expensive gifts in addition to reading relationship books and attending counseling sessions and many other huge efforts on my part. And he still felt the need to attack me? It hit me that this relationship had become cruelly one-sided. It hit me that this person only cared about one thing, himself.
So as I turned to pack up my things, I found my own bluetooth speaker that I had brought over to help his mentally handicapped son while I was babysitting with a giant dent in the side.
I asked him what the dent was from. He coolly responded that since I took a hammer to his speaker, he took a hammer to mine. No remorse. No regret. That was just how it was. An eye for an eye.
The entire ride home I sat there feeling like a complete fool. I put up with this for 4 months? I actually thought this person loved me? Even writing this now brings me to tears. What is wrong with me that I let this person treat me like this over and over? Did I deserve it? I did destroy his property. That is pretty screwed up in itself. He didn't care how his "Cash, Money, Hoes" songs made me feel. He didn't care that I wanted to talk instead of party. He didn't care that relationships aren't built on rap, but on communication. He didn't care.
I could no longer hide from the fact that I was in an emotionally abusive relationship, and it was suffocating me. I had allowed him to make me feel like such a terrible person, that I thought if I could just give more he would see that I'm not terrible. If I could just put up with the rap and try to sneak in quality conversation in between. Maybe if I could learn the songs too.
Previously in fights he would tell me that I'm not married and have never been proposed to because I'm so terrible. He told me that I would end up alone if I wasn't with him. He told me that I am why all of my other previous relationships left me. And I believed him.
On some level I still do. I have been rejected, and that rejection runs deep. I don't want to be alone. I do want to find someone with whom to spend my life. I am scared that I will never find someone. I am scared that I'm running out of time.
Those previous men wasted years of my life and rejected me because of some perceived deficiency inside of me. Here I am at 33, with this "This is Why I'm Single" blog that started when I was 26. That is a lot of years wasted on bad dates, awful fights, good intentions, bad kisses, good kisses, roads going nowhere, cohabitation, separation, cross-country moves, couples counseling, and many other time-wasting bad decisions.
But I can say today that I feel fortunate that this man only got away with wasting 4 months of my life instead of 4 years.
The night before I brought over a house-warming gift (an air purifier) and a 4-month anniversary gift, an expensive bluetooth speaker. I accompanied the speaker with a card. The speaker had some sentimental value between us, if you could call it that.
This man loved to listen to rap. He would listen to gangster rap in front of his children, while we were cooking dinner, while we were riding in the car, while we were hiking, biking, at the pool. You get the idea. I am deaf in one ear so many times it frustrated me when the music was loud because it meant that my brain was absorbed in this world of hoes and money instead of talking and connecting with my boyfriend.
One weekend we were camping, and got into a fight. He sat up and played rap music from his bluetooth speaker until the wee hours of the morning. I laid in the tent all night unable to sleep from the noise, and listened while I overheard other campers in other campsites make complaints about the noise.
The next day when I mentioned it to him and mentioned the designated quiet hours, he said that if other people were bothered by him they should have left their tents and campers in the middle of the night to confront him and let him know they were bothered.
So that day while we all played in the water and enjoyed the sun, I found a moment alone with the speaker. In an overjoyed frenzy, I tossed it into the brush knowing that my boyfriend would be too drunk and scatterbrained to notice.
I felt good. The silence felt even better. To not have to listen to songs about money and hoes and drugs and Drake was pure freedom.
After we returned from the trip I discovered that he had a backup speaker. A less expensive one with not so good sound quality, but fully capable of playing noise nonetheless.
One night I went to his house to cook dinner and showed up late, stressed, and exhausted. He of course had his gangster rap playing. I asked him to turn it off. He did, only to turn it on full blast later on in the night while we were trying to talk.
I will sum up the rest of the night to say that we ended up in a huge fight, and he told me that he felt like I was stifling him by asking him to turn it off. How dare I stop his party! So he ended up throwing me out of his house and physically throwing all of my things out the door. I was enraged by the disrespect.
So the next day I went to his house while he was at work, knowing that he keeps his door unlocked. I took the speaker back to my house. I found a hammer, and it did what hammers do. No more speaker. No more Drake. It felt really good to feel that silence.
Let me just say this is not how I usually react to things. I am not a vindictive person, and do not have a history of destroying other people's property (unless warranted, like the time I caught a (now ex) boyfriend sexting another woman). Honestly, I can say that I was a little perplexed by my actions. I knew where the anger was coming from, but normally I'm a direct, scream-in-your-face kind of person. I guess deep down I knew all along that he wouldn't have listened to me. He only cared about what he wanted, and destroying those speakers was the only way to get him to listen.
A month later, I felt that some proverbial corner had been turned in the relationship. We seemed to be more committed to making each other happy and listening to each others' needs.
Surprisingly, once I admitted to him what I had done (during another crazy fight) he never seemed to hold it against me or make too big of a deal about it. I mentioned that I planned on replacing the speaker on a couple of occasions, and I thought our 4 month anniversary was the right time.
I don't normally celebrate an "anniversary" monthly, but no one expected us to stay together that long, including us. So it felt like something that was worth celebrating. I included a card thanking him for showing me grace and giving me room to grow in the relationship, referencing him not making too big of a deal about the speakers.
He thanked me multiple times and seemed genuinely thankful for the speaker. However, later that night I asked him to be careful about the way he kissed me because I had a cold sore on my lip. He was always fine kissing me with a cold sore, and that was totally his choice. I just didn't want him to kiss my lips and then kiss other parts of me in an irrational fear that he would spread it. (really not sure how scientific that fear is)
Immediately he began telling me how sexually naive I was and how boring I was went it came to our physical intimacy. I told him that I didn't understand why he was all of a sudden attacking me just because I made my desire known. As usual, he was taking the most vulnerable parts of me and using them to hurt me. We went to bed solemnly.
The next morning he tried to kiss me, and I immediately brought up his words from the night before. What was that all about? He said that I was attacking him so he had to attack back. What?
As our conversation unfolded, I began to cry. Two weeks prior I helped him move apartments in 90 degree weather. I watched his children while he cleaned and put furniture together. I offered up a rug I had in storage for him to use in his home. I bought gifts for his daughter's birthday, and ran around on his behalf when he had to work late the night of her celebration. I had bought him these expensive gifts in addition to reading relationship books and attending counseling sessions and many other huge efforts on my part. And he still felt the need to attack me? It hit me that this relationship had become cruelly one-sided. It hit me that this person only cared about one thing, himself.
So as I turned to pack up my things, I found my own bluetooth speaker that I had brought over to help his mentally handicapped son while I was babysitting with a giant dent in the side.
I asked him what the dent was from. He coolly responded that since I took a hammer to his speaker, he took a hammer to mine. No remorse. No regret. That was just how it was. An eye for an eye.
The entire ride home I sat there feeling like a complete fool. I put up with this for 4 months? I actually thought this person loved me? Even writing this now brings me to tears. What is wrong with me that I let this person treat me like this over and over? Did I deserve it? I did destroy his property. That is pretty screwed up in itself. He didn't care how his "Cash, Money, Hoes" songs made me feel. He didn't care that I wanted to talk instead of party. He didn't care that relationships aren't built on rap, but on communication. He didn't care.
I could no longer hide from the fact that I was in an emotionally abusive relationship, and it was suffocating me. I had allowed him to make me feel like such a terrible person, that I thought if I could just give more he would see that I'm not terrible. If I could just put up with the rap and try to sneak in quality conversation in between. Maybe if I could learn the songs too.
Previously in fights he would tell me that I'm not married and have never been proposed to because I'm so terrible. He told me that I would end up alone if I wasn't with him. He told me that I am why all of my other previous relationships left me. And I believed him.
On some level I still do. I have been rejected, and that rejection runs deep. I don't want to be alone. I do want to find someone with whom to spend my life. I am scared that I will never find someone. I am scared that I'm running out of time.
Those previous men wasted years of my life and rejected me because of some perceived deficiency inside of me. Here I am at 33, with this "This is Why I'm Single" blog that started when I was 26. That is a lot of years wasted on bad dates, awful fights, good intentions, bad kisses, good kisses, roads going nowhere, cohabitation, separation, cross-country moves, couples counseling, and many other time-wasting bad decisions.
But I can say today that I feel fortunate that this man only got away with wasting 4 months of my life instead of 4 years.
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