My first relationship - like, first real one - was toxic. I met Peyton in some dumb guitar elective in high school. It was the end of his senior year and the end of my junior year. That summer we spent weekends partying with our friends. He was never my type, but I found myself very attracted to him. Maybe it was because he was just as desperate as I was to get laid so he actually paid attention to me. I don’t even remember the exact string of events that led to me losing my virginity to him. I’m pretty sure we never even went on a date or hung out without the constant company of our friends. I do remember, however, not caring about what happened afterward. I told myself that I just wanted to get sex over with and move past the initial hesitation of it all.You’re told your whole life that guys only want one thing, they don’t want to date you, there is no romance, don’t believe when a guy tells you they love you because they’re only manipulating your emotions to fuck you. So, I told myself that I was going to get ahead of it. Why couldn’t I play a man at his own game and win? Why couldn’t I use him to get off? I remember the first time being lackluster. It was exciting and felt great, but that whole magical, coming of age feeling they tell you about was absent. But eventually, over time - to my fucking surprise - I fell in love with him. I couldn’t tell you the moment it happened or even how it happened. But I can tell you what it did to him and what he did to me. His love for me manifested itself in violence and insecurities and distrust. For a year and a half I dealt with this and I dealt with it alone. I couldn’t tell my parents I was sneaking around with a guy they didn’t know about. My friends already hated him, so telling them would just add fuel to their ever burning fire. The last time I remember seeing him is a bit hard to talk about. For the greater part of our relationship, we did not live near each other. We still found ways to see each other, and on this particular day I was going home for the weekend. He hated me for leaving. But what else was I supposed to do? He barely had a real job for once and I had a hard time finding one. Neither of us had cars at the time and I had shit I wanted to do. I wanted to go to college and do something with myself besides smoke in the living room watching cartoons with his roommates for the rest of my life. But the last time I saw him. I was getting ready to leave and we were saying bye. I hugged him and he stood there, unmoving, not reciprocating my hug. He had a blank stare, eyes filled with tears. When I asked him what was wrong, he said I hurt him when I leave. This was always a fight. This was his way of making me feel guilty, but I was done playing into it. When I didn’t instantly reassure him that I would come back - after having fucking done this over and over and still coming back - he became angry. He gripped my neck and screamed in my face, slowly losing bloodflow. I remember that I did not fight back. I did not beg him to let me go. I’d wished he crushed my neck that day. I wished he would have to live with that the rest of his life, but now I have to live with that memory for the rest of mine.
But, that was just the last memory. It wasn’t always that bad. I remember laying in bed with him while the rest of the world disappeared for a few hours. We talked about dumb shit, our favorite shit. We were never going anywhere, though. We could never realistically have a future together, despite the time he asked me to send him pictures of rings so he could pick out one I would like. With Peyton, I liked the idea of having a life long relationship more than I liked being with him after his first few tantrums and fits. I wanted to be able to say that we made it, we bridged the distance and fucking made it. Instead, I get to say that I made it out alive. For a while there, I was uncertain.
Peyton broke me. I hated who I became because of him: this insecure, needy, angry person. I hated crying myself to sleep every night and finding emotional release only in the shower with a Bic razor pressed against my skin. Looking at everyone around me and finding their flaws and using those to hurt them. . .
And then I met Wesley. He was everything Peyton was not: kind, dumb, non confrontational, immature. In many ways I took Peyton with me. All of his stupid, toxic traits followed me into this new relationship and I hate myself for it. I remember getting angry at him for minutia. He didn’t match his clothes. He didn’t know what he wanted to do most of the time. We were going to go eat somewhere about a month into us dating. I told him where I wanted to eat and as we were on our way there, he asked where we were going. I remember being instantly irritated. I called him stupid, my brow furrowed, fury in my eyes. And, in very Peyton like fashion, I appologized as soon as we got to the restaurant. I begged him to forgive me and I would be better. Be better I would not. For 4 years he dealt with my attitude and random emotional outbursts. Poor guy didn’t know what to do. Hell, I didn’t even know what to do.
It was never all me, though. I did calm down after he almost left me about 2 years in. I learned how to check my attitude before it got out of hand. I got so good at being nice to him that he proposed to me on my 22nd birthday. But once I sorted through all of my baggage and slayed all of my demons, I was finally able to see the relationship for what it was. I saw all the times I talked about the future and growing with him and building a life to this dude with an expressionless face. He had this reflex that I could not stand. He would close his eyes and rub his temples when I spoke too fast or put too much information in his head. Wesley had his own pre-Aleyah issues and he could never cope with them. Being with me drove him mad, even when I wasn’t being an asshole. He tried so hard to make me happy, but he could never make himself happy. It is impossible to try to make someone happy when you are miserable with yourself. And making someone else happy isn’t your responsibility.
We had a complicated relationship. My parents let him move in with us. We worked together in a depressing place where I was his boss. So, leaving him before shit got crazy would have meant him being homeless and jobless. So, I had to make sure if we broke up, it would be for good and not just some dumb fight. Plus, we had already mailed out the invitations to our wedding and I had just purchased my wedding dress.
Im over this. Until next time.
