I was a total rookie in relationships with the fair sex at 18.
My love was a gal with a heap of problems I was trying to solve.
It strikes me now, half a life later, that we were playing victim and saver.
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Stress at work = stress in a relationship
My girlfriend, let’s call her Jane, grew up with a single mother. They were poor. Jane heard more than once in adolescence her carefree days were counted. I thought her mother was unfair to put her daughter under financial pressure.
Jane enrolled in a university and went to work for a designer boutique. I could draw a parallel between her abusive mother and boss. The boss was a businesswoman with a loud voice and piercing eyes that could burn a hole in your face.
She questioned Jane’s math skills when my girlfriend was counting money. Jane’s taste in clothes also sucked because she hung out the wrong jackets for display at the entrance. My poor girlfriend looked up to the rude lady and truly believed she was dumb.
She could hide her emotions and appear indifferent to getting abused at work. I had the privilege to experience her feelings after her workdays. They were rarely positive.
“She said I’m a slow learner. If we don’t make enough sales, she’ll cut my wage.”
Jane had reason to worry because her mother wasn’t helping her. I’d offer a sympathetic ear and say that learning takes time. That it was her first job. That I thought her taste in clothes was good.
This went on for months until her boss tore her into pieces in front of everyone else. My girlfriend had told a colleague from a nearby boutique she wanted to quit.
Imagine my surprise when I learned her boss’s reaction was my fault.
“I could’ve avoided getting embarrassed if I had a smart boyfriend!”, she screamed like a spoiled child.
My jaw dropped. Turns out, I should’ve told her not to talk to that colleague. Yes, I knew about her plan but had no opinion on it.
As I said, I was a rookie. So I kept my mouth shut. We were both emotional. It sucked to see her like that. It sucked even more to be blamed for something I had nothing to do with.
The relationship went downhill from that moment on. And if you think it was me who finished it, I must disappoint you. Jane had no more respect for me and ended the thing a few months later.
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The embarrassing realization
We were playing victim and saver in this relationship.
Jane always had problems — her mum was angry, her pay was low, and her university sucked. I genuinely wanted to help but ended up getting pulled into a deep emotional hole with no way out. Jane’s problems never stopped.
- We looked for a job for her when Jane’s mother said she wasn’t paying for her daughter’s food any longer.
- My girlfriend borrowed money from me.
- She had a toothache one day. I had to take her to a hospital and miss a day at the university.
- I found a summer job in a supermarket to buy a suitcase for her.
The suitcase was too much but “love” and hormones make you do crazy things at a young age. The craziest of all was offering her a shoulder to cry into day in and day out. That’s invading her personal space and letting her invade mine.
It’s OK to help your partner. It’s not OK to let them play victim. The more I was loosening my boundaries, the more demanding Jane was getting.
Turns out, Jane’s boss said I was a bad boyfriend. The criterion for being bad was that I was a broke student. How could I have been so irresponsible? Jane was doing me a huge favor by letting me solve her problems.
I was bad at times. I’d snap at her when she crossed the line. But what did her boss have to do with me? And why was my girlfriend even telling her about me?
A toxic relationship isn’t toxic at the beginning. The butterflies in your stomach make you feel like this lady fills all of your emotional needs. She is the one.
Don’t jump to conclusions. Toxicity slowly creeps in and makes you emotionally dependent. Chances are you won’t notice if you’ve never experienced that.
Your partner will fill an emotional void, but not yours. Theirs.
Breaking into your personal space is the highest form of disrespect. It creates emotional dependence that turns you into a junkie wanting self-validation. Victims and savers are a perfect fit for each other because they fill each other’s emotional void.
The victim refuses to take responsibility for their mistakes. Someone else is always to blame.
The saver sees helping others as the only means of self-validation. I experienced emotional highs from solving Jane’s problems.
It’s embarrassing to admit I was wasting my time on someone who held me in contempt. Instead of investing in myself, I was focused on fixing another adult’s life. A life I could never fix because playing victim was convenient.
What could be better than having a boyfriend always ready to show up at your command?
No wonder such a romance never has a good end.
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The bottom line
Jane DM’ed me six years after we broke up. Reminded me of the good old times in the message. Said it would be great if we could talk again. I politely declined.
This isn’t to say I’m blaming her. We were worth each other in the relationship.
I learned it’s better to be single than swim in toxicity.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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