Bad Relationships: An Open Letter

                                         

An open letter—and a promise—to my dear friends who are starting bad relationships.

NOTE: I’m going to avoid the term ‘abusive’ unless it pertains to physical violence. Emotional and psychological abuse are just as valid as physical abuse, but I’ve found that when I try to talk to friends about the elements of said abuse in their relationships, they immediately shut down. And I’m already hoping against hope to reach multiple people with this letter.

My dear, darling friend:

            I want to start this by saying that I love you and that I’m not going anywhere. And I want to promise you that I am not judging you.

I am not judging you.

I am not looking down on you, I am not trying to speak from some sort of position of moral authority. I have been right where you are, so many times, and if I hadn’t straight up lucked my way into a healthy relationship, I’d be where you are now, I guarantee it. From high school right up to my final relationship before my husband, it seemed that my heart wanted nothing but chaos and grief. I don’t think I’m better than you, I don’t think I’m smarter than you, and I don’t think you’re stupid for being in the relationship you’re in. We all fall for people who are bad for us. Some of us (hi) do it multiple times, even when people around us lecture that we should “know better by now.” Love is not a step-by-step program. It’s a messy swarm of emotions that block out all logic. Yes, even healthy love is like this.

            Before I go on, I also want to thank you for reading this. Maybe you’re reading this for a friend who’s in a bad relationship, and yours is healthy and supportive. Maybe you’re just curious about what I have to say, or are trying to suss out clues as to who (whom? whom,) specifically, I might be trying to reach with this letter. If it helps, I’m writing this to multiple people across multiple planes of my life, including someone now guaranteed not to see it because they have disconnected from me. Childhood friends, baby bats, exclusively social media friends, family members; bad relationships know no social standing. I’m also talking to my dear friends who will, inevitably, fall into a bad relationship in the future. I want this letter to last, because its message—one of love and support—does not change depending on who I am trying to reach as I write it in this moment. If you’re my friend, and you are or will find yourself in a bad relationship, this letter is for you. Even if you don’t feel like you’re in a bad relationship yet. When you realize you are, this letter is for you.

            Dear Friend, let’s specify what I mean by a bad or tough relationship. There are so many definitions for unhealthy love, after all. I am speaking of the sort of relationship I have been in, and the sort I’m seeing friends fall into now.

            Your relationship started fast. Maybe you’d known them for a while, maybe your actual courtship was slow, but after that first kiss, that first real, vulnerable conversation, things escalated at a breakneck pace. Any walls you may have built up for emotional protection, any ‘rules’ you set for yourself about pacing a relationship, all of them crumbled instantly. Maybe you had sex far earlier than you thought you would. Maybe you started making plans to move to their city after a week of dating. Maybe you’re talking about the future two weeks in; making actual plans like changing jobs or signing leases. Maybe you moved in together before your first month-aversary. Maybe you’re already engaged. And you know what’s weird? You don’t even care. This relationship, this partner, just feels right. Maybe you’ve never felt so close to a person so quickly before in your life. Maybe you’re finally experiencing that feeling of “just knowing” this person is the one for you. Maybe you know how it looks, and maybe you’ve even talked to friends about how “strange” it is that you, guarded you, slow-paced you, level-headed you, fell so hard so fast. But it feels right. You know it’s right. Even if you (or your friends and family) are nervous about it, you know it’s something you have to try. A mistake you’re better off making. After all, you know what it looks like. You know that you could be making a huge mistake that will blow up in your face. But you’ve decided it’s much better to make that mistake than to wonder, “what if?”

            Your relationship is tense. Your partner has a lot of baggage from their upbringing/traumatic experience/truly horrible past relationship. They’re jealous from previous relationships involving betrayal (like my own jealousy issues,) or they have a temper and say terrible, vicious things when they’re angry. Maybe they punish you with silence, as if you don’t deserve their attention. Maybe they storm off in a huff and disappear for hours, refusing to answer their phone or tell you where they’re going. Arguments are fast and frequent. Sometimes they’re over quickly, but others stretch on for days. There is no reasoning with them, no calming them, when they’re angry.

They’ve been through so much in their life. Their ex-wife treated them like human garbage. Their father was so viciously abusive you can’t even believe your partner survived their childhood. They were bounced from relative’s house to relative’s house, or they lived in their car for years. None of this stuff is made up; it all really happened. You’ve met their terrible parent. You’ve seen the threatening text messages from their ex-husband. Their ex-wife has literally shown up at your door screaming and throwing things. You’ve seen photos of their life as a homeless adolescent. Your partner has been through—and is often still going through—some serious, horrible shit. Of course they’re going to have baggage. Of course they’re sometimes going to struggle to treat you in healthy, respectful ways. You’re strong enough to weather the storm—and you truly are. You know things will get better, because you will show your partner what a healthy relationship looks like. Your love and support and your staying despite their scary home life/occasional bad temper/unhealthy behaviour will open the door for healing. Once they know you’re not going to abandon them like their ex/parent, once they know you’re not going to kick them out on a whim or decide that “they’re just too broken” to be with, you know, you know they’ll get better. You’ll show them how to communicate well, how to love in healthy ways. In fact, you may already be talking about that after the fights blow over. Progress is already being made. Of course there are backslides. How could you not expect backslides knowing what your partner has endured? But you’re strong, and your love is strong, and you will get through it. You will be their hero.

            Your relationship is threatened. Always. Maybe their crazy ex is trying to sabotage your partner’s happiness. Maybe their brother or best friend is determined to tear you apart. Maybe the police show up to arrest them for some minor infraction they fell victim to long before you. Maybe your partner keeps succumbing to fear of a healthy relationship and trying to end it. Something that threatens your partnership is always going on. Once one conflict is torn from its root, another pops up in its place. Situations come out of nowhere and have no connection to each other, but something is always threatening your relationship. This makes the quiet moments, the peaceful weeks or months, all the sweeter. You cling to those moments like a life raft. When things are good, they’re wonderful. Like, no one would even believe how wonderful. And you know, you know, those moments will last one day.

            Your friends are starting to show their true colours. The ride-or-die friends you’ve trusted and leaned on for years are suddenly revealing themselves to be snakes. Maybe they’ve succumbed to the vicious rumours about your partner you know they’ve heard (likely from your partner's ex,) and they just can’t see the rumours for the lies or misunderstandings that they are. Maybe they’re also friends with your partner’s crazy brother or ex and they believe them over you—they’re being manipulated into thinking your relationship isn’t healthy or that your partner is a bad person. Maybe they just can’t see past your partner’s past, or they’re reading too much into one or two arguments they’ve witnessed or you’ve told them about. Suddenly the people you thought were your best friends are betraying you: Talking behind your back, spreading rumours, passing judgment, even actively trying to destroy your relationship. Trying to destroy you. How could they? How dare they? Did you even truly know them at all? Were all the times they were there for you—letting you crash on their couch, letting you cry on their shoulder, feeding you or giving you money when your utilities were shut off—were they all lies? Either way, their current behaviour certainly overshadows anything they ever did for you in the past. You start feeling like it’s time to trim the fat off of your friend circle. And as you watch that friend circle shrink and shrink, you think, Good. I only have room in my life for real friends.

            Other friends you hang on to, for now, because they’re just misunderstanding your relationship. They mean well. Hell, you’d be doing the same thing for them if you were looking at a relationship like yours from the outside. You know they mean well, but they don’t really know your partner. They’ve just heard all the rumours. Or they haven’t even met your partner—how could they possibly make a sound judgment yet? Or they met your partner at a bad time, during a rough moment, and they just can’t get past it even though your partner as been their wonderful, stable selves ever since. Maybe these friends are pulling you aside and voicing their concern, or writing obnoxious open letters that say they’re for multiple people but you know it’s only directed at you (hi, and no, tragically, this really is happening to multiple people in my life.) Maybe your partner doesn’t like these friends, but once they get to know each other, really know each other, you know it’s all going to be cleared up.

            Dear Friend, if this sounds even remotely like your life right now, then this letter is for you. If it sounds too accurate, I assure you, I’m not singling anyone out. Unfortunately, this is a relationship pattern with which I’m all too familiar. I’m so familiar with it, in fact, that I know what a big risk I’m taking even writing this letter. I’ve been in your mindset before, too many times. I know that it might very well be completely impossible to reach you. I know I might very well be risking our friendship. In writing this letter, I may have just become a “threat.” I just don’t get it. This might sound like your relationship, but it isn’t. I’m misunderstanding. I’m reading too much into things. I’m being manipulated by someone else to worry about you.

I have dismissed friends’ and familys’ concerns in the past in the exact same ways. I always found a way to know that those worried people were mistaken, manipulated, or wrong. And, inevitably, even if I loved them and wanted to keep them in my life, I would pull away from them. I would do it myself, or my partner would suggest it. They would never blatantly say “I want you to stop talking to X.” It was never such a bald-faced red flag. It was always something like, “Well, it’s obvious X has made up her mind and nothing you and I ever do is going to change it.” along with subtle suggestions that X wasn’t actually a good friend to me for various reasons—they weren’t there for you that one time long ago, or they haven’t been there for you lately, they’ve always been stubborn or stupid or bull-headed, etc, etc, etc. Either way, eventually, I would decide that I was better off pulling away from my concerned friend or family member, or stopping contact altogether in some cases. I know that I’m taking that risk writing this. I know that one or two or all of you might very well pull away from me, and it would rip my heart out, but I understand.

I’m going to repeat that a lot: I understand. I understand what it’s like to be in a relationship that feels constantly under threat, constantly misunderstood. I know what it’s like to feel like everyone and their mother is butting in on my business, and what’s worse, they’re not even getting their facts straight. I know what it’s like to feel like I never really knew any of my closest friends who are suddenly hurting or betraying me. I know what it’s like to weather vicious fights and tumultuous behaviour in my partner, only to see that glimmer of hope—that understanding conversation afterward, that truly mature moment they handled their jealousy, those times they tried, really tried, to win over your best friend who is so uncomfortable with them. I know what it’s like to know that those moments of progress are real, that the bad times will grow fewer and further between.

But I also know what these relationships do to the people who are in them.

Dear Friend, I’m not going to beg you to end your relationship. You already know how this relationship will end, if it does: Badly. Most relationships, healthy and otherwise, end badly. Unless your relationship is a marriage or you have children together, I’m not concerned about how it’s going to end. I’m concerned with what this kind of relationship does to people while it’s going on.

My Dear, Sweet Friend, it kills me to see you go through this terrible pattern. It kills me to see you grow more and more stressed, distrustful, paranoid, and angry. It kills me to see you turn your back on friends and family who have loved and supported you years before this. It kills me to see you endure the stress of loving someone who is wrong for you. If you can believe me, in most current cases, I don’t hate your partner. I don’t. I’ve been in enough partnerships like yours to understand that not every toxic person is toxic on purpose. I believe you when you say they’ve been through hell and back. I don’t think they’re making it up. And I don’t think they’re deliberately using tactics to manipulate and isolate you, in most current cases. Many people who have been through trauma behave in terrible ways because that’s what they know. I’m not defending it. I’m not excusing it. I’m not saying there’s hope that they’ll get better. Sadly, in almost every single case of this sort of relationship I’ve seen, the patterns have been established, and though they may diminish a little, they will never be broken.

This relationship will continue to hurt you. It will continue to isolate you. It will continue to warp your reality. And yes, it is warping your reality. Dear Friend, your friends and family are not all simultaneously mistaken. They’re not all particularly gullible and believe petty rumours over your “truth.” And they’re not all revealing themselves to be secret monsters. Their “true colours” are the ones you saw before this, in the years you knew them and bonded with them and supported each other.

Dear Friend, I know I may have lost you. I know one sentence or another might have crossed the line and “proven” to you just how mistaken, manipulated, or wrong I am about your relationship. But I hope you’ve stuck with me to this point, because I want to promise you something.

Dear Friend, I am here for you.

I know it might not feel that way. I’ve been dragged into bad and even abusive relationships of friends in the past, and I have been hurt badly every time. Because of this, I keep my distance. I am a diary for all, a keeper of so many's secrets. I don’t choose sides in fights between friends. I don’t shun or reject or hurt people as a show of loyalty to a friend. It’s not because I don’t believe you. It’s not because I’m not angry someone hurt you. It’s because human relationships are messy, and every single time I have actively tried to intervene, I have been badly wounded.

So, Dear Friend, I am here for you as a diary, as always. I am happy to listen. I am happy to commiserate. I know more than most just how badly someone in a relationship like yours needs to have a truly safe person to vent to, and I will do my best to be that person for you. I can’t approve of your relationship, even if I like your partner (and, in a few current cases, I truly do like them.) And yes, I will be relieved when your relationship ends, especially if it ends with minimal damage to you. I am not rooting for your relationship. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that I am. But I can assure you that I am not judging you for it. It might kill me to see you so hurt, but I know that you need someone to talk to now more than ever, and I want you to know that you can talk to me.

I understand that this puts me on dangerous ground for you. I know that it’s hard to talk to someone who doesn’t like your relationship. I know it feels like I’ll always be steering you in the direction of a breakup. I promise I’ll do my best not to do that. I will do my absolute best to commiserate without giving you unsolicited advice. Now, if you ask my for my opinion, I will tell you. If you ask me for advice, I will give it to you. But I will do my best not to unless you ask. Because it’s far more important for you to have a friend right now than to hear another person tell you to break up with your partner. I just beg you not to try to drag me into any arguments with your partner, your friends, or your family. I beg you not to press me for a pledge of loyalty or give me an ultimatum about rejecting this person or that person. I won’t participate.

I also understand that this letter might make your partner dislike and distrust me. And I know that this may be another reason to distance yourself from me. I keep saying this, but it’s true: I understand, I understand. I’ve been there and I understand. If you feel you can’t be friends with me because I don’t support your relationship, I get it. If someone I love hated my husband, I’d have a hard time opening up to that person. I know it feels like I’m offering the impossible, and maybe I am. But my offer stands. I love all of you so much, even if our relationship consists only of a messaging vent session on Facebook once every six or seven months. I know too well the monumental difficulties you’re going through, how alone you feel. I want you to know that I’m here. I’m a text, a call, a DM away. If you live in town, let’s grab coffee. Let’s have a vent session. Even if you feel you have to pull away, just know that while I might be hurt (or crushed,) I won’t hold it against you. I’m still just a text, a call, a DM away. I don’t ever want you to feel as alone, as friendless, as threatened, and eventually as trapped as I did when I was in relationships like the ones I’ve described in this letter.

Even if we don’t speak again until after this relationship is over, know that I love you all so much. And while it’s a strange thought about someone who doesn’t like your relationship, know that you can talk to me. If you must pull away, I will see you on the other side, weeks or months or years from now. And I’ll buy the first round.