I’m not friends with any of my exes. Not a single person I’ve dated is currently in my life, and I can’t say that I wish that were not the case. I’m fine with being one of those former lovers that you’re not interested in maintaining a connection with. Things ended for a reason, right? So why would it be in our best interests to keep one another around?
But, to be fair, I also haven’t had any romantic relationships where we were good friends before we became more. We may have been friends for about five minutes, but that was only a red-herring precursor to begin banging. If you’ve made your way into my friend zone, I might have still tried to sleep with you, but I wasn’t about to catch the sorts of feelings that turned our dalliance into something more sustainable for the long term.
It's also important to note here that not every relationship I’m going to share in the essay below was garbage because of the other person. Sometimes, the problem really was me. For a long time, I’d get bored in my partnership and after a few failed conversations about this problem, I’d cheat on the person rather than just part ways. It wasn’t a nice thing to do, obviously, but it felt simpler somehow. And just throwing it out there, but perhaps that’s the reason none of my exes were particularly keen to keep me in their inner circles either. Who’s to say?
All the caveats previously stated, let’s move on to the topic at hand. Here are four truly garbage relationships that taught me a little something about how to love another person and a whole lot more about how to love myself.
The On-Again-Off-Again Boy
How many times do you have to break up and reconcile with one person before you realize it just isn’t meant to be? This relationship lasted seven years, which was approximately six years too many. We had fun together, my mom liked him (and sided with him way too often), and most of my later high school and early college days were a variation on “are they together or are they about to be back together.”
There were many reasons why this relationship was a gigantic waste of my time and energy. For one, he never stood up for me when his friends were shitty to me. He was also incredibly judge-y of my life choices, which I guess isn’t such a stretch when you’re an avid churchgoer. He was really against having sex, until I fucked somebody else first, and then he did a total 180 on the whole sex thing. It was pretty fun, even though he always seemed to be low-level dying of Christian guilt, which I did not care about at all. Pheromonally, we were not a good fit.
The simple truth was that he wasn’t good to me, and I certainly was not good to him. For my first couple years of college, I was actually dating him and the College Bro simultaneously. Both knew this, and neither broke up with me. This was annoying since the whole point of this torrid love triangle was for someone else to make the decision about who I should be with for me.
I don’t even really recall how this ended for reals for reals, but I no longer speak to this dude, and I haven’t for many, many years. I did make a lot of attempts to be friends, but that was very silly and ill-advised since this person never once saw or accepted me for who I am. I believe I always appeared to him as this potential of what I could be if I were slightly different than I am. Jokes on him though because I don’t change for anyone.
The Lesson: If you break up more than twice, you should probably give up on the relationship, and that’s doubly true if the person stands by like a silent asshole while his friends talk shit about you in front of you. There’s also something to be said for a person who will not meet you where you’re at or appreciate the real you. This relationship ultimately taught me to have more self-respect and spend time with people who aren’t perpetually trying to change me into some church-attending celibate angel that I would never and could never become.
The College Bro
This fuckin’ guy. He was, to my young naïve mind, very gorgeous and interesting. I guess this relationship is what happens when you leave the confines of your Northeast Ohio suburb and study at a private university in Upstate New York. Suddenly, you’re around a slew of new people, a lot of whom seem way cooler and more intriguing than they actually are. Because C. was neither of these things.
He was kind of a rich asshole burnout loser who couldn’t get his life together in the absence of his parents bailing him out. He did not have any of the attributes that I generally admire in someone. He was not hardworking or charismatic or deep. He complained a lot for someone who had basically zero hardships in life. We broke up and got back together a lot.
And while he definitely wasn’t all bad, he just wasn’t a great fit for me. I spent the better part of three years with this guy, and I could have been going on so many better dates with gentlemen who didn’t need me to pay the check or complain endlessly about the cost of taking me out. That’s one lesson I learned: Just because someone’s parents have money doesn’t mean they do, too. We also broke up and got back together a lot, and he’s the person who ended up drilling me in the back with a cellphone after I called his bluff on the brilliance of bringing home other people while we still lived together post-relationship.
The lesson: Never be with someone dumb enough to suggest bringing people home when you share living spaces. The bigger (less humorous) lesson is to only date the people who deserve you. If someone isn’t up to your standards, why are you allowing them the pleasure of seeing you naked? You (and I) are worthy of people who bring something to the table, who are admirable in some way. It’s a waste of energy to spend time with someone way below your pay grade, but of course, that means we must first know our worth and what we deserve. I didn’t back then. I absolutely do now. Thanks, bro!
The Too-Nice Guy
Oh, S., you sweet dufus. You were the kindest person I ever met, often to the detriment to yourself, and I learned a lot from you about being a good, polite human. I wouldn’t want to operate in the world the way you do—overly concerned about everyone else, feeling near-constant rage at the world’s unfairness, being too nice all the time to people who do not deserve your good will, etc.—but I appreciate that you remain somewhat innocent in a society that often seeks to harden us.
If there were any past boyfriends that I’d want to maintain a friendship with, S. would be the one. That not possible though. I cheated on him, too, and I hurt him greatly. He never totally said as much, but when I ran into him at an old friend’s wedding a couple years ago, he was very reserved with me. I could tell that he was being cautious not to get too close. Considering how everything came about and ultimately went down, I understand this completely.
I’ve talked about S. a few times in previous posts. He is the one who first fostered my love of coffee. He was the too-nice guy that made me realize that I needed someone a bit more assertive. This desire sent me straight into the arms of the Narcissist Man Child, but that was a necessary overcorrection that eventually led me to my perfect mate. #noregrets
The other thing that my time with S. taught me is that I need someone who can match me intellectually. It’s not enough that a person is kind. Smart matters, too. I knew S. was not that guy when he spotted a political sign on one of our post-breakup “friendship” walks and asked me if I knew that “Mitt is short for Mittens.” He thought the man was seriously named Mittens Romney because he had read that on the internet…
The Lesson: The right person for you will match you in the ways that matter most. If you want to have deep conversations, you need to have someone who can take the dive. Being kind is a fantastic trait, but if it leads you to be so nice that you’ll literally throw yourself down onto the ground for people to walk over, it’s kind of a problem…especially if you (like me) enjoy a partner who can step up, be the bad cop, solve the problem and take care of you when you need it most.
The Narcissist Man Child
If there’s one relationship I beat myself up about again and again, it’s this one. I know I have to be grateful for this experience. I know I learned a lot about myself. I know this person basically forced me to step into my power and embody the person I’m meant to be. But goddamn if I didn’t outright hate this guy for far too long.
What I want to tell you is that he put me through so much bullshit and heartache, but the hard truth is that I did that to myself. I’ve spent so much time being in and then ruminating on this garbage relationship, getting angrier and more upset, only to realize that the person I most needed to forgive was myself. That none of this was ever about the guy who persistently tried to cut me down to make himself feel bigger and more important. It was always about what this experience was trying to teach me, which was to stand up for myself, break up with the loser, and change my energy about who and what I deserve.
I know I’m right about this because as soon as I did end this relationship, amazing things started to happen. I got a contract job that paid more than I’d ever made before, and then I met the man who makes all my dreams a reality. I truly believe that the universe was rewarding me for beginning to trust myself and focus on my own needs. I was meant for bigger, better things, but I would never have been able to achieve them if I held myself back by being in a relationship with a person who wanted to keep me small and riddled with low self-esteem. Leaving this partnership was the best thing I ever did for myself.
The Lesson: No relationship has the power to prevent us from realizing our full potential unless we let it, and sometimes, we need to endure genuinely horrible situations before we wake up to our own amazingness. That realization is what pushes us to find our own inner strength and, if we want, to start attracting the people who love, adore and cherish us.
The best partnerships are never two people coming together to create a whole, which usually means that one person is doing a lot more than 50 percent to make up for the other’s deficiencies. Instead, the right partnership is two whole people bringing 100 percent and sometimes giving or receiving more when the situation calls for it.
This dumpster fire situation taught me to stop giving 100 percent to another person when what I really needed to do was keep it for myself. Knowing this now, I’ll never go back. I’ve finally learned my most important relationship lessons. I love myself first and foremost, so I can love R. and E. and the rest of the Petrovic-Newman clan just as much.
With pleasure,
Yes, Misstrix
P.S. What were your most garbage relationships and what did they teach you? I’m opening the comments to all subscribers, so feel free to share there. You can also respond to this email if you don’t want to post publicly, but you’d like to connect with me one-on-one. Have a wonderful week!