Love Is Blind..And Sometimes Super Freaking Toxic

At the ripe age of 14 I entered the hallways of my high school—shy, timid and naïve beyond belief. Though some called me overprotected, I just called it “sheltered.” Not in a sense that I was locked away in a tower awaiting Prince Charming’s true love kiss—but nonetheless, I knew NOTHING about the world around me and just how manipulative, scary and outrageously fun it could be. This was mostly because I was a massive rule-follower. I believed (and still tend to) that rules were made to be followed. That there is a specific design setup to protect people just like me from getting hurt.

At the same time, I am a reader, a dreamer, and a hopeless romantic by nature. That being said, I often have eternal civil wars to sort out. And believe me, I still can’t figure out who’s winning and who’s losing.

So there I am, 14—walking through the hallowed halls of Gonzaga Preparatory School—trying to figure out how I was going to make it to my classes on time and how detrimental it would be to walk into my Math class late. Especially since there were like five cute boys staring at my rosy red cheeks as the door slammed behind me. Ah the memories. Surprisingly, my Freshman year ended up being a walk in the park. I had my first real boyfriend—Travis*, who was super cool and likable—friends that I adored, and I had a much-loved spot on the school dance team.

As the end of Freshman year approached, so did the end of my short-term relationship. We went our separate ways as he transferred to a different school and I found myself enthralled with someone of a more mature age.

Chris* and I were introduced to each other through mutual friends. As always, I was shy upon our first meet and didn’t take a second look—since I already had a boyfriend. However, as my relationship status changed so did Chris’s affections for me. Summer and on into my Sophomore year we remained close friends. Chris would give me rides home from school in his shiny silver BMW and I would tease him with my flirtatious smile. Despite the flirting, I had no initial interest in him. I just liked the thought of a Senior showing interest in me. What teen girl wouldn’t?

I went on dates with a couple other boys throughout the first of the year, but none of them held a candle to him in my mind. Chris was romantic, kind, and funny, and wasn’t trying to get in my pants every waking moment. We would spend our weekend nights talking and texting (on the rare occasion I didn’t have to put my phone in the basket by my mom’s door) and our days going on drives around Spokane. Talking to him and learning about him made my heart grow and I found myself with a tummy full of butterflies and a yearn to be in his life. We began meeting each other’s families, going on real dates and even though I was not technically allowed to have a boyfriend, I had all the perks of one.

In May of my Sophomore year, Chris asked me to his prom. In June, on my 16th birthday, he asked my mom if he could be my boyfriend, and she obliged. As he had already graduated and was heading off to classes at the local university in the Fall, I was technically dating a college guy. And boy did I eat that up.

Despite all the rumors that had surfaced about him and I while we were dating, I was head over heels in love. We spent our summer in pure bliss and I couldn’t wait to go back to school as a Junior and have my peers “ooh and aah” over my giddiness as he would show up with flowers and notes professing his undying love to me. I loved his mom, his mom loved me, and my mom loved him. It was a match made by the Gods of romance…or so I thought.

About a few weeks into his college career, Chris started flirting with other girls. When I say flirting, I don’t mean the casual smile and batting of the eyelashes—I mean full-on “send me your digits and let’s get together” type of thing. He was good at it too. A real sweet-talking charmer — straight out of a Nicholas Sparks novel. So, being the strong young woman I was taught to be, I ended it.

A couple weeks later, he came crying at my window. Begging me to take him back. Saying he had made a mistake and that he never did anything but flirt—he was completely innocent. At the ripe age of 16, full of compassion and a heart as big as my head, I blindly took him back into my arms.

This went on for most of our entire relationship. FIVE years. Five years I spent being tossed to the wayside, breaking and shattering into a million different pieces. With “I told you so” and “he’s just going to do it again” hanging over my head each and every time I gave in. He would show up at my door and windows crying and promising he would be better. He would send flowers and love letters, but me gifts, and reach out to my friends. Engulfing my whole entire life until I took him back.

After graduating high school, I went off to Washington State University to pursue a degree in Interior Design. Pullman, WA—home to WSU—was only a one-and-a-half-hour drive away from my hometown. Despite Chris’s reservations and many failed attempts at keeping me from going, I made the choice to go and keep my relationship intact. I had great friends by my side and excitement to finally be on my own pushing me towards my dorm and to my new, temporary home. Beforehand, Chris and I spent an amazing week camping together that summer—a week in which I lost my virginity and finally became a “woman.” A week where I decided that I was going to spend the rest of my life with Chris.

Three or four days after moving my stuff into the dorm and attending two of my three classes, I spent the night crying on the phone with Chris, asking him what I should do. He convinced me to go back home and figure it out from there (by convinced me, I mean he gave me one of his famous ultimatums). So, that’s exactly what I did. The next day, I packed up his truck and my car with my belongings and I followed him back home.

Now, though Chris did some persuading, I want to set the record straight that I made my own “adult” decision to drop out of college. I found myself in a degree program that I wasn’t sure about, at a college I didn’t think I could handle, and I let my fear of failing to drive me all the way back to the comfort of my hometown. His manipulation just made the choice that much easier.

My whole family was upset and both of my parents refused to let me go back to either of their homes. I was forced to stay with Chris at his parent’s house until I could figure out my next moves. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had just stepped foot into no man’s land—a territory withholding protection and a wide-open view of the personal destruction I was headed for.

During my stay there, I tried as hard as possible to figure out what I wanted to do. I considered beauty school, bartending, and even just volunteering my time at the local pet shelter. It wasn’t until a relative mentioned an opening at their office that I got my first full-time job.

While living at his parent’s house, Chris and I lost all sight of what kept us together for the previous years. I finally saw a part of his life that I had never seen before—a part in which he did nothing for himself, worked for nothing and had everything handed to him on a silver platter. It was definitely one of the darkest times of my life.

We began fighting multiple times a day and things would heat up to physical altercations. I was degraded, choked, glared at, and had multiple pieces of furniture thrown at me. All by the person who used to look at me like I held the stars in my eyes—who made me CDs of love songs we would dance to on Mt. Spokane, overlooking the rest of the city we called home. I couldn’t believe it—and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to leave because really, I had nowhere to go.

After talking to my close friends and visiting them back at the school I left behind—I couldn’t take it anymore. I was sleeping on a couch in a house that wasn’t mine while my supposed boyfriend texted other girls, watched me cry myself to sleep, and made me feel as if I didn’t have any place being there. I had centered my entire life around this guy, and within days I became an old doormat—used up, washed out, and barely hanging on. Luckily, my dad and his wife had a spare room for me to stay in until I could figure out what I was going to do next.

During that time, I spent my days and nights working and saving for a place of my own. After about a two-month break, Chris inescapably showed up at my dad’s door with my favorite pizza and streams of tears running down his face. His hands were trembling and his eyes were full of sadness. Yet, I stood my ground and remained strong and cold to his despair. This happened a few times until his elaborate scheme to get me back finally worked. I caved, once again, and I regretted it the minute I let it all sink in. Maybe it was my laundry list of problems that came with having half a father and only a mother to look up to, but something in me could not let go.

Throughout the rest of our relationship, we tried to remain happy and civil. Despite our intense arguments, the only things that ever got physically hurt were the walls of his parent’s house and his dented-up Ford. We fought at least every other day, but felt that we had something worth working on. Chris spent most of his days going to class and coming home to hours of computer gaming while I worked to pay the bills. I moved into my own apartment and he would stay with me and take care of the dogs while I worked. Eventually, he went off to spend a few months in North Dakota and I enjoyed the time alone to be the person I wanted to be.

You see, throughout the entirety of our relationship I was often manipulated into doing exactly what Chris wanted me to do. I lost touch with a lot of my close friends because I was told I couldn’t hang out with them or that they “weren’t good for me” and would be forced into an ultimatum—them or him. I seemingly always chose the latter.

In the year of 2012, I decided I wanted to go back to school. I wanted to study a major that would allow flexibility in my future career. So, I went on to study communications—a multifunctional major that emphasized business relationships, public relations, journalism, and rhetoric. As my decision started to blossom into reality, Chris let his jealousy take over. With me being the sole breadwinner of the house so he could go to school, he didn’t like the thought of me no longer working as much. At that point in our relationship, I didn’t care what he thought and I enrolled at a local community college with my confidence and excitement intact. I made the decision to do something for me. Something I could be proud that would provide a foundation I could build a successful life on.

From that decision on, my resentment towards Chris for the past four and a half years of misery grew. Though we maintained our relationship, there was something that began holding me back from opening my heart up completely to him again. I started to withdraw from him and would spend my weekends with friends or family. He often didn’t want to do anything that involved leaving the house, so I would try to do as much as I could on my own. With each passing day, I grew further and further away from Chris. I was starting to discover myself as an adult woman, while he was still stuck at his computer with only his mother’s home-cooked meals to accompany him. Our dynamic had changed immensely. I was no longer the scared little girl I had been before and I wasn’t going to let him determine my fate any longer.

In the late Winter/early Spring of 2014, I started talking to other people and requested that we “take a break.” Since we were renting a house next door to his parents, Chris kindly obliged to go back home while I stayed in the rental. I was, of course, paying for it anyways. For a couple of weeks or so I contemplated my next move. I was comfortable in this relationship—I knew what I was getting, the person Chris was, and everything our relationship had withstood. Then again, I also knew that certain things were not going to change. I had to either chose to live with that, and love him entirely, or end my six-and-a-half-year relationship and start anew.

In late February, that break inevitably transformed into a “break-up.” I told Chris that I was no longer happy in the relationship, that the past could not be undone, and I would always have a place in my heart for him. Though we ended things on a civil note, I endured several weeks of harassment to leave the rental since it was owned by Chris’s stepdad. At the time, I was going to school full-time and couldn’t afford a place of my own—so I had to make the decision to move back in with my mom. I woke up one morning to my things being packed into Chris’s truck and a warning to get out before the day ended.

With that, all the love we shared and the friendship we had built was nothing but dust in the attic. Nothing that we had done or gone through mattered anymore—I was just an ex that broke his heart, and he was just a boy who never turned into a man.

Though I felt a deep sadness at first, I also felt lighter. As if a weight had been removed from my shoulders and I could finally come up for air. I struggled for about a month or two to find my new rhythm—to get back on my feet and get back out into the world. But as I transitioned through this stage, I found a support system that I knew would always have my back. I was able to start dating again and inevitably, reconnected with Travis, my first high school boyfriend. I continued to excel in college and I found a love that was—for the first time in my life—fun, free, and completely perfect for me.

Chris wasn’t just charming — he was manipulative beyond belief. He spent years alienated me from friends and family, calling me names and attacking my character to the point that I still to this day doubt myself and my decisions. I spent years recovering from the emotional trauma he caused me and that feeling of self-worthlessness that only comes from someone you love and trust taking advantage of you. It’s a hard pill to swallow knowing that I allowed him to break me down in that way. But man, have I learned so much since.

Today, Travis and I are happily married with two beautiful babies. We have several job changes, moves, a scary medical diagnosis for our child, and amazing milestones between us. I graduated college from a local Spokane university in 2016 with a 3.93 GPA and a soul ignited by hopes, dreams, and a man who stands next to me in everything I do.

Though I spent those six and a half years convincing myself I was okay, I really didn’t see how much unnecessary pain and drama I was dealing with until I took a step back and looked at it from the outside in. I never could have reached my full potential if I had let another person continue to dictate my every move. With that decision, I found my independence, gained a confidence I never knew I had, and learned that I was meant for things so much greater than a high school relationship could allow me. It wasn’t until I allowed myself to make my own decisions that I grew into the woman my mother raised me to be.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy and rights of the individuals