I Was the Toxic One in My Last Relationship

I used to lie to my therapist.

I wanted her to think I was a good person, and by proxy, I suppose I wanted for myself to think that too. It occurs to me now that my notion of therapy was wrong. I wasn’t going to therapy to get help in becoming better, I was going to be told that I was already where I needed to be.

So, I changed the details when I recounted my life. “Here’s this event,” I’d say. “But it wasn’t my fault, because I’m here and obviously I’m trying to be better.” I spent an hour each week trying to convince myself that my insecurities were justified, that sure, I got a little panic attack-y from time to time, but I was in college and it was winter — of course I’d been feeling a little down.

My refusal to admit the truth of my own faults to the person with whom I should have most easily been able to trust them was not an uncommon trend.

I was working on two films at the time and had become good friends with the director and producer of one. They — both being women — invited me over to have wine the night before we were supposed to film a music video for a mutual friend. One glass led to another, and soon enough we were completely sloshed.

It had been a fun, friendly night. They asked a lot of questions about the girl I was dating at the time, both saying how badly they wanted to meet her. The night ended with me crying in the backseat of an Uber on the phone with that girlfriend.

My texting had become messy as I sank further into drunkenness. I sent a few messages to my girlfriend that didn’t make much sense, and I could tell she was getting concerned — we’d had conversations previously regarding my drinking. Anxiety was kicking in.

I abruptly gathered my things to leave and sent a text saying “I’m heading home now.” I said goodbye to two of my friends and was out the front door when one of them — the director — came out crying. In her equally drunk and anxious state, she thought she’d done something to upset me.

I tried to reassure her that she hadn’t. We hugged. She cried. Then, I left. That was all there was to it.

But enough time had passed between then and my Uber arriving that, to ease the concerns of my girlfriend, I texted saying, “I’m home.”

She called my bluff, and as I scrambled to cover my tracks — “No, sorry, I meant I’m on my way home.” “You already said you were on your way home.” “No, but now I really am.” — the situation was quickly spiraling downward.

Some twisted, fucked up part of my anxious, drunk brain took over then. I watched as my fingers typed, “I’ll call you when I get back. My friend started crying and I wanted to make sure she was okay.”

“Why did she start crying?”

“She felt bad. She tried to make a move on me, but I rejected her.”

If that came out of nowhere to you, then rest assured in the knowledge that it came equally out of nowhere to me. Why had I told such a blatantly false lie that is, inarguably, worse than the truth of the situation?

Three years later, I still have no idea. I guess some part of me wanted to look good, so I invented a scenario in which I did something to be admired. “Look at me,” it wanted to say. “I opted to be faithful when I could have cheated! You can’t be mad at me for doing the right thing!”

The truth is always better, but that is absolutely certain in this case because the truth was: We were both drunk and anxious for different reasons, but it would be fine tomorrow. I was just too embarrassed and self-loathing to see it.

The call did not wait until I was home. I was in the back of the Uber still, trying to make awkward, panicked, drunk conversation with the driver when my phone started buzzing. I answered it, quietly at first, and as I stumbled through a half-assed false explanation of what happened, I found myself sobbing and pleading that “nothing happened” over the phone.

I left the driver a $10 tip for dealing with my pathetic ass.

It was spring break, so my roommates had all gone home to see their families. My girlfriend — just arriving home for her own break — and I talked on the phone until six in the morning, tearing away the layers of trust we’d built up in our relationship one by one.

I was watching myself be flayed alive. Even worse, I was the one holding the blade.

You can try forever to pinpoint the exact moment a relationship crumbled, but the truth is that it’s never that easy.

It’s all of the little insecurities that you never addressed. Then it’s raising your voice when you were drunk once. Then, you tell a lie, and eventually, you start lying to yourself. You’re attending your college graduation and going out to dinner with your family and the girl who plans to break up with you that same night, acting like everything is fine. By some miracle, you stay together and a few months later you have another drunk panic attack at a music festival.

I know these are hyper-specific examples. The point is, you could identify any one of these rough spots as “the moment,” but that wouldn’t give you a realistic picture of life and love. It’s not that there is any one thing that destroys a relationship but rather all of the little things that chip away the foundation piece by crumbling piece.

I started seeing a therapist the week I graduated from college. It was the first time I attempted to confront my flaws, and I didn’t like what I saw.

I saw a horribly insecure, co-dependant, and directionless mirror image of myself. I barely recognized him. He was like me, but he was warped around the edges — a grotesque, Gollum-like figure, rotten to the core.

The first time I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t a good person was the most difficult. I’d always believed myself to be one way only to realize I was the opposite, but the fact of the matter is that a good person doesn’t lie to someone he loves and inadvertently destroy an innocent, solid friendship in the process.

When faced with confrontation, we typically choose to fight or flee, but we often ignore the third, more prominent option, which is to do nothing.

I chose to do nothing when given the chance to confront myself, and so I continued that trend of deceit, convincing myself and the people around me that I was a good person.

So, I lied to my therapist. I told her the version of the story where I was the good guy who chose not to drunkenly cheat on his girlfriend. I said the thing that made me seem likable because that’s ultimately what I want.

I want people to like me.

Even as I’m writing this, I’m struggling to be honest because honesty equates to vulnerability, and I’ve gotten very good at closing myself off and projecting a certain, likable image.

So in an effort to seem likable, let me impart some knowledge:

You can be toxic in a relationship and not intend to do so. Manipulation isn’t always deliberate, but that doesn’t make it any less damaging. Every lie that I’ve told, every time I used my declining mental health as an excuse for bad behavior, and every time I refused to help myself and improve my life, I contributed to my own toxicity. That toxicity bled into every relationship I had, but it was most prominent in my romantic ones.

This all happened three years ago, and that relationship ended a year later, but it took losing it and consequently having to stop therapy before I began to make any of these realizations. The fallout of that relationship was… messy, to say the least — for me, anyway.

I became a jerk. I lost a lot of friends. I drank a ton.

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic happened, and I had to spend a lot more time with myself, my thoughts, and my past. And I didn’t like what I saw — I especially didn’t like the direction I was heading.

I haven’t always been the best person — far from it, honestly — but I’m trying. Really trying. For the first time.

And I sincerely hope you still like me.