Summary

An older woman reflects on the early signs of a toxic relationship and offers advice to teenage girls on recognizing these signs, maintaining independence, and prioritizing personal growth and happiness in relationships.

Abstract

Drawing from personal experience, the author recounts the mistakes made in her first marriage characterized by a toxic relationship with a misogynistic and controlling partner. She emphasizes the importance of observing how a partner treats other women, maintaining friendships and family ties, pursuing personal dreams, and ensuring self-sufficiency. She advises on the need to protect personal privacy and independence, as these are often eroded in toxic relationships. Her narrative is a cautionary tale about the dangers of compromising one's identity and values for a relationship, and a testament to the joy and mutual growth that a healthy relationship can bring when entered at the right time.

Opinions

On Early Relationship Dynamics: The author believes that the signs of a toxic relationship can be evident early on if one is vigilant, especially in how the partner interacts with and speaks about other women.
On Independence and Control: She points out that abusers seek to control every aspect of their partner's life, including friendships and personal interests, to ensure dependency.
On Self-Worth and Personal Growth: The author stresses the importance of not losing sight of personal dreams and self-improvement, which can be stifled in a toxic relationship.
On the Importance of Friendships and Family: She holds that healthy relationships encourage the maintenance of pre-existing friendships and family bonds, not their replacement or erasure.
On Privacy and Independence: The author insists that privacy and independence should be protected zealously, as toxic partners may attempt to intrude on these spheres.
On Choosing the Right Partner: She advises that choosing the right partner is crucial and that it's better to be single than to settle for a harmful relationship.
On Rediscovering Oneself: The author describes her journey of re-learning skills and rebuilding her life after leaving a toxic relationship, highlighting the value of self-reliance.
On Healthy Relationships: She expresses that healthy relationships allow both partners to grow together, and waiting for the right relationship is worth it for the mutual happiness it brings.

What Every Teenage Girl Should Know Before She Starts Dating

The signs of a toxic relationship surface early, you just need to know what you’re looking for.

I made a really bad decision when I was eighteen. I said yes to a date with the man that would become my first husband and who would go on to ruin more than twenty years of my life.

The signs were there early, but I did not see them. I had poor self-esteem as a result of high school bullying and honestly, I was excited that anyone took an interest in me. I had convinced myself that I was ugly and unlovable.

My family wondered what I saw in him. They saw their attractive, intelligent, outgoing sister very quickly settle for a nice-enough guy, who seemed pretty disinterested in the things that intrigued her. He had no interest in travel or learning new things. He liked what he liked, and had no desire to broaden his horizons.

For reasons I can’t explain I made my world small to accommodate him. What followed was more than twenty years of gradually increasing abusive treatment, motivated by his insidious need to control every aspect of my life.

Of course, I can only see all of this with the benefit of hindsight. Thirty years later, and now happily re-married I now know that making yourself less to accommodate another person is a recipe for disaster.

I can’t go back and impart this wisdom to my younger self, but I would like to think that I could help someone avoid the pain that resulted from my own failure to protect my boundaries, to maintain my independence, and pursue my dreams.

I have learned the hard way that toxic people create toxic relationships. Unfortunately by the time you realize something is wrong it’s too late.

Please, learn from my mistakes.

Observe carefully his attitude towards women.

I’m starting with what I consider the most important thing to be watching for in those early months of dating. Your boyfriend may well be doting on you, putting you on a pedestal and treating you like gold. That in itself is not a bad thing. Both of my husbands treated me well when we first met, the difference is that five years later, my now-husband still treats me like a queen. My first husband ditched all of that as soon as we bought a house together.

But the real insight comes from how he responds to women besides you. My first husband used sexist language to describe the appearance of other women. He liberally used words like ugly and slutty. He often criticized his mother and sisters, was disparaging about women he worked with, particularly one who became his manager, adamant she had slept her way to the top.

He also blamed women for getting raped. He would comment, if we for example saw the report of a violent attack on the news, on what she did to cause it? What was she wearing? Why was she out at night?

The signs that he was a deeply insecure misogynist were there early, but I was too blind to see them.

Maintain your relationships with friends and family

The ultimate operatis mundi of an abuser is to minimize and control you. He wants dominion over how you act, dress, think, and believe. To do this he needs to sever the influence of others in your life. He needs to become your sole source of validation and approval.

If he is successful, eventually your need for his validation and approval will force you into a type of domestic slavery that will cause you to sacrifice everything you previously valued, just to appease him.

In a healthy relationship, your partner wants you to maintain your friendships and family connections. Normal people don’t want you to be entirely dependent on them. Toxic people, on the other hand, want your complete dependence, and will not stop until they have it.

Hold tight to your dreams.

I’m still astounded at how willing I was to agree to give up my dream to travel. because my ex showed no interest. It wasn’t just traveling, he had no interest in exploring anything new.

That meant no concerts, art galleries, hobbies, or new experiences. It was his interests, few as they were, and nothing else.

He only wanted to renovate houses, get married, and have kids.

I can see now that he was trying to make me more like him because he perceived difference as a threat, an early warning sign of his rock bottom self-esteem.

Unlike him, I love the diversity of humanity. When I meet someone who is very different from me I find them intriguing. Our uniqueness is illustrated in how different our interests are.

Embrace the possibilities that come from meeting someone with different ideas to you, but make sure he is also open to exploring yours. And whether he joins you at the symphony or not, if you love it, don’t stop going.

Maintain your self-sufficiency.

I was only eighteen when I met my first husband. I had been driving for less than a year. Immediately after we started dating, he was in the driver’s seat. Soon the only place I drove to was work, the only place I traveled to alone.

More than twenty years later, when I finally got away, I realized that I had never driven in city traffic or on a highway. I was nervous and jumpy behind the wheel. I had to re-learn this important life skill.

Making me feel like an incapable driver was another way to isolate me and keep my world small. One more way to make me more dependent on him.

A man who makes you feel incapable and dependent is giving you warning signs. Take them seriously.

Protect your privacy and independence.

Within a few months, my privacy was a thing of the past. He would want to talk to me everywhere, even the bathroom. I had no personal space.

He also acted wounded if I wanted to go out with my friends, so I didn’t. When I finally left him I realized that I had been out with my friends twice, in 24 years. The second time the guilt trip was so bad, I never bothered asking again.

Toxic partners want to be your everything. They resent anything in your life that takes the focus off them.

Keep seeing your friends and protect your privacy. If he can’t cope, he’s not right for you.

Be grateful you found out before it was too late.

A healthy relationship is worth the wait.

From one who made a life-changing mistake, and then discovered in her forties the joy of a healthy relationship, I can say to you that settling down too quickly is a really bad idea. Bad relationship choices have devastating consequences.

Healthy relationships help both parties grow. If one party is shrinking, something has died, or it was never living to begin with.

Don’t let the thing that dies be your dreams, your potential, or your life.

I’ve endured enough of that for both of us.