OneBadMother
10-01-2007, 05:37 AM
Well, since someone mentioned something like this in INTJs and Relationships, here it is. <_<
What was your worst relationship like, what type was your ex, and how did it go terribly, terribly wrong?
Long-Winded Story Alert:
I was involved in a 2 1/2 year relationship with an ENFP. The relationship started in the first place with a misunderstanding, thanks to text not being able to convey nuances of wording very well. Namely, he said "I love you", and I, having violently reacted to his flirting a previous night, felt sorry for him and decided that maybe I should try to make him happy (I thought that sacrificing my life for some greater good was a good way to do something meaningful with my life at that point). Later I found out that he meant "I love you" in a friendship sort of way, making our relationship based on a sham from the outset.
I tried my best to stick to my gender role to make him feel needed and happy, but it seemed to have the side effect of him thinking I was stupid, emotionally fragile, and childlike. At first they were a devout Christian and rap enthusiast, but within the ensuing two and a half years he would change philosophies and musical preferences frequently. After the first change he began to regard me as worthless and my opinions as completely without merit. He cheated on me early on, but since I didn't care enough about him at that point it didn't matter to me. He would get offended if I didn't remember anniversaries or did anything but praise them. He would also be embarassed if I did anything particularly nerdy/silly/anything me-like at all in public, even if no one he knew was around. When people he did know were around, he would flirt shamelessly with females and wave me around like some sort of meat. He drank heavily, claimed to have done every drug known to mankind, was utterly bipolar, and would get violently angry at people for months at a time. He once had an LSD-induced foursome while I was away, told me, told me he was kidding, then revealed much later that it had, in fact, happened. He also used his abusive childhood as an excuse for all this.
I broke up with him, but then made the mistake of getting back together with him when he claimed that he needed me. During the brief period we were back together, I realized that I disrespected him so thoroughly that I wasn't even physically attracted to him anymore, that other people had gone through worse and that he was just using his past as an excuse to be a dick, that I was more depressed than I had ever been while in that relationship, and that even if I hadn't fallen for someone else by then and even if he tried to be better, we were still one of the worst two people to be in a relationship together. I tried to drive him off, but realized eventually that I would have to be the one to break it off. So I finally did, despite him saying that the fact that I was the most miserable I ever was around him meant it was love, and threats of suicide.
Later he said "Let's be friends!", only to backstab me about it and try to turn all my friends against me, claiming that he was going to drink himself to death. Naturally, he didn't, and he even got himself another girlfriend eventually, though he broke it off with her within a few months. He tried pulling the "let's be friends" stunt again, but I simply e-mailed him back once to tell him I was glad he was doing all right and completely severed contact from then on out.
I was definitely at fault with this, but I still think to this day that what he ever did to me significantly outweighs what I did to him. This was my first and only relationship, from when I was 14 to 17. While I regret it to some extent, I think it helped me grow as a person. I've become more confident in myself and my identity and no longer think that I should sacrifice my life for others. I've also learned that I should never date an F again, especially one with such huge issues, and should get to know someone I'm interested in extremely thoroughly over however many years it takes before so much as considering dating them. I may have been eventually turned down by the guy I liked during the waning part of the relationship and grew to love afterwards, but I figure that I would never have considered him in the first place if I had had a strong bond with my ex. I would hands-down prefer being alone for the rest of my life than ever dating my ex again.
What was your worst relationship like, what type was your ex, and how did it go terribly, terribly wrong?
Long-Winded Story Alert:
I was involved in a 2 1/2 year relationship with an ENFP. The relationship started in the first place with a misunderstanding, thanks to text not being able to convey nuances of wording very well. Namely, he said "I love you", and I, having violently reacted to his flirting a previous night, felt sorry for him and decided that maybe I should try to make him happy (I thought that sacrificing my life for some greater good was a good way to do something meaningful with my life at that point). Later I found out that he meant "I love you" in a friendship sort of way, making our relationship based on a sham from the outset.
I tried my best to stick to my gender role to make him feel needed and happy, but it seemed to have the side effect of him thinking I was stupid, emotionally fragile, and childlike. At first they were a devout Christian and rap enthusiast, but within the ensuing two and a half years he would change philosophies and musical preferences frequently. After the first change he began to regard me as worthless and my opinions as completely without merit. He cheated on me early on, but since I didn't care enough about him at that point it didn't matter to me. He would get offended if I didn't remember anniversaries or did anything but praise them. He would also be embarassed if I did anything particularly nerdy/silly/anything me-like at all in public, even if no one he knew was around. When people he did know were around, he would flirt shamelessly with females and wave me around like some sort of meat. He drank heavily, claimed to have done every drug known to mankind, was utterly bipolar, and would get violently angry at people for months at a time. He once had an LSD-induced foursome while I was away, told me, told me he was kidding, then revealed much later that it had, in fact, happened. He also used his abusive childhood as an excuse for all this.
I broke up with him, but then made the mistake of getting back together with him when he claimed that he needed me. During the brief period we were back together, I realized that I disrespected him so thoroughly that I wasn't even physically attracted to him anymore, that other people had gone through worse and that he was just using his past as an excuse to be a dick, that I was more depressed than I had ever been while in that relationship, and that even if I hadn't fallen for someone else by then and even if he tried to be better, we were still one of the worst two people to be in a relationship together. I tried to drive him off, but realized eventually that I would have to be the one to break it off. So I finally did, despite him saying that the fact that I was the most miserable I ever was around him meant it was love, and threats of suicide.
Later he said "Let's be friends!", only to backstab me about it and try to turn all my friends against me, claiming that he was going to drink himself to death. Naturally, he didn't, and he even got himself another girlfriend eventually, though he broke it off with her within a few months. He tried pulling the "let's be friends" stunt again, but I simply e-mailed him back once to tell him I was glad he was doing all right and completely severed contact from then on out.
I was definitely at fault with this, but I still think to this day that what he ever did to me significantly outweighs what I did to him. This was my first and only relationship, from when I was 14 to 17. While I regret it to some extent, I think it helped me grow as a person. I've become more confident in myself and my identity and no longer think that I should sacrifice my life for others. I've also learned that I should never date an F again, especially one with such huge issues, and should get to know someone I'm interested in extremely thoroughly over however many years it takes before so much as considering dating them. I may have been eventually turned down by the guy I liked during the waning part of the relationship and grew to love afterwards, but I figure that I would never have considered him in the first place if I had had a strong bond with my ex. I would hands-down prefer being alone for the rest of my life than ever dating my ex again.