anvil

I have a friend in a seriously fucked up relationship. Yes, this is about a friend and not a metaphor for myself. It disturbs me to the point of articulating it though, because she has been sinking for way, way too long.

Without going into the 'oh emm gee can you believe he did A-Z?', the guy is basically about as unmotivated as they come. He is supposedly a student, but never seems to actually be progressing in school. At over thirty years old, all he does is "go to school", play online video games (which is just creepy), smoke the reefer and sleep. Literally. I have no problem with smoking the chiba, but to excess is, well, excessive. I used to live with this girl and the dude was awake maybe 1% of the time that he was over. All they did when I lived there was stay in her room and sleep and fight.

The worst of this was having to hear it all the time. He wasn't over much, maybe one day a week at most, but when he was there, there was bound to be an explosive fight over something, with him being hurtful, her being shocked and saddened, him running out of the house and her - literally - chasing him screaming down the common hallway our apartments all share, shoes or no, rain or shine. And of course afterward, she would come to me with her tear-stained face to try and ascertain the why of it all.

I'll tell you why: your boyfriend is a selfish asshole who needs to grow up. I can spot these now, because I used to have one. Mine was better and worse in different ways, but the gist was the same. All talk, all outer shell, nothing legitimate inside. She has broken up with this dude a dozen times over legitimately stupid or cruel shit he has done and said and then takes him back every time for reasons I cannot fathom. At one point she was worried about what he would say to other people since they had broken up.

Why do girls do this? Why do you give a fuck what some stunted idiot is going to say about you? It's pretty easy to figure out that a narcissistic, mental juvenile will say narcissistic and immature things, in an effort to make himself somehow look good, despite the fact that he's a complete blowhard and an excuse for a partner. Duh. The best revenge is a happy life and the disappearance of the shitty person, so just go with that. Move on. Focus on your life and on what makes you happy and *hint* it's not that dude.

The point of this post though, is that there is a lesson here. I actually learned this lesson a few years ago, but I'd like to toss it out for general consumption. When you tell your friends what an asshole your boyfriend is - repeatedly over a very long period of time - and then you make up excuses for his bad behavior, all while crying on the shoulders of people who care about you, we grow to hate your douchebag boyfriend and want you to dump his ass. Then we get to a point where we want to slap some sense into you, and finally we don't want to hear the dude's name, don't want to hear about your relationship, good or bad, and it gets more difficult to talk to you and be around you, because you are wearing the nasty film of a bad partnership all over your face, voice, body language and emotions.

Instead of listening to all of his fantastic stories and fluff, watch what he does. Watch how he acts and pay attention to how he is really treating you. I guarantee that what you want and what is happening are two completely different scenarios. If he cared about you, he would act like it. If he doesn't give a squirt of piss about you, what is important to you, or your relationship together, he will act like it.

In case you aren't aware, he's acting like the latter part of that paragraph. Open your eyes and then make some decisions.

If you don't want an absentee relationship, don't be in one. If he doesn't do what he says he's going to, dump him. Early on. He's not going to change. If he's unsupportive and manipulative with the private things you share, drop his ass. He's not going to suddenly decide to take the focus off of himself, because that would mean acknowledging that there are other people in the world and he'd have to do more than just sit around like a 300 pound cat spouting bullshit, pointing at things and playing around on his stupid computer all day and night. The best time in your relationship - and every single long-married person I know says this - is when you are dating and first married. So if it sucks now, you are only going to go downhill from here and why in the hell would you want to do that, knowing that some inevitable tough times lie ahead? Is this really who you would want to be in the trenches with?

Lose the anvil pinning you down, girl. It's really not as heavy as you think, and you'll be amazed at how much better you feel right away when you say goodbye for real. But, you're still not allowed to talk to me about him. Sorry, but I've had all of the shitty relationship bullshit a person can handle for one lifetime, so either help yourself or zip it. I love you!

.....too harsh?.......