Toxic relationships are so much more common than you think they’d be. We have all experienced a relationship—whether that be with a family member, friend, or significant other—that has hurt us in some way.
I have recently gone through some life changes that for some reason I thought I was experiencing by myself. My boyfriend and I of 4.5 years broke up due to the fact that our relationship wasn’t working anymore. Now, I wouldn’t say that he is a toxic person at all. Rather, our relationship was consuming us both to the point where it became unhealthy. It was almost as if we were just being together because that’s all we knew and it was comfortable.
I felt stuck between who I was and who I was pretending to be. We both agreed that we had grown into two different people who wanted different things and that it was time for us to separate. Getting out of this relationship has been quite tough, but I am becoming happier every day. I feel as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and that I can finally take my life where I want it to be.
As I talked to friends about my situation, I realized that other people have gone through the same thing that I did and they ended up far better. I want you all to hear these stories about people’s breaking points that led them to get out of their toxic relationship.
I asked my friends and social media followers to talk about their story, and this is what they said. (Trigger warning: some stories may be found upsetting. Please proceed with caution.)
1: “It came to the point where he would call me every night and I would stay up all night crying. My GPA went from 3.8 to 0.69. I decided that my life wasn’t going to end so negatively because of a guy who didn’t care about me.”
2: “I’ve gone through this before. They even threatened to hurt themselves if I left, but it’s very important to put your own happiness first. I knew I wasn’t happy and I had to get out of a negative situation and slowly I started drifting away and letting go until I ended it completely. I blocked him from everything, including his number, and I made sure he could no longer contact me. He would still try to find ways, but eventually he grew out of it and stopped trying to contact me. I’m very happy now with a new guy who treats me like a queen and I’m so glad I realized I could do better. A guy should treat you like a literal queen. You need positive people in your life who will help you grow, not negative boyfriends who drain you.”
3: “My past relationship broke me down entirely. The breakup had been coming for a long time, but I just didn’t know how to do it. He was never supportive. He never made me feel valued. I gave up everything for him. I gave up my precious free time to FaceTime him when I should have been studying. I missed out on having fun with my friends because he would get mad any time I went out or did anything without him. He made me feel like I was a bad girlfriend. I transferred out of my dream school to move home to try to save our relationship. I was never a priority to him. He cared more about his job, fishing and sex than he did about me as a person. Everything I did wasn’t good enough for him. He broke me down mentally and physically. I lost over 40 pounds and countless friends, had bad grades and so much more during our relationship.
My trigger consisted of two things: one, I was accepted into my school’s nursing program. This was such a big deal for me and I had been looking forward to that day for months, but all he did was say, “Oh, congrats” and rolled to the other side of the bed. Two, I had been looking at getting a new car for months. When I finally went and signed on a car, I wanted to surprise him because I was so proud of myself. When I told him, though, he said, “Did you not tell me about this until after because I would have told you it was stupid?” I took my brand new car up to Winona that weekend and after talking to some people who held a special part of my heart about all the drama, I realized that I didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I deserved way more than a guy who did nothing but belittle me.”
4: “I was in a relationship for a year and a half. The guy that I fell in love with had a disability. He had very low-scale autism and knew how to manipulate me to stay with him based on pity and guilt. I didn’t love him. In the beginning, I loved him very much, but he was constantly accusing me of cheating. The final straw was when he showed up at my place of work and smashed my phone so I couldn’t talk to anyone to “cheat on him”. He didn’t expect me to put up a fight for my phone, but I did. In the process of all this, he left multiple bruises on my body and tackled me to the ground multiple times. To put it into perspective: he is 6 foot 2, 245 pounds; I’m 5 feet and 160 pounds. He had absolutely no care for hurting me and my co-workers called the police. He went back to my house and ripped the thermostat off the wall, threw my TV outside, punched multiple holes in my walls, and as a result, it made me lose my $800 rental deposit. He told me he would kill me for getting him arrested, so I moved a state away and cut ties with anyone who might tell him where I live. I know to this day he would in fact kill me if he ever saw me again, so I haven’t spoken to any of my friends from my hometown for five months. Now, I live 140 miles away with no friends and no one to support me. But I would rather be physically alone than feel so mentally and emotionally alone in my own relationship.”
5: “Our relationship had been rocky for a long time. He was always lying about things and had a severe drinking problem. I found out he cheated on me, but for some reason, I still wanted to make it work. About a week later, he lied to me again, saying he was at home doing homework when really he was out drinking with his friends. That was my last straw. Both lying and cheating were my triggers.”
6: “When I realized that he thought my mental illness was getting in the way, that was the last straw. He didn’t like it when I talked to other people about my depression, yet he wouldn’t let me talk to him about it. Technically, we were not dating, but we did everything a couple would do. We went on dates and everything. I finally realized that since there was no label that we were not exclusive. He flirted with other girls all the time, but I was not allowed to talk to other guys. He always said the second I even kissed someone else, it was over forever. He also said he was there for me, but every time I needed comfort he would tell me that I was being crazy, too emotional, overthinking and that it didn’t matter. I am the kind of person who never lets people walk over me. But I was blinded by him and he walked all over me. He said I wasn’t independent, yet I did his laundry, I cooked him food and I made his bed. He told me I was immature, even though he was the one who blocked me on every social media platform when I finally stood up for myself. I find myself missing him sometimes, but then I realize that I feel so much better without him.”
7: “I was in a 3-year relationship with who I thought was the love of my life, and they say hindsight is 20-20, but the last year of our relationship was so completely toxic that I knew I needed to end it—but I couldn’t. He was emotional and mentally abusive, and he tried to control my every move. I kept distancing myself and trying to leave the relationship but without saying so. I hadn’t seen him in weeks and didn’t make an effort to try. I was very short in communicating with him, hoping he’d get the hint. One day he decided to end it, and even though it was one of the hardest days of my life, and I even tried to fight it and apologize for my actions despite it being what I’d wanted to do, I’m so happy and proud I made the decision to distance myself.”
8: “I was screamed at for an hour by my best friend about how I wasn’t a good friend. I didn’t say anything. I just took it. After that, I stopped answering calls, texts and snaps. I was done.”
9: “I was in a committed long-term relationship, and about halfway through he became very abusive and manipulative. My breaking point wasn’t time-specific, I’d just hit rock bottom and didn’t have any more fight in me and I quit. But nobody should let it get past the point of abuse—it should’ve ended long before it did.”
10: “The final straw was when he finally broke his act and lost it, yelling at me for telling someone we were together. He was dating someone else while emotionally abusing and manipulating me. He strung me along while in another secret relationship. I finally realized it was pulling me away from family for no reason.”
11: “I had been in a long-term relationship and I finally decided to end it once I hit my breaking point. For the past year, our relationship wasn’t the way it used to be. I started distancing myself because of the way he had been treating me. I was never a priority to him. Someone or something else always was. He made me think that I was acting crazy and that he was never in the wrong. We had tried many breaks throughout the year and he kept telling me he would change, but that was never the case. In the summertime, I asked him to hang out during the week, but he would only hang out with me until 9:00 p.m. because he was tired and had to get up for work at 6:00 a.m. The next night, he would be out with his friends until 2:00 a.m. He would never hang out with me that late, which is when I started realizing that I was not the most important person in his life like he told me I was.
Looking back, I am realizing more and more red flags. I would always confront him about why he would never want to hang out as often as he would with his friends, and one of his excuses was that I reminded him too much of the future and that his friends kept him in the present. I get that the future is scary, but isn’t it something you should be excited for? He would always worry about what his friends thought, never about what I was thinking. There was even a couple of times I had done something I thought was cool and he would just say, “Yeah, that is cool, congratulations,” and once one of his friends thought it was cool he would butt in and act like I was the most amazing person ever. I had been wanting to end things for a while, but what made me finally end things was when he left me outside of a bar when I got denied at the door. He stayed inside with his friends and didn’t even come to wait outside with me until I got a ride. Since we were in his college town, I got a ride back to his house and I laid in his bed crying for 2 hours while he stayed at the bar (he knew this, too). The crazy thing is that the plan was if I didn’t get in, we were going to leave or try a different bar. At 2:00 a.m., I had enough and walked out to my car to leave and go back home. As I was leaving, he was walking in. I proceeded to tell him that I was done and he just stood there and stared at me—not telling me that he was sorry, not fighting for me, just silence. His excuse for leaving me alone outside of the bar was that “You would’ve made me leave.” Yeah, because that was the plan? I have finally seen that I am worth so much more than what he was giving me and I deserve to be treated like a priority. Not just someone who comes in second after his friends.”
12: “He cheated on me and abused me so bad that I ended up trying to commit suicide, and I had enough after that.”
13: “My girlfriend cheated on me, which finally motivated me to leave.”
14: “They cheated so many times and did so many harsh things that I reached my breaking point and just left.”
15: “I was in a toxic relationship with someone from the military for about 9 months. I don’t like to speak poorly about someone who is in the Armed Forces, but he was a very manipulative person. There were multiple times when he would call me until I picked up, whether that meant redialing me once or 20 times in a row. If I was ever with family or friends, I’d be embarrassed to have to excuse myself because I knew he wouldn’t stop until I answered. When I’d finally pick up, the first words out of his mouth would always be, “Where were you?”
There were other red flags that should have been clear signs I needed to walk away. Sometimes he would call me late at night claiming he was drunk and intentionally say mean things. He would shame me for my body and even talk about other girls he wanted to hook up with. Then, in the morning, he would say he didn’t remember a single thing. I never believed that, though, because he’s had a high tolerance since he was in high school. Looking back, booze was his crutch for getting away with being outright mean to me. And I let it happen.
The cherry on top, what ultimately triggered me to get out of the relationship, was when he cheated on me with his Military Ball date. Kudos to him for owning up to it, but I felt sick to my stomach when I heard the sick pride in his voice as he started the call with, “Now, I know this isn’t what you want to hear…”
I didn’t walk away simply because he cheated. I fully expected him to, as sad as it is to admit. I walked away because I no longer saw the strong woman I knew I was in the mirror anymore. I was broken down, and I accepted the way he treated me. I became everything I preached against with my closest friends whenever they had relationship issues. I fell out of love with myself, and getting out of that relationship saved my life. Most people don’t understand how hard it is to put yourself first, especially if you’ve invested a lot of time into making a toxic relationship work. I promise you, though, that it is 100% worth the fight. Push through the pain and disappointment (whether it be in them or yourself), and take it one day at a time. What ultimately helped me move on was knowing that my feelings were valid and that I may take a while to completely heal. A saying a close friend of mine said a while back perfectly applies to this, too: ‘It’s okay to have a pity party. Just make sure you’re the first person to leave.’”
16: “I was in a relationship for almost a year, which continued casually after it ended on and off for another year. The trigger for me was after he did something that made me realize he didn’t actually love or care about me in the way I imagined he did. I cut off all contact as per his request (he requested this often), but this time I never gave in and we haven’t talked in almost a year.”
17: “He cheated on me with my best friend”
In the end, don’t settle for less. This is the only life you get, so you need to make decisions for your best interest. History and how long you’ve been with that person shouldn’t be a reason you stay in that relationship. I want you to be as selfish as you need to be in order to heal. The biggest takeaway from this article should be that you are not alone and that you will have the strength to break it off no matter how scary it will be. The people behind the stories above are proof.
Leaving someone doesn’t mean that you will never be together again—there’s always a chance that you two will reconnect and you could end up with a healthier relationship together. It may just take that person or both of you to grow up and learn in order for you to be together again. Now, I’m not saying that this is the case for everyone because sometimes there are people who will never change and need to be out of your life forever, but just keep an open mind.
I hope this article gives you some clarity or helps you know that in the end, everything will be okay. Because it will. You just wait.
Xoxo, Bailey.