Life Goes On

by Anonymous

The summer of 2008, I was only 14 years old. I had just started “dating” boys, which weren’t real relationships anyways. The kind where you see each other at school and hold hands in the hall, maybe stay after school and sneak around the halls flirting, and talk on the phone all night, but that’s about it.

You barely if ever see each other. I dated two kids for 6 months or so when I was this age that I hung out with out of school once or twice, no more. But at the age it doesn’t phase you really.

So it’s the end of the summer and I like this boy in the neighborhood of my best friend. We start hanging out and it’s obvious we like eachother and start dating the beginning of November that year. Everything’s great! We give each other the butterflies, the whole nine yards. This same year he became a freshman, I was a sophomore, we were only a few months apart but I was one of the youngest in my grade. Influenced by the older kids he hung out with, he got into some things. We started getting serious and both lost our virginity to one another 6 months into it. We were at the age of curiousness, and funny we both fooled around with one of each other’s friends behind each other’s backs right in the same time period, thats funny. So we call each other out, break up fight. We get back together and everything’s fine.

Now I had a bad situation at home and never wanted to be there and so going over his house. A few months later, his parents get divorced and its all down hill from here. He starts being upset all the time. We were good backbones for eachother and helped one another out. He starts smoking pot, partying a little more than usual, skipping school, which I absolutely was doing the same thing, but only about 1/4 of how often he was into it. He went from straight A’s to a progress report with 2 D’s an F and some B’s. We were still getting along fine at this point so like everyone else says, “Its just the age” “Or its a phase, they’ll grow out of it”.

Well fast forward a year or two, we developed serious trust issues. We fought about jealousy, who I was friends with for guys, who he was always smoking with, not to mention he was the weed dealer of the town as well. I move out and move to my other parents house after I graduated highschool and we became a long distance relationship. Both not old enough to drive, nor do we have a car obviously. We barely saw each other for the next 6 months. I finally got a car and right away was driving to see him EVERY weekend, rain, snow or shine.

I enrolled in a local community college for two years, I still picked up the slack or driving to him every weekend. With the argument of that all of my and his friends were down there so in a way he was totally right, I would much rather drive down there. But with all that aside, I can still to this day count the number of times he came up to see me… maybe 10-12? We dealt with breaking up a few times here and there, spending nights of screaming matches on the phone, getting back together, doing it all over again. Finally it came time to transfer, and I wasnt going to hold back on my life to keep this relationship in tact and decided I was going to the school I wanted and that was it. He was okay with it said we would work it out, we had done this long distance thing for a while now. Now its a year later, we broke up 2-3 times during last year for a month to 3 months at a time and for some of the summer, date other people, and somehow once again think we can fix things, we were meant to be, we’ve been on/off for going on 7 years now.. I mean what 21 year olds can say they dated someone for the last 7 years? Thats absolutely crazy.

On the positive side obviously we have some sort of real connection. BUT, theres always a “but” to most of the good things we shared. In between all these years is a lot more garbage that briefly lets just say, according to this website, we are 110% “toxic”. We’ve drunkenly phyiscally fought at least 5 times a few years back, both called each other the worst things you could imagine, and cheated on each other a few more times in the means of those years. But keep going back to what we know and are most comfortable with saying we’ll both change. And shockingly, for the most part have.

So the moral of my story is now.. I’m a senior in college, Im a very determined and motivated person to be successful, and I literally came from parents who raised me yes, but as far as any kind of stability and personal growth, I was on my own. I’m still trying to fix and cope with what we have left. Granted, all these issues have gotten a lot better, but they are still engraved in our milestones. Now its my last year to do good in school yet I have a boyfriend who owes me money, is far away, “works too much for right now at least to come drive here”, hasnt completed more than 1 year of community college, yet is the most intelligent person Ive met. He just can’t seem to act on his dreams.

So now Im basically facing the “Should I stay or should I go now?” because part of me feels like I’m holding back on living and being myself and doing what I want, with the usual “He would get mad, so I won’t”. But there’s the little voice that doesn’t want to do it, and then there’s the other voice thats like “are you kiddingg meeee!” I just cant get myself to actually perform the action of ending it.

Our Relationship Advice for You

It’s time to discover who you really are
by: Sarah

This is an unhealthy relationship. And there aren’t many people who can say they’ve been together for 7 years when they’re 21.

He is holding you back. You might just be in this relationship to say you’ve been together for so many years. You guys really aren’t in a relationship. 

You have many admirable qualities, as you seem to know. I think you have grown beyond your friend and perhaps you should just tell him so. Tell him how you really feel and why. Lord knows you’ve spent a long time being in a dysfunctional relationship – in your heart you know what is best for you. Act on it when the time is right for you.

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