When I opened the door to my apartment, I felt something wrong. The way the click of the lock echoed in the room was wrong. It was too resounding. Furniture usually absorbed sound.
But the couch, the rug, the dining room table (what used to muffle the noise of the tiled living room) were gone.
That's when I realized that my boyfriend had moved out without telling me.
I had only heard about something like this on television. But unlike a TV character, I didn't cry thick tears or reflect on how my decisions led me here. I got angry. I called him repeatedly, knowing each time he rejected the call. I texted him and told him to do some very specific things. I entered each room to evaluate what I had done, each discovery a spear through my stomach: the hangers hanging from the closet rod like a smile of broken teeth. Dresser drawers gutted. The bathroom was stripped of everything, even the shower curtain, as if it had just been rejuvenated for a new tenant to come in and decorate.
We had broken up two weeks earlier, at the end of a conversation that he spent staring at his phone while he responded to me with one-word responses. It was the conclusion of a fiery, unhealthy couple dominated by the hallmarks of a passionate relationship: mind-blowing sex, furious arguments, excessive alcohol consumption, conversations that turned sour in the blink of an eye, and constant fluctuations between the euphoria of the extreme highs and the devastation of melancholic lows. After a year and a half, I needed to get off the carousel. It was out of control.
I was codependent. And my boyfriend, although he wouldn't admit it, couldn't control his drinking. Worse yet, he made sure our entire social life revolved around it.
During our relationship, all of our weekends were the same: karaoke at the only gay bar in Pasadena, the Boulevard, with me at the microphone and him drinking whiskeys and chain-smoking outside the front door. I loved that place and the people who frequented there liked it. Over time, the only thing I didn't like was how drunk he was. The way he would casually attack me with a barb about something he knew was an insecurity for me.
I began to anticipate what might trigger his emotional abuse and take steps to avoid those situations. She entered graduate school and had difficulty completing her work due to ADHD. Soon I was grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, meeting all of both of our needs on my own. It was exhausting, but looking back, I thought my suffering gave me depth and meaning. Love meant sacrifice, I reasoned. And if he sacrificed enough, surely he would finally love me unconditionally.
Towards the end of his program, my boyfriend broke down and started taking ADHD medication. The change in him was immediate and drastic. Instead of being a stressed powder keg, he was calm and focused. What caught my attention was how affectionate he had become. This had been our normal setup: he would sit at our kitchen table putting together pieces of a big project while I sat on the couch watching TV, trying not to irritate or distract him and fall asleep while he worked all night. But now he was gentle. He looked at me and smiled. “I love you,” he said spontaneously. He almost never said it to me first and never with such warmth. I took this emotional crumb and appreciated it. See? I convinced myself. When I do everything right, I am rewarded. But at the end of the month, he stopped taking the medications and was back to his old self.
When I told my therapist about my boyfriend's double changes, she advised me to give him an ultimatum. “Tell him that he has to keep taking his medication or you'll leave.”
A few days later, I approached my boyfriend. I described to him how different he had been on his medication, how loved he felt for me, and how much I hoped that could continue. “I don't feel like myself when I take those drugs,” he barked at me. “I don't like”.
I gave him the ultimatum. He, predictably, exploded at me, raging around the apartment about how selfish he was, that he didn't love him for who he was. How he was the victim in the relationship, not me.
And deep down I thought I was right. Make my needs a priority. Ask him to do something that would make me feel loved? I felt bad. I felt selfish. But I also didn't think I would spend even another month in the relationship as it was. If he couldn't give me what he needed, he would be better off alone.
A few days later, he was gone.
At the end of the month, I moved into a small one-bedroom apartment on the side of Mount Washington. It was quiet here and far enough away from city life to feel like a refuge. There I rebuilt my life, one day at a time, starting with the wounds and traumas that led me to a codependent relationship. I knew I was better. That happier things were coming. But I also knew that I wouldn't have any of them if I didn't learn to love myself first.
The author wrote the upcoming book, “Splice of Life: A Memoir in 13 Film Genres.” He lives in Long Beach. He is on Instagram: @charlesjensen
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