Samuel

Bentley: I admire your personality that is filled with enthusiasm, dedication, and passion. In my life, I’ve experienced multiple [failed] toxic and unhealthy relationships. The last one was a ‘situationship’ and towards the end of the relationship, things went downhill attributed to my lack of communication and apathy. Him and I went to the same college and met there a few years ago. I wanted to salvage the relationship, but his way of thinking seemed out-of-touch. He asked me to write him a formal essay explaining my hardships and how it affected our relationship. And so I wrote one. Is this an appropriate way to salvage a relationship? Have you ever heard of this kind of request? PS: he accepted my letter and got back together but worsened once again and so he decided to part ways. Add that to the list of failed relationships!

Dear Samuel,

Thank you so much for the compliments, they made my day :)

From what you’re describing from your “situationship”, you mention that you believe things went downhill due to your lack of communication and apathy. As both of those things can be due to past trauma, and trauma can be really hard to talk about, it sounds like your partner was trying to find a way to open you up and gain a better understanding of the situation so he knew better how to proceed. While a formal scholarly essay is an interesting choice to get their needs met, it’s certainly not in the realm of toxic unless you felt belittled or badly about the request. When you say you did it, how did you feel while you were doing it? How did you feel when you gave it to him? If the answer to both of those questions is not badly then this doesn’t necessarily seem like a toxic request. If, however, the answer is negative and you did it anyway it probably is a reflection of the other toxicity you mentioned in your questions.

With all of that, I see a deeper question here! You started off the question by describing multiple toxic and unhealthy relationships, called this one a “situationship”, and ended by stating that this one ended as well, adding it to the list of failed relationships. So what I actually hear in this question is why do you keep repeating these patterns?

It sounds like while you really want a good partnership, you may not really know what that looks like. That can happen for a variety of reasons, possibly not having one modeled for you, or having events in your life that made it hard for you to accept someone who really wants to step up and be your partner. You described yourself as aloof, are you deliberately holding yourself back because you’re scared of being vulnerable or don’t feel like you deserve a healthy partnership?

Figuring out the reasons that you keep repeating these patterns, or maybe find it hard to be vulnerable in a relationship, may be the key to helping you be comfortable trusting that you deserve a good partnership and looking for people around you who are capable of giving you what you need. So do the work! I’m confident that if you do you’ll be able to find someone who doesn’t need to ask for a scholarly article in order to understand you and your feelings.

Wishing you all the best in your future relationship endeavors!

Bentley