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The Red Flags I Ignored and Why I Don’t Regret it

Even though it led to heart break

By Quinn SandovalPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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To fall in love is part of life. Because that is the reality in which we live so is heartbreak. To have lived through one (well, hopefully only one) truly is a metamorphic experience.

Not necessarily good.

But certainly cathartic.

Personally, I have lived through a particularly painful heartbreak that could have easily been avoided if I had simply acknowledged the red flags in our relationship. Despite that, I can confidently say (years later), I don’t regret ignoring them.

To really understand I suppose some back story might help. In high school, I had a very good friend who came over to my home regularly for meals with my family. We were even teammates, so over the years, we became very close. During this time I did have a boyfriend and he was quite the womanizer himself. Very openly in fact. But, there was always a sort of unspoken thing between us… the oh so alluring: “what if”.

That brings me to red flag numero uno.

. . . . .

Red Flag 1: I knew how he treated his previous girlfriends and conquests.

As I said, we were very good friends prior to entering into a romantic relationship. During our friendship I was a sort of moral compass for him. He would often explain his situation with girls, or who he had been with that weekend, or a mistake he felt his girlfriend at the time made and how he was going to get his revenge. These conversations generally led to me attempting to convince him to take the moral high ground and him trying to convince me why he didn’t need to.

So, to say the least, I aboslutely was aware of who he was. Despite this I thought the dangerous thought.

He’s different with me.

He’ll choose to be better for me.

Oh, what a naive thought. Spoiler. He did not change for me. The toxicity ran true in our relationship just as it had in his previous relationships.

But the issue wasn’t me.

It was that he did not want to change for anyone. I know I’m worth changing for. Worth fighting for. And to anyone reading this I hope you know you are as well.

Now, that isn’t to say that a person won’t try to better themselves for their significant other. But not to the extent I had hoped. I expected an entire character shift in someone who changed for no one.

. . . . .

Red Flag 2: He told me I was too good for him

I guess in hindsight he was right for telling me this. But it was a beautifully used manipulation tactic on his part.

This tactic served him two purposes.

The first: anytime we experienced his shortcomings, his mistakes (no matter how large) he would remind me how he did not desreve me. This resulted in me trying to tell him otherwise. Belittling his mistakes and the problems we may be experiencing to bolster his confidence and hopefully save the autonomy of our relationship.

And second: if I were to choose to end things with him it gave me easy outs. Therefore, saving him the hastle of being upfront and ending the relationship himself.

Unfortunately for me, I did not ever take those easy outs. I would simply try to remind him why he did deserve me and that he was good enough. This may seem silly now, but in the moments all I could think was that I wasn’t ready for what we had to be over.

That’s on toxicity for you.

. . . . .

Red Flag 3: The attention he gave his ex

This is rather self explanatory. But his attention was masked. Like I said, we were teammates before dating, this didn’t change once we were.

His ex was also on our team. Although, at this time we were recently out of high school and he served more of a coaching role for the club team and his ex was still in high school.

The attention he gave her was alwas disguised as coaching, and I ignored my gut and trusted that.

I’ll give you a quick guess who he ended up with again after our relationship ended…

Trust your gut.

. . . . .

I think it goes without saying that we didn’t exactly have a model relationship.

It hurt.

While we were in it, it hurt.

After it ended, it hurt. For a long time.

So why don’t I regret ignoring these red flags?

Growth.

The age old cliche: I am who I am today because of it.

I learned my self worth, and I learned what I really wanted in a healthy relationship.

So, now, 6 years later (happily married I may add) I can look back at the most toxic relationship of my life and reflect on the red flags I ignored a bit more fondly.

That isn’t to say of course that I think you should ignore these red flags or any in your own relationship. Truthfully I hope you can learn from my mistakes and hopefully avoid the toxic heartbreak I endured.

But, if we hadn’t have been together, maybe I’d still feel those “what if” feelings? And maybe that would have kept me from a truly healthy and happy relationship.

How could I possibly regret that?

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