I spent enough of my life believing I was myself toxic that I just doubled-down. My mental-health suffered, but we’re at a point like a stand-off. I have an exit-plan and conditions that will trigger or prevent it, and I hope she does too, but with medication and therapy, I mostly feel like I’m where I want to be. Without it, my relationship would be irrelevant next to all the un-hinged shit I would get up to anyways.

I myself am not all that attached to the truth so much as I occassionally have to remind certain people that trying to convince anyone of utter-falsehoods and “non-disprovable” gibberish is boring, wasted effort, or worse. There is no upshot to abusing those who love you, at least not on a one-way street, and modern society has places if you really want to play the stupidest-possible games of bumper-cars.