It’s the beginning of the year. I haven’t written anything in a while. Since I got let go from my last job, I’ve been taking it easy. Not because I’m lazy. Because I needed to heal. I’ll come full circle on that in a minute.

This is a story I’ve wanted to tell for a long time. I just never had a clean reason to. Now I do.

I Spent a Decade in Three Year Relationships

In my 20s, I got into a long term relationship that lasted three years. I know, people hear “three years” and shrug. I agree. In the grand scheme, that’s not a lifetime.

But it mattered, because I wasn’t the right person for that person, and they weren’t the right person for me. I was no angel either. I’ve always been weirdly apologetic about my past relationships because deep down I knew when I was the problem, or when I was staying in something I shouldn’t have been staying in.

Here’s the ironic part. I got out of that relationship and jumped into another one almost immediately. That lasted three years.

Then, you guessed it, I ended up in another bad relationship that lasted three years.

So yeah. I basically spent a decade of my life repeating the same pattern. Not because I loved it, but because I was unwilling to leave bad situations once I was already in them.

The “Betrayal” That Wasn’t

That last relationship ended, and that person ended up marrying my roommate. I know how that sounds. Most people hear that and go straight to “ultimate betrayal.”

To be clear, we had already broken up. It wasn’t cheating. It was just weird. There was about a six month overlap where I still lived there before I moved out, and yeah, things started getting a little mysterious, but I never held a grudge.

Honestly, I always felt like I accidentally did the right thing. I got the right two people together. My roommate was kind of a wet blanket. My ex was kind of needy. They were two pieces of the same puzzle. I moved on fast, and I don’t say that like I’m proud of it. I say it because at that point I finally wanted to focus on me.

And not “focus on me” like some Instagram quote. I mean actually being single long enough to reflect and stop repeating my own bad decisions.

Being Single Taught Me What I Actually Wanted

I had some goofy, weird situations after that, sure. But I started doing something I had never really done before. I started asking a basic question before I got too deep with someone.

Is this what I really want?

Because what I realized is I kept choosing the same kind of relationship over and over again. And if you keep landing in the same type of relationship, eventually you have to admit you’re part of the pattern.

I started looking at compatibility like a long game. Not the honeymoon phase. Not the excitement. The boring stuff.

Who is this person you wake up next to forever?

Can I deal with their quirks for the rest of my life?

Does the good outweigh the bad?

And that mindset is what saved me from the last “almost serious” relationship before I met my wife.

The Relationship That Looked Perfect, But Was Wrong

This person was completely into me. Like, pedestal levels. Would have done anything for me. Always at my feet.

And I knew right away I didn’t want that.

I didn’t want someone who needed me to be their guiding light. I didn’t want to be the one making every decision. I’ve always been a 50/50 person. I wanted a partner. Someone who would challenge me. Someone who could handle being challenged back. Someone who could build with me instead of clinging to me.

That relationship didn’t last long. Somewhere around three to six months, it became clear it wasn’t what I wanted, and before it went any deeper for her, I let it end. I had already spent too much time getting stuck in the wrong situations to repeat that mistake again.

You don’t learn that without time.

And that’s the point. Time taught me what I will accept and what I won’t accept. It made me better in my marriage. My wife and I are best friends. We tell each other the truth. Nobody’s keeping score. We’re on the same team. That’s what I always wanted, even when I didn’t know how to say it.

Now Let’s Talk About Jobs, Because It’s the Same Story

Why am I writing this now?

Because I lived the exact same pattern with my work.

I was a master electrician for several years, and I was miserable. Unhappy, unhappy, unhappy. After almost 20 years of being an electrician, I went back to school. Used my GI Bill. Got my degree. In retrospect, maybe not the cleanest plan because I triple majored like an idiot. Marketing, operations, IT. I was trying to squeeze every dollar out of that GI Bill.

I got into marketing and I had some terrible jobs early on. I’ve talked about that before, so I’m not going to rehash every detail.

But my first long term marketing job was wildly toxic. I didn’t recognize it at first. When you live inside something, you normalize it. Most days I hated going to work, but I kept excelling. I kept moving up. And the toxicity got worse the longer I stayed.

Sound familiar?

It was the work version of staying in a bad relationship because it didn’t start bad, and because I convinced myself nothing better was coming.

The Promote to Fire Situation

Then private equity took over. The weird changes started. The layoffs started. And they promoted me into a position that felt like I was being promoted to get fired.

That time sucked. People were getting cut left and right. It felt like the company couldn’t sustain what it was trying to do. Eventually, they laid me off.

And here’s where I made the same mistake I made in my 20s.

I jumped into a new relationship immediately.

In this case, a new job.

Someone I worked with before recruited me. They made it sound like the perfect opportunity. Too good to resist. I even told myself, out loud, that I shouldn’t rush into it. That I should take a beat and ask, do I still want agency life? Do I want to pivot into ops? Do I want to do something different?

But I didn’t take the time.

Less than three weeks after getting laid off, I was right back in it.

You Carry the Baggage Forward

There’s a saying about relationships: for every year you were together, you should take three months to recover. Three year relationship? Take nine months. Reset. Rediscover yourself.

I’m not saying you should sit unemployed for nine months. That’s not real life.

But I do think if you’ve been in a place for five or six years, especially a toxic one, you need time to decompress. Even if it’s just a month or two where you’re actually breathing again. No resumes, no “open to work” posts, just sweet silence.

Because if you don’t, you carry the baggage into the next place.

I truly believe you carry your last relationship into your next relationship. Same with jobs. I was beaten down so badly from the old job that it wouldn’t have mattered where I went. It wouldn’t have mattered how much money I made. I was still triggered. Still on edge. Still reacting to the new place like it was the old place.

So yeah. The next job had good times and bad times. Agency life is agency life. You get thrown into chaos, you adapt, you grind. But I was not healed. I was not ready. And I think both sides knew that.

We ended on amicable terms. No drama. Just a recognition that it wasn’t the right fit at that point in my life.

I Left Something Good Behind Anyway

Here’s the part I’m actually proud of, and it connects straight back to my ex marrying my roommate.

Most people see that story and want to label it a betrayal. I never did. We were already done. What I saw was two people who fit better together than they ever fit with me. And instead of turning it into a scar, I let it be a strange kind of closure. Like I helped the right pieces find each other, even if I wasn’t one of them.

That’s exactly how I feel about that last job.

It didn’t work out for me, but I brought the right people into the room. I connected friends who needed stability with a place that could give it to them. I kept a promise I made a long time ago to help my people land on their feet if I ever had the chance. And yeah, that meant swallowing my own pride sometimes and putting my own comfort on the back burner, because getting them to a better place mattered more than me “winning” the situation.

Some of them are still there. They’re thriving. And I love that for them.

Sometimes being the adult isn’t about forcing yourself to fit. It’s about recognizing the fit, even when it isn’t you. Sometimes your job isn’t to be the happy ending. Sometimes your job is to be the reason the happy ending becomes possible.

Two Months Later, I’m Finally Healed

It’s been two months since they let me go. 

And I can finally say it. I’m healed. Not from them, but from the place before.

It’s not like “everything is perfect.” The job market is tough. It’s hard. It’s stressful. I have a family. I have responsibilities.

But mentally? I’m not carrying that same weight anymore. I understand more about myself. I’m clearer on what I will accept and what I won’t accept. Not just in a marriage, but in a work relationship too.

I’m also way more selective now. I learned my lesson with LinkedIn Easy Apply. I don’t do that. I tailor resumes. I tailor cover letters. Everything is personalized.

And yeah, there’s a weird part of the modern job hunt where everyone runs everything through AI checkers and acts shocked when the writing looks “AI.” Newsflash, resumes have been written in the same format for decades. Of course it’s going to look similar. But whatever. You adapt and you keep moving.

The Lesson

If you’re in a bad relationship, you need time to heal.

If you’re in a bad job, you need time to heal.

If you don’t take that time, you’re going to rush into the next thing and drag the old mess right behind you like a damn trash bag.

Money matters. We all need money. I’m not pretending otherwise.

But you have to be honest about what’s going to make you happy, because if you’re miserable at work, it will leak into everything. Your personal life. Your relationships. Your health. Your creative projects. You will become a worse version of yourself just trying to survive.

Looking back, could I go back to the most recent job now and handle it better?

Yeah. Probably. If I had been healed, I could do the day to day work without resentment, without drama, without carrying old wounds into new conversations.

But the path forward is never backward.

You learn. You adjust. You take the lesson. You move forward.

First Post Back

So yeah, it’s been a while since I posted. That’s not an accident. When things started getting bad, I stopped writing because I had nothing left to give. It was sucking the life out of me.

These last couple of months have been good. Quiet. Resetting. Breathing again.

This is my first post back.

New year, new me, I guess you could say, even though that phrase makes me want to roll my eyes.

More posts coming. More insights. More honest stuff. That’s the plan.

That’s all I got.