Love Me Like You Hate Me

I’ve never been the good guy. I didn’t save the day or wear the white hat. Hell, most days, I was the reason things needed saving in the first place. And yeah, I look damn good in a three-piece suit—not that it really matters. The suit might catch your eye, but the man inside it? That’s where the real story lives. And for a long time, that story was more wreckage than redemption.

If you were hurt by me, I probably told myself I was doing you a favor. That’s how I survived—by pretending the destruction I caused was inevitable. I wasn’t a villain, not really, just someone too broken to be the hero you needed. At least, that’s the story I told myself. The truth? I was selfish. I was reckless. I wanted everything and couldn’t give enough in return. But damn, I made it look good, didn’t I?

For years, I told myself I was just built differently—wired for chaos, allergic to stability. Relationships? I’d sabotage them before they got too real. Commitment? A cage I’d find a way to escape, no matter how good it looked from the outside. My life was a highlight reel of self-destruction, fueled by a cocktail of charm, recklessness, and just enough self-awareness to make the whole thing look intentional.

There’s always been this itch—this unrelenting, gnawing feeling that whatever I had wasn’t enough. The perfect partner. The stable relationship. The future mapped out like a well-rehearsed cliché. None of it could scratch that itch, and I didn’t have the words to explain why. So instead, I ran. I sabotaged. I betrayed. I cheated. Not because I wanted to hurt anyone, but because I couldn’t name what I was chasing.

It wasn’t until eight years ago that I started to understand why. I stumbled across the concept of polyamory, and suddenly, things began to make sense. The restlessness, the disconnect, the constant craving for something “more.” I’d spent my entire life forcing myself into monogamy, a script I never questioned because it was the only one I thought existed. But realizing I was polyamorous didn’t fix everything. If anything, it shone a spotlight on all the ways I was still fucking up.

Polyamory, for me, was never about “having it all.” It wasn’t some grand excuse for bad behavior or a way to avoid intimacy. It was about freedom—the freedom to love deeply, honestly, and without fear of breaking the rules. But here’s the thing: polyamory doesn’t work if you can’t handle honesty, and back then, I was a master at lying—to myself and everyone around me. It wasn’t polyamory that was the problem. It was me.

There were at least two people I thought I’d spend forever with—great loves, the kind you don’t think you’ll ever lose. My non-monogamous nature wasn’t something I could switch off, no matter how much I wanted to make it work. It’s not a choice or a phase; it’s who I am. And when the core of who you are conflicts with the foundation of a relationship, no amount of love can fix it. Walking away felt like ripping out pieces of my soul, but staying would’ve been a betrayal of myself—and, eventually, of them.

By the time I hit 27, I’d been dating for 15 years. Fifteen years of connections made and broken, of nights that burned bright but left nothing but ashes come morning. And while I’d love to tell you it was all heartbreak and tragedy, that’s not the full story. The destruction was real, but so was the fun. There’s a thrill in chaos, a kind of reckless joy that’s hard to let go of, even when you know it’s unsustainable. I was reckless, selfish, and sometimes cruel. But I was also alive in a way most people aren’t brave—or foolish—enough to be.

But chaos only gets you so far. Eventually, you run out of things to burn. You wake up one morning surrounded by the wreckage of your own making, and for the first time, you see it for what it is: a pattern. Not bad luck. Not fate. Just you, lighting the match over and over again because it’s easier than learning how to build something real.

Six years ago, something changed. My current relationship didn’t just stop the fire—it made me want to put down the matches. For the first time, I wasn’t running from someone or something. I was running toward clarity, toward connection. This wasn’t a savior story. No one saved me but me. But the love we’ve built made me see that letting go of destruction wasn’t weakness—it was freedom. It’s not easy to untangle the past or the damage I caused, but for the first time, I’m learning what it means to live without chasing chaos.

Here’s the thing about the stories I’m going to share with you: they’re not bound by time. Some are decades old, moments soaked in the reckless energy of youth—times when I didn’t know or didn’t care about the consequences. Others are more recent, clearer but just as messy. And some are confessions—things I’ve never told anyone, the kind of truths that the people involved still don’t know about to this day. These aren’t neat little anecdotes tied up with a moral. They’re snapshots of a life lived in extremes. The timeline doesn’t matter; the wreckage does.

This blog is the story of that process—the destruction that left scars, the chaos that felt like freedom, and the rebuilding that taught me what survival really means. If you’re going to burn bridges, you’d better learn to live with the firelight—and figure out what’s worth saving from the ashes.

Next time, I’ll take you back to the start. To the first domino that fell, the first crack in the foundation, and the first moment I realized I wasn’t just the antihero in my story—I was also the villain. Stay tuned. The wreckage tells its own kind of truth, and I’m just getting started