Last week, during a conversation I was having with a dear friend about an ex-boyfriend of hers, she dropped the “c” word. She called him “crazy.” Not just “crazy”, but “batshyt crazy.” Now, having used the word many times myself, I started thinking about all the times I’ve heard it used by women in reference to their exes. Seems to be quite common, but could it be that all of these guys actually are crazy? Could it be true that there is an overabundance of sociopaths roaming the streets, looking for the opportunity to prey upon our unsuspecting selves? Have the so-called crazies taken over and edged out all of the sane guys that we would rather be involved with? Somehow, I doubt it. In fact, I suspect that the issue may often be a little closer to home.
It appears to be a huge coincidence that the complaints we voice about ex-boyfriends, husbands or lovers being crazy tend to come after we have determined that a relationship is no longer working for us. Once we realize that we can’t win (whatever that might look like for us), it’s time to start in with the picking apart and the analysis of the many and varied psychological conditions we have suddenly become convinced that they have. But here’s the question; are they crazy or are we?
When everything is going well and we think that we are getting what we want, we often choose to ignore the signs of “crazy” that we claim to eventually discover about them. Instead, we choose to focus only on those endearing little idiosyncrasies that we can giggle about and share with our friends; and we magnify the qualities that support our vision of what it looks like to be involved in a romantic love story. However, if things take a turn, we will swear that we have been duped by a severely emotionally unstable con man that was somehow able to conceal his mental condition just long enough for us to fall in love with him. For real? Maybe it isn’t about them being crazy as often as we’d like to profess. Maybe it’s more often about us.
Sometimes relationships can throw us for an emotional loop, but perhaps it’s time for us to consider pulling back on our liberal and frequent application of the word “crazy” when it comes to describing our exes. Maybe they aren’t crazy. And, maybe us calling them crazy is our way of avoiding the fact that we might have been just be a little bit nuts ourselves.
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