People of every age can find themselves in a relationship with a toxic partner. There is no age limit to dysfunctional relationships. I know married couples who were married for more than 25 years to a toxic partner. My aunt, for one. My uncle was an alcoholic until he died from brain cancer at 70. They had a very toxic marriage and raised children together but never divorced. Another married (now divorced) couple I know, is my cousin. He was in his 30s when he married his first wife, who was severely mentally ill and caused him a lot of problems so he divorced her. So you see, like divine1966 said, it's never too late to learn these things.

Only you can control who you date and marry. Only you. Stop blaming the toxic partners for your choices (sounds harsh but not meant to). You choose these toxic men to date, and you tie your self value, self worth, and self esteem to their mistreatment of you because you haven't addressed your childhood abandonment issues with your alcoholic father. You'll repeat that dysfunctional relationship pattern until you repair it. I still haven't repaired my dysfunctional triggers with men, b/c my dad died more than 20 years ago and he was very emotionally with-holding, neglectful, shaming, blaming, dismissive, he marginalized my feelings and never treated me with respect. Guess which types of men I date. Those same types! I haven't dated anyone in ten years and I've done a ton of therapy, but still need to address my triggers b/c as a result I became a codependent woman with weak interpersonal boundaries when I get around emotional abusive narcissistic men. I avoid men who smoke, drink, or do drugs but the ones who are narcissists, who emotionally abuse are insidious b/c they appear normal on the outside. It's not until I spend time with them, can I see their emotional abuse red flags.

So, you have to decide when you are going to start your journey towards self-healing and self-discovery. Until you do that, you'll continue to boomerang around dysfunctional men like this last guy you dated, and continue to let them define you which is wrong. Time to take the reigns back to your life and do the work you need to do, so that you can avoid these types of men and attract and be attracted to healthy men. It wont' be easy and it may take a while. I'm going on ten years of still being triggered but I have yet to let myself get fully involved with another narcissist.