Are you still wishing and hoping your abusive partner will, one day, says he’s sorry?

If you do, then you’re not alone.

Bea wrote to ask me why she does it.  Here’s  her question, and my reply.

“I am so glad I found you and your wonderful website… I would like to know one thing though: why is it that the feeling of waiting for him to call me to tell me that he is sorry and that he loves me won’t go away? I keep waiting to see his car pull up in my driveway, or him sitting outside when I go out for lunch from work, or a text message saying how much he loves me and how sorry he is.?

How do I let go of the feelings of  wanting him to show up and be the prince I want in my life?”

Great question Bea.  The fairy tale is really seductive, isn’t it?

All any of us need is for our nasty little abusive frog to come back, and say the magic words: “Darling, I love you.  I’m sorry.  I realize what a fool I have been.  Can you ever forgive me?  I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you”…

And you know what?

We wouldn’t have to do the work on ourselves.

Pooff!!

All the bad stuff would vanish into thin air as we stepped into the fairy tale.

It would be like one of those children’s films – or maybe they’re ads for something or other? – where you have a pretty, ridiculously over groomed – real – woman, in a cartoon landscape, surrounded by small, friendly furry animals that can talk!!

And it would all be so simple, and cute, and… well, feel-good.

There’d be sunshine every day.  There’d be no bills or taxes to pay, and no Bad Hair days.  We’d never, ever grow old or put on weight.

It goes without saying that we’d never need to focus on our own baggage never grow to our full emotional stature.  We’d never have to do our own healing.   We could simply remain emotionally dependent on our frog-prince for the rest of our lives.  And he’d love us for it.  He’d love the deliciously unwrinkled child-woman unconditionally.

In fact, our sweet child persona would be the thing he found irresistible.

You already know an emotionally abusive relationship isn’t like that.

Well,growth isn’t like that, either.

Growth tends not to be easy, or unchallenging.

If you had your choice, and if I had had my choice, we would probably have preferred comfort to growth.  Comfort feels like a lot less trouble.  At the time.  In reality comfort is a dead end.

Growth will enable you to be proud of who you are, and touch more lives more profoundly than you otherwise might.  And that matters to you.

Comfort will never enable you to have that profound connection with others.

And then there is this quotation:

“Children are not vessels to be filled, but lamps to be lit.”

Leaving your children aside for the moment – if you do have children  – I invite you to think about this: at the moment you are treating yourself like a vessel to be filled with his recognition.

You provide the empty vessel, and you allow him to fill it with whatever he chooses.

He chooses to fill that vessel with negativity.

Why would you continue to be a receptacle, when you can shine a precious light on the world.

I’m interested in doing my part in helping you to light your lamp, so you can light your children’s also.

Warm wishes,

Annie