You have been trained into believing that anything that goes wrong in your abusive relationship is solely your fault. And you have been trained out of feeling joy.It is terribly hard to let go of something in which you have invested so much for so long. Because you think that your investment and your life have been wasted. Not so!
Continue to offer her your sister love, support and hold the belief for her that she will recover and build a happy life for yourself, until such time as she can do it for herself. If she has been so bruised and battered in her abusive relationship that she cannot hold on to the belief that she can ever be whole and happy and healthy again, she needs you to do it for her, until she can.
Abused women tend to fight to keep the seeds of hope and a better future alive. Yet, left to themselves, they most commonly fail to remove the inner cynic. So they struggle to keep the tender seedling alive in a toxic environment. This makes for an unduly difficult, thankless struggle.
As regards you still being in love with him and unable to get him out of your head, yes, I hear that. I hear it all the time from women in your situation. What it is really about is you desperately wanting to feel loved, needed and validated. Somehow you need his love right now – or you think you do – to feel any love for yourself.
Sorry to tell you, but that really isn’t healthy.
Better news is that it passes.
“There is a huge hole in my heart. He can be a very good man and I do feel like if I had handled Tuesday evening differently maybe it would be different…”
There is a theory that we train people to behave towards us in a certain way. Now, I’m not saying that your partner’s abusive behaviours were ever your fault. But I am saying that he keeps coming back because he knows that you will keep taking him back.
Abused women very hungry indeed for any sign of love, closeness, being cherished. Touching, sex, kissing etc. apparently provide this. Because all these things most commonly occur in a loving relationship, when they occur it is easy to conclude that the relationship is loving, at least at that moment and that your partner’s intention is loving. Sadly it tends not to work like that in an abusive relationship.
He hasn’t loved you enough to care about not hurting your feelings time and time again and you are unable to love him unconditionally – and who could blame you? You have a great basis for a lousy relationship, but a truly lousy basis for a good relationship.
It’s ok to feel what you’re feeling. It’s normal. The fact that you are berating yourself for still being in the relationship actually means that you are growing your wings and preparing for flight.
In order for an abusive man to feel good about himself, someone else needs to be made to feel bad. In most cases that someone else is going to be you.
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