The material presented
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Maybe it is because our anniversary is coming up but I have been doing a lot of looking back on my relationship with my hopefully stbxah. If only I could get him to sign those divorce papers. The question I keep coming back to is "What was I thinking? Why did I put up with this insanity and disrespect for so many years?" I have always said my AH could rationalize any behavior but I'm really no different. In the beginning of our relationship I would say to myself and anyone else who questioned me about his behavior. Ok. So he lies a lot. At least he's not a cheater. Once he started cheating that turned into, ok, so he cheats. At least he's not abusive. Then that turned into, ok, he is verbally abusive. At least he has never hit me. Which years later turned into, ok, so he beat me but at least he, insert other terrible behavior that he would later engage in. Why did I even accept the lying? I don't accept it from anyone else. And how did I not know that things would only get worse? I guess it is true that we become as sick as them. As painful as it is I am going to try to look deep within myself to figure why I tolerated 10 years of this crap and do whatever I can to prevent myself ever being invloved in this type of relationship in the future. Although I can see now he manipulated me, I can't totally blame him for me staying for so long. But I feel like I have been brain washed for years and I am finally coming out a fog and seeing things more clearly. I always considered myself a strong and independent person and I need to figure out how I let myself get trapped in this terrible situation. And why it took me so many years to see that I could have and should have walked away.
I hear you! I'm in EXACTLY the same situation as you right now. Thank HP it never turned to physical abuse, but I think the only reason it didn't was because he was abused as a child. Maybe he couldn't go there, and for that I am grateful. I would love nothing more than to open the mailbox today and see the divorce papers we discussed three weeks ago. I'm just going to have to be patient - which isn't one of my strong suits. Just want the last 10 years to fade in the rearview mirror - time to pick up and move on. My therapist gave me some great tips for how not to do this again - the most enlightening to me was "don't take on any more human reclamation projects". LOL!!! I'll be thinking of you today, (((hugs my sister)))
Usually the person is begging, pleading, and promising they will change during that whole process - and of course we want to believe them. Not to mention, their are examples of people who have gotten into recovery and changed, so we know it's possible though not likely. You did your best with what you had at the time. Don't be too hard on yourself.
I drank away my 20s and also was involved in terrible relationships, but it all got me to a better place that I am at now.
i can very well relate to your post. At the moment I'm struggling mostly with anger and disappointment, and struggling myself to have let myself teated the way I did. the only thing to do to heal is to practice acceptance, self-care and improve self-love....even if it feels selfish at times...it's only because it's unusual i guess. don't be hard on yourself, the past can't be changed but the present and future can. I know those words sound easy, but the practice isn't.... so please keep coming back and share. ((((((scaredandconfused)))))
I happens because they don't start out with abusive behavior (lying is an abusive behavior) - they are charming, funny, endearing (oh how charming mine was - so many promises never kept!) and they get ahold of our hearts, then they test us, how will we handle a little lie, and adjust their behavior according to our reaction to the first test. I was chosen by my ex because he seeks out women who avoid conflict, women who don't like to fight because they don't fight well. Men like him look for lonely women who are looking for prince charming; they charm them a while to win their hearts and then we stay with them knowing in our hearts that all we have to do is find that magic formula for life that will allow him to return to prince charming - we handle all their stressors, buy them gifts, make big productions out of everything THEY like/need; and they take every inch they can get and whine for more and tell us its our fault they are unhappy so we try harder until we are like hamsters running like mad on the wheel wondering if its ever going to stop.
If my ex had been the lying, cheating, bullying jerk right from the start I would never have even given him the time of day - a polite smile in passing might have been all he'd ever gotten from me - but he was charming and won my heart, then he lied and I negated the lie in favor of the relationship and the path was set, step by step the abuse got worse until I couldn't run the wheel anymore.
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
