When I was in an abusive relationship, I wondered how the hell I had got there. I’d had no experience of this before in my family or with previous boyfriends. My childhood was a privileged and happy one. ‘It must be him’ I thought.
So, I set out to try to fix him. To rescue him. To turn him into the man I thought he was. The man he’d shown me when we first met. Or had he?
He was gorgeous, charismatic. He turned everyone’s heads when he walked into the room. But he focused all his undivided attention on me. It felt wonderful. He had me at hello.
The truth is he started to show me signs of a darker side soon after we’d met. But I completely ignored them. I only saw what I wanted to see.
I projected onto him the man I wanted him to be. And with the first sign of anything physical I didn’t walk away, I stayed. I showed him I would accept it and just shifted my boundaries. I crossed the Rubicon that day.
So, why do some women (or men) stay, when others run a mile? That’s because we get in life what we think we are worth. If we have zero self-esteem, then we attract those who will treat us as worthless.
If that person is as insecure and needy as we are, then we can focus on them. By making it our mission to rescue them, we don’t have to face our own insecurities.
They become our cloak. Whilst we obsess over their flaws and their failings and what they need to do to become a better person. When we become their Saviour, we hide behind our pious cloak the fact that we are just as screwed up as they are. But we may not recognise this at the time.
Those butterflies in our stomach that convinced us this person is The One? That’s just confirmation that their emotional baggage matches ours. They know the same steps to our unique dysfunctional dance.
A relationship like this is never going to be a healthy one. Zero self-esteem often goes hand in hand with a fear of abandonment. This fear comes from our childhood, when our emotional needs are not fully met.
Being with someone more screwed up than we are, gives us a guarantee they are never going to leave us. We won’t be abandoned again.
But the more we try to rescue a damaged person, the more they will push us away. The more controlling we become, the more they feel they’ve lost control. He (or she) might get angry or even do something nasty to redress the balance.
This then crushes what little self-esteem we have, further. Our fear of abandonment screams to the surface. We do anything not to lose this partner, so we hand them back control over us. In charge once more, he is Mr Nice Guy, she is Ms Wonderful again and the relationship goes back onto an even keel. For a while. Repeat this cycle until the relationship falls apart or someone gets hurt.
You need to learn new steps. You need to dance a different dance to the one you learnt in childhood. To restore your lack of self-esteem and address your fears. Otherwise, you’ll just keep Tangoing with the same type of person. One that you can’t rescue, who can’t love you and are different to that person you first projected onto them.
We only get what we think we are worth. If we feel worthless, we find someone who feels we are too. If we love ourselves, we’ll find someone who thinks we are worthy and of treating well too. We are repeating dysfunctional patterns we learnt long before we met them.
Often people come into your life to teach you something about yourself. So, use them as a mirror to tell you what you’re using your cloak to hide. Were you shown love as a child, allowed to express your emotions without fear? Were you belittled when you were growing up, afraid to be yourself? Find what it was that laid the first steps of the dysfunctional dance that is now familiar to you and which you now replicate.
Once you identify it, you can change it. Step by tiny step. Then you can learn a new dance, a healthy one and attract a new and less dysfunctional partner. It’ll take a while though to get used to this new kind of dance mate. You’ll feel exposed. Your cloak is gone. You’ll fear he or she’ll be able to see how screwed up you are.
Unable to control a secure and emotionally available person, you may even be terrified of losing them. You might try to push them away – to end it before they do. But give it time. Before long the new steps will become second nature to you. And you’ll soon learn this dance is the winning one. It’s a dance you can dance for life.
What’s one thing that makes you worth it? I’d love to hear it in the Comments below.
‘ If that person is as insecure and needy as we are, then we can focus on them. By making it our mission to rescue them, we don’t have to face our own insecurities.’
That’s very profound and really does sum up why a lot of people put up with personal abusive.
Thank you. It was true for me and once I took my focus away from him and back onto myself, I started to heal.
Looking back, my abuser actually told me, “I knew I was attracted to you, you were someone real who had pain like me. We know our own kind. We know our people. I need someone like that.” He became my friend and was there for me while I would cry and tell him I felt worthless and that I wanted to mean something to someone. I literally served myself up on a silver platter saying, “Look at me! So easy to manipulate!” He was/is a narcissist who took me on a horrible roller-coaster I never thought I would get off, and didn’t want to get off of if I am being honest. At the time, I thought it was sweet that I could be with someone who understood pain, and he would tell me everything I ever wanted to hear before blaming me for everything he ever did and telling me “I can’t be around you when you’re like this” – “this” being equal to having emotions he didn’t like. I have been listening to and reading from this website every day. I broke up with him 9 days ago and struggle to lesson the pull but know I have to. Thank you for sharing all of this. It is wonderful.
Well done for finding the strength and the courage to do this. I know how hard it is and how painful. I am so happy you have found me and thank you so much for your kind words of support. I am glad it is helping you and hearing that has made my day. I have a closed FB Group with a lot of lovely, supportive followers in there who are going through what you are. You may like to join us: https://www.facebook.com/groups/508030766214038/
If you do find the pull back to him is so strong you want to go back, you might also like to consider my online video course. I designed it to take you step by step how I was able to get over an abusive relationship, break the pull I felt to him and not repeat the pattern by going into another abusive relationship. How I turned my life around. You can find out more here: http://www.beingunbeatable.com/survivor-to-staying-strong/
Thanks again for being here. Stay strong.
I’m currently 11 months out of a five-year relationship with the woman I thought I was going to marry. We were engaged, had a house, had a dog and were planning our wedding.
Looking at things now, our relationship was fraught with problems. She has psychological issues from childhood and I have my own psychological scars. At first, things were amazing and we fell in love very quickly. It ended up being me as the compliant boyfriend and not being able to make any decisions without consulting her. My self-esteem vanished, I had no confidence and I had nothing in my life that brought me joy other than her. Don’t get me wrong, I did my share to ruin the relationship as well – it’s not all on her. When she left something clicked in me and I thought ‘this time I’m not chasing or fighting for you back’. It was common when we argued for her to reestablish her dominance by threatening to leave the relationship – which only further caused my self-esteem to wither.
Anyway, to cut a long story short: she left a year ago and as my therapist has confirmed that she was expecting me to chase her and get her back and do whatever she said… I didn’t do that. Minus the first month or so, I haven’t spoken to her since.
I found out the other day that she is dating someone new – it was a real blow to me at first, but more because it further made me doubt my self-worth. I guess my question to your post is: Do you really believe that by building my self-esteem and realizing my true worth, I will attract a genuine loving woman into my life?
I’ve deliberately not dated and am working really hard with my therapist to turn my life around for the better. But there are times when I still think that I’m a loser for not dating and dating is the only true way to ‘get over someone’.
Just wondered what peoples take was on this.
Thanks for reading.
Ben
I am so proud of you Ben as I know how much courage and strength it takes to do what you have done and continue to do. You are doing exactly the right thing. I am proof of that. Building my self-esteem and sense of self-worth was what led me to find the man I am married to now (for 30 very happy years). I agree with you not to date if your self-esteem is low or you’re lonely as you’ll attract the wrong person. Dating to get over someone is what I did for years and the wrong thing to do. You need to be still within yourself, work on yourself and only when your happiness doesn’t depend on anyone else will you be ready. Keep going, you are doing brilliantly. You might also find these posts helpful: 1) Emotional healing – the gift of stillness:
https://www.vivianmcgrath.com/emotional-healing-the-gift-of-stillness/ 2) Dating too soon – https://www.vivianmcgrath.com/dating-too-soon/ 3) I am enough: https://www.vivianmcgrath.com/i-am-enough/ 4) Love yourself first – https://www.vivianmcgrath.com/love-yourself-first/ 5) My dating rules – https://www.vivianmcgrath.com/dating-rules/
I’m currently in a relationship with someone who is very emotionally abusive. He knows what he is doing is hurtful to me and have even told me that it is not something he can control and that it is just a part of him. It’s so hard for me to live with someone who is conscious about the abuse and knows that it’s wrong and still continuously does this. We have a toddler together and I’m so scared to be alone. So much of what has been said here resonated with me. I have known since we have been married that my gut felt this is wrong. I don’t know how I can let go. He always tends to minimize what he says after I say it and thinks I’m overreacting. I don’t even know how to leave let alone what to do.