BROKE NO CONTACT !!!!

Hey xmas..it is ok. As Janine and Sarah have said..leaving is a process. It is a journey. It takes time, practice, and courage. It is not easy in any way. BUT it is possible as you have seen.

I think we blame ourselves so much because we have been "conditioned" to do so. If someone you love and trust told your their opinion everyday and you would literally do whatever they ask under the disguise of love you/me would do it. As you have experienced..your ex has told you over and over and over again that you are the cause of all that is wrong in the relationship. AND I suspect at some point in your early growing up years..your self esteem was not as nurtured as you needed it to be. SO over all these years...your thought processes and your self-esteem is all connected. The partners we choose continue to tell us what we have been lead to believe ever since childhood. Most victims of abuse as adults probably had some sort of hurt as a child by a trusted adult. My parents did not nurture my self esteem. In fact..they gave me the message on multiple occasions that all I tried to do was "never good enough". Fast forward to a teen and an adult and those people I chose to have in my life interacted with me in a way that would continue to feed that inner thought that everything I tried to do.."was never good enough". So, I was attracted to men who continued to foster that belief. ABUSERS.

I was never taught to love myself. I was taught to do for others because that is how you show you love them. I wanted to be loved...so I did whatever I had to do to get that love. I fell right into the hands of an ABUSER. I found a few guys that were just like my parents. Whatever I did was never good enough and I had to do whatever I could for someone to show them I loved them. BECAUSE if I did enough, and showed them how much I cared? Then they would give me the love back that I craved. It never works out that way in an ABUSIVE relationship.

You and many others..me included..are still in that cycle of trying to get the love from someone we have given everything to. AND we blame ourselves if we fall short of that because somehow..we never got the positive message that we are good enough. SO we keep trying. AND we keep blaming ourselves. WE may get some little bit of the love we want..but then we get all the abuse that comes with it. It continues to re-enforce the belief that we are to blame. UNTIL we break that cycle and start to love ourselves, we will continue to blame ourselves, to feel responsible for other's behavior, other's happiness, even being responsible for causing someone to abuse us.

We have to teach ourselves how to love us. The people we depended on to teach us early on in life are past the opportunity to help us learn. AND they would still not do it right anyway..we will still get hurt.

We have "loved" our ABUSERS for so long and with such intensity..it has become a habit. It is a habit we have to break and change and let go of. Your heart..in some ways has not stopped "loving" this man. Drug Addicts know the drug will kill them, yet they still love it and crave it and even occasionally try and take it again to get that feeling they crave. Substitute the word "drug" for our partners. We know in our head that it will never change, we know they are not good for us..it doesn't instantly mean we are going to stop loving them. We are addicted. AND this is where courage comes in..because we have to go NO CONTACT to help us break that habit and stop loving them.

It will be ok Xmas. You are on your journey to learning to love yourself and eventually will stop loving him. It takes time. Give yourself the time you need and realize that there isn't a set amount that everyone follows. Your journey is unique to you. TRUST YOUR JOURNEY..it will lead you to that happiness you seek, that NO CONTACT that you seek and that "self love and compassion" that we all need to figure out how to learn and do.