Why Abusive Relationships Happenfeatured

I used to be in an abusive relationship. It was purely circumstantial at first. It quickly became a dangerous habit I could not shake.

I fell hard for someone who could never love me the way I loved them. I fell hard for someone who would never understand what love ever really meant. I fell in love with someone who wanted to hurt others and themselves. I fell hard for someone who simply did not care about me.

There’s one thing I have learned about life, and that is to never live with regret. I don’t regret my choice to love someone who could not love me back. However, I do feel saddened to know I continued to love someone who could never love me back for as long as I did.

The vicious cycle went on for years. I was at a low point in my life where nothing made sense. For some reason, running after something (that was not even real) seemed like the best option.

Things began horrible and ended even worse. I lost myself as well as my dignity. Friends and foes saw the pain within me and advised me to turn my life around. I never listened.

I always thought I would never be that girl. The girl who was in the abusive relationship. The girl who didn’t value herself enough to move on and be strong.

But guess what? I became that girl. I became the girl that I thought was so stupid in the past. The girl that I needed to shake in order to snap her out of it. I became this monster along with the monster sitting next to me. And I have to say, the monster taught me a lot about myself.

It hurts me to even write this right now. I am in tears. This is a chapter of my life that I do not like to revisit too often, but when I do, I have an array of emotions associated with it.

I loved and I loved hard. I loved harder than I thought I ever could. I loved a person who I thought understood me more than anyone had before. And for that, I am thankful.

But really, when I think about it, it was not really so much love as it was an addictively painful cycle. A cycle that we fell into so often. A cycle that hurt us both. And a cycle that I had to let go of.

It wasn’t until one day his mother told me, “I urge you to please leave my son. I love you to death. You’re amazing. However, I feel you will either kill each other or hurt each other to the point of no return.”

And so, like a grain of salt, I kept seeing him. I kept running after the unattainable. I kept needing to know the reason why I was never loved in return.

Until finally, one day, I fell into a hole. A hole that I couldn’t even climb out of alone. I climbed into this hole and found myself in a place I never thought I’d be.

The only people who lifted me up in that moment was my family. After all those years of neglecting myself… After all those years of abusing myself… The only people who loved me enough to pull me out of that hole was my family.

I will never forget the look on their faces when they saved me from myself. Or the pain in my heart when I saw the pain I had caused everyone.

But guess what? I’m here, I’m alive, I’m strong, and I’m more valiant than ever. I’m the strongest woman I could ever be. I admire myself for my tenacity. I admire myself for letting go and not going on with something I knew was so wrong for me.

I don’t regret it and I will surely never forget it. I know that on the other side of it all, I found a little girl who just wanted to be loved. And here I am today, full of so much love in my heart, for not only myself, but all those around me. Full of love for the love of my life. I am reminded everyday to love gentler, love deeper, and love harder.

It’s not only about loving others, it’s about loving yourself. I love myself more than I ever have. So, I have to thank myself for all the lessons in love and move further in the direction of positivity until the end of time.

Love Deeply and Forever,

Karen

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