He keeps hurting me!
I believe that most people are good people and even if we do get hurt on occasion we think it was unintentional on their part. We judge actions of other people by our own outlook and beliefs on how we think the ‘things should be’.
If we were, for example, to hurt someone (even if by a pure accident) we would feel terrible about it. Isn’t what is considered a healthy human reaction - the feeling of remorse? Wouldn’t we try to remedy the situation with right words and actions to make it all go away? Wouldn’t we feel like it was the only way to make things right? And, wouldn’t we remember what exactly caused that pain and try to avoid repeating the same thing in the future because again, we genuinely hate hurting people on purpose?
That is why it is so confusing and painful when someone we care about keeps doing the same thing over and over again knowing that it hurts us. They won’t stop or even slow down which makes us wonder if they have any conscience - ’If they had any conscience or any shreds of compassion left they wouldn’t be doing it to me’.
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We want to believe that they are a nice person. After all, they know what it is like to be a gentleman and treat us like a Princess, and so we think they know what makes us feel good… and bad. Things now may not be as rosy as they used to be, but still, we do not want to believe they are ‘that bad’. We do not want to think of being in a relationship with a monster because it reflects poorly on us too - ‘What in the world is she doing with that jerk? Doesn’t she have self-respect?’
So, we overload them with love, compassion, understanding, and our time hoping they will ‘wake up’ and do the right thing – stop hurting us.
Some people may not even know how badly they hurt us because we do not feel comfortable sharing our pain, disappointments, and misgivings with them. We think they either won’t understand or find our feelings unimportant. We do not want to look silly or feel ‘stupid’ when talking about it. The last thing we want is to be ridiculed and misunderstood by someone we trusted enough to open up with : ‘Will they get how I feel?’, ‘ If I were to say this and that, how would it make me look?’, ‘Are they even aware I am in pain??', 'Would they be surprised to learn that I am in pain?’, ‘What if talking about it will make things worse?’
Have you ever received a call from your former ‘friends with benefits’ partner or some other non-committal type of a guy asking ‘to meet’? You would think that since they knew what the cause of your breakup was and what caused you pain they wouldn’t be ‘just calling’. Perhaps they had a change of heart or perhaps they are a better person now? You betcha! You give them the time of your day and here they are – doing the exact same crappy thing to you they have always been doing.
Have you ever been stuck in a breaking up-making up cycle endlessly giving them ‘another change’ and breaking up after that? You kept knocking on their heart (and conscience) trying to explain and guide, but they kept playing the same record. Every time when they were back it was the same. How could they be so cruel and why would they keep coming back? To hurt you more?
Our over-giving and extra-loving do not work and our own kindness is often used against us. As I’ve mentioned previously, some people perceive love and kindness as ‘weakness’. They know we are a loving, trustworthy individual, and rather than being appreciative they take us for granted.
They mess with your head promising a dream, say everything you want to hear OR blame you for relationship problems, make you feel guilty, unloved, confused, and like you are a ‘cruel woman’. That twisted mind of theirs has no conscience, no awareness how they come across, and no remorse for their wrong doings. They are either not aware or are ‘sort of aware’ of their actions, but do not think they are ‘that bad’… which breeds your own self-doubts about ‘the whole thing’ – ‘Am I being overly critical?’
They take advantage of your love and patience, push you around firmly believing you would still be there because again, they think you are weak, you need them, and you cannot live without them. They do not even think they are a terrible person and how badly they hurt you… until you let them know. With your actions.
Whether they are blind and deaf or just pretend to be, whether they are too lazy to fix their awful ways or think they aren’t doing anything wrong - at this point it should not be your concern anymore. By removing them from your life will be the Loudest and the Strongest message they will ever receive.
Quite often, when everything else fails, the only way to make them feel our pain and/or to understand something (hopefully) is to make them face the consequences of their own painful behavior. They will never know how badly they impacted or disappointed us until we take action.
Yes, we do want to be loving, caring, and compassionate and we do hate hurting other people on purpose, BUT minimizing our pain, living with it for too long and/or being silent about it is not the way to live life. Our life matters, our pain is valid, we feel what we feel and it is our duty to protect our own hearts from predators, narcissists, psychopaths or just anyone who won’t just stop doing what they know already will hurt us.
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