Can he ever change? Part one

In this relationship, no matter what you do or don't do- he wins. If you sit back, say nothing and continue to let him get away with his behaviors-he wins. Even if you stop seeing him-he wins, because he “got away” with this, with no consequence. If you confront it, stop enabling it and fight back-he still wins, by twisting it to make you seem unstable.

You can never win with this man, as long as you are with him. And you both know it. The longer you admit defeat and make no waves, the longer your denial has a chance to blind you further. It is the metaphorical devil on one shoulder, angel on the other. Problem is, you just don’t know who’s right anymore. You feel guilty. You feel ashamed of YOUR narcissistic rage-and there’s your “pattern” and even he calls you out on it. Your love/hate/rage/sorry bs, as he calls it. He’s got you. You start to believe “My god, maybe I AM the one who is the abuser here. I am the bad person. My reactions ARE scary.” You tell him you will work on your reactions and anger. You implore with him that you are not psycho, you would never intentionally hurt him, you are not that type of person.You're working on YOUR trust issues. You didn't mean to make him feel badly, to judge him, to hurt his feelings-yet the reality is, he has been abusing YOU, and you have reacted normally to abnormal behavior-and he is the one that is suggesting that your reactions are what is abnormal, and if it weren't for your reactions, he'd be a different man. It’s nuts. And now you’re his. He owns you. You didn’t even sell your soul to the devil. He took it.

He will accept your apologies-and go right back to treating you like shit. Because now you’ve learned. He's programmed you well-Its not him-it’s YOU.

In reality….it’s not you. You were right in your raging diatribe of all that’s wrong with him.

Good people say please and thank you. When you give a good person a gift-they acknowledge it. When a good person says they will be over-they show up. A good person does not completely blow you off a jillion times, promise not to do it again then less than 24 hours later, do it again. A good person doesn’t use excuses to make you feel sorry for them, then take all your caretaking and give nothing in return. A good person doesn't try and make YOU feel guilty that they have mistreated you, and a good person would STOP hurting you when they learn that what they do or don't do hurts you, and a good person would NOT blame you or suggest that you somehow have deserved to be treated like shit. A good person wouldn't suggest that you are not good enough to be treated well, and that if you only changed, you wouldn't be abused.

Your mind just can’t accept how foreign his behavior is to “normalcy.“ You believe that the synapse in his brain are not firing correctly. And you are in shock and awe, that you are meeting someone like this. And to cope, you have looked to make excuses for him as well-and have set out to help him with whatever issue you think it is that is causing this behavior.

The issue is NOT drugs/alcohol/childhood abuse/shitty parents/overbearing-absent mom/horrible dad/mean brothers or sisters/crappy job-boss/money/physical limitations (ie, if he's on the short side, a "napolean complex". It's not because he might be gay/insecure/scared of intimacy/afraid of commitment/had a bad break up-divorce/trust issues/bad experiences with women/comes from a misogynistic culture.

The reason he is emotionally, mentally, psycologically, sexually, financially and even physically abusive-is because he's an abuser. Period. Reality check:

Drugs and alcohol may intensify a person's abuses-but lots of people with drug and alcohol problems are not abusive people. Even under the influence. Any of the above excuses we've made for these men-there are many examples of people who have experienced the same things and often worse things than the men we are involved with-and they DO NOT ABUSE PEOPLE.