Why are you still with him at this point?

By now, all that was great in the beginning, has been replaced by him hurting you. You are still struggling to understand what happened. Is there someone else, is he not into you anymore, what have you done wrong? If he doesn't want to be with you, why doesn't he let you go? Maybe you yourself have tried to end it, only to be sucked back in. For as much as you struggle to let him go, he too, doesn't seem to let you leave, which you've taken as a sign of his love for you.

Underneath it all, he MUST have SOME feelings, as you have sat and analyzed and no doubt discussed for hours with your girl friends, bouncing it off them in conversations like "So what do you think that means?" Even employing your best male friends for a male perspective, as you try and figure it out. The "Well, he said this, but did that, so deep down, what do you think that really means?" You wonder about his relationship with his mother, his father, and the paper boy to explain this man's actions-or rather, inaction and inability to give now.

Sad truth is, that people show us all the time what they are about, and how they feel. My abuser even said "Actions speak louder than words", (of course in relations to other people, not him.) Caring about him and being cared about back, shouldn't take on a flavor like a Bible study group, or a group studying the quatrains of Nostradamus. People shouldn't be that much of a mystery, and I suppose if you have to ask if he really loves you or not, chances are, he doesn't. Not in a healthy way. But we dont want to accept that, as we want to believe that if he just got over his fears, insecurities, trust issues and barriers, then he'd be open to us. That, on top of his declarations of feelings, love and care-well he wouldn't say these things, he wouldn't still be around, if on some level, he didn't care.

He must just be so scared of us. We are bringing up emotions and feelings that he is overwhelmed by. We must really be "the one". Of course, this is probably NOT the case. Only its also not as simple as "He's just not into you." Often they will still eluded if not come out and say that something about you is making him feel something for the first time ever in his life-so you are patient and tolerant because you think he's just scared shitless of his own feelings.

Truth is-if he really was into us and NOT personality disordered, this wouldn't be happening. So even if he IS really into us, his personality disorder is making it impossible to be anything but shitty to us. Because with the personality disordered, everything is backwards. They treat those they care for worst than those they don't. They push away those that are good to them, and gravitate towards abusers like themselves. Yes, it is true: The more you bring up emotions in a psycho, the worst they will treat you. However, they won't wake up one day and morph all that into being good to you. Its at this point where we start to develop our own "reverse narcissism"-that is what I call the defenses against being hurt, where we suddenly begin to act like them. In any event, they too might ask
"IF I’m such a bad guy devil of a guy evil piece of shit like you say, why do you stay?"

Funny they ask this. First of all, you probably didn’t use those adjectives in your many attempts to converse with him. You might’ve thrown around the word “asshole” or “jerk” at this point, but you weren’t accusing him of being the prince of darkness (yet.) So now he’s asking.

But now here’s the rub: He might ask “Well if I’m so bad, why do you still talk to me?” “If I’m such an asshole, why do you stay?” And even the people who love you and know you are not “insane” “psycho” or capable of hurting anyone really, will ask “Why do you let him do this to you?” “Why do you let him get to you like this?” “Why do you have anything to do with it?” Yes, they may believe you, know that you are right, clearly see you are mistreated and not being loved right, hell, they may have even tried to give you an “intervention”, with the chant "You deserve better"-but the questions still hint as more “your fault”-you’ve allowed it, you’ve let it happen, you’ve encouraged it, essentially-you’ve asked for it.

Just as you are wondering “Well if I’m so scary, why does he stay?” You are now being asked the same- to yourself and by others. If you have begun to fight back and judged him, criticized him or simply called him out on his bullshit, you then wonder who is truly abusing who? Is it me, or is it him? Rather than question each other for why the other person, who clearly seems miserable stays, this is the question that we need to start answering to ourselves. I honestly became stumped when I was repeatedly asked this, because I couldn’t find a rational reason for why I was staying, either.

But I did discover some reasons,as painful as they were. One reason was it boiling down to this: Part of why you stay is also to prove the “world” wrong-if you can make this relationship work and stop his abuses, then you’ve shown your friends and loved ones that it was all worth it in the end, and that you were right about him, they were wrong. You want to prove this to yourself, too, as no one wants to feel that they were completely wrong about someone, that they were able to be fooled. You want to talk about scary. So your mind goes through denial and rationales as much as his does. Your mind says "He wasn’t using and abusing-he was just scared." I was just as wrong." "He’s just got big problems and with therapy or if he read this book, he’d be better." The shame and embarrassment of admitting anything different or that there’s a problem within you, is too much to bear at this time.

You tolerate it, allow it, stay with it, forgave it, because you have hope. Like the families with loved ones who are in comas or brain dead, you held on to a belief in miracles. You care. You are capable of love. You are compassionate, forgiving, understanding. You know in your heart that your motives have been true and good-you just wanted to love this guy, and hoped he could love you back. Sometimes people don’t, and if that was the case, all you wanted was for him to directly, clearly and honestly face you and tell you that. To wish you well then let you go.

You don’t care anymore if he “rejects” you. He’s been “rejecting” you everyday for years, you’d much rather have it be done. Who cares if he hates you? Can’t be much worse than how he’s already treating you. You’d respect him a lot more if he could respect you enough to give you that. You’d rather be slapped with the truth, than tortured by lies. You never wanted it to get like this, you couldn’t image it ever could get like this, and you’d do anything to make it stop being like this. You stay, because you can’t image people NOT being like you. Your mind cannot wrap itself around the fact that there really are bad people in the world, and maybe you’ve got one in your life....and bed.