Take Away The Sentence “Because I Love Him.”
What is left to keep you there if love wasn’t a thought?
This is by far the most given response to my question, “Why are you fighting so hard to stay in this relationship?”
“Because I love him.”
I deal specifically with traumatic and abusive relationships, so this question is regarding those types. Not the standard, everyday variety of relationship issues.
It’s not spoken in exclamation; it’s usually done with sadness, forlorn hope, and resignation. The women I tend to work with have accepted that things are crappy and may never get any better, but they feel helpless to change or leave. The concept of “love” has shifted to match their current ability, but it isn’t the kind of love they would choose if they felt that they had the choice.
So what now?
But Why?
Why do you love him? Why do you need him? What does he do for you that makes love the thing that matters most?
List the reasons. Can you?
If you can’t list the reasons why, that is a clue. Love can be mysterious, but the reasons you love someone aren’t a mystery. There has to be something more than just because.
You love him -> why?
You need him -> why?
You can’t live without him -> why?
You want him to be the one -> why?
If you can’t answer a single one with legitimate answers, there is something seriously wrong. A long pause and real thought are necessary to clear up the brain fog and cravings that lead you back to repeating old patterns.
What Other Reasons Exist?
Love cannot be the only thing between two people to keep a relationship running. Smooth or not, more is necessary.
Yes, love is important and comes in many forms, but it cannot do every job. The same way it isn’t healthy for someone to be everything to another person, love can’t be everything in a relationship. It puts too much pressure and creates tunnel vision when a single element is the driver for continued action. All-or-nothing thinking is promoted here, and the natural flexibility and balance in a relationship gets lost.
If the example of love was off the table, what other reasons would come to mind?
Abnormal Is The Norm
In all relationships, people take on roles. It’s no different for toxic or abusive relationships.
Typically, the person coming for help is the one in the pursuer role. They want their love to want them back and to stay around. They do the challenges, say the words, and make the changes in their attempts to keep their lover close to them. They walk on eggshells and try to find solutions to help their partner stick around for the long haul.
On the flip side, the other person is usually a runner. When the going gets either easy or tough, they bounce. They can’t take it being too good, and they can’t take it being bad. They just can’t take it. So they do what they know how to do: sabotage and flee.
These kinds of relationships have a honeymoon phase. This is where people unfortunately decide the status quo lives. It doesn’t, but they want this to be the status quo, so they decide that this is it. They live in the delusional state that this time it will last.
Even the honeymoon phase in a healthy relationship is not the norm. The norms are the other parts. The ones you settle into outside of honeymoons. In healthy relationships, they are the middle ground areas that are firm and predictable. In dysfunctional relationships, they are the extreme ups and downs. That is the real “normal” they live in. This is why the thought “But I love him!” is so dangerous. It isn’t attached to anything regulated. It’s attached to something unstable. Unstable love will always lead to poor outcomes.
Love is too tied to volatility and struggle. This is why love needs to be taken off that table as an option for staying.
Why would you keep an option that will end up hurting you?
Pursuers Are Facing Away From Themselves
The direction of the thought is facing the wrong way.
Instead of love being faced inward, it’s constantly facing toward the person they are chasing. The chaser is like a rodeo cowboy, trying to wrangle the runner with their lasso of love. Come here and let me love you!
The runner stops momentarily -> the honeymoon cycle begins -> it all goes downhill again -> the pursuer pulls that lasso back out.
Wash, rinse, repeat. It’s not romantic. It’s not fated. It’s not going to work. It is a setup for failure every single time.
It’s a chicken, v/s egg scenario. The cycle feeds itself like a demented perpetual motion machine. The runner is going to run as long as they have someone chasing them. If no one is chasing, they have no one to run from. The same thing goes for the chaser; if they don’t have anything to chase, they can finally stop and put the focus back where it belongs, on themselves.
Someone has to stop it. That someone is going to have to be the pursuer. I say this because that is the person who has the ability to impact the situation. They are the one trying to do the damage control. The runner isn’t worrying about damage in those moments; they may later on, but at the time, they are just trying to get away as far and as fast as they can. The thought leading the charge is I need to create distance. The blowback is an afterthought.
The blowback is what the chaser is currently living in.
They are in that zone where things have been exploded, and life is messiest. They are leading the clean-up efforts. Cleaning up is a great idea, but instead of cleaning up the chaos of another person, effort would be better spent cleaning up their own mess. There is no better time than the present to stop thinking about how much love is the tether to another person and rework it to how love can be healing when you apply it to yourself.
This looks like:
How do I want to feel love?
How do I want to show love?
How can I love myself better today?
How can I demonstrate love for me?
What does my body/brain/ soul need for love to grow within?
Where am I missing love in myself?
Where did I learn that love had to be a fight all the time?
Where can I go to learn how to love in a steady and uncomplicated way?
Ask all the questions!
You Do Have A Choice
This is where many get stuck because they have spent so much time convincing themselves that they don’t.
They’re wrong, but me just telling someone that they are wrong isn’t going to do much. Action in, action out. That’s why small things, like starting with one question above, are so important. The mere act of asking it is different than before.
It’s a baby step. Eventually, full steps can be taken.
Begrudgingly doing things is still an action step. We won’t always feel like doing something in our best interest. Like choosing carrots over brownies or taking a walk over binge-watching a TV show for the 5th time this month. We do them anyway because we know it will be helpful. The first step in this kind of work seems like it’s painful, but that’s a false story your fear is telling you. It’s lying.
When you finally do it, you realize it’s pain-relieving.
And each next step is even more so
