Hi Ascension. Sorry to hear the challenges you face in your relationship. It must not be easy being in a relationship with someone that keeps falling back into old patterns.

Part of going on is hoping that things will change. As years roll into decades in my own relationship, it is clearer now that things probably will not change with them. But I am changing and gaining patience to not react so easily to the frustration I feel with their actions.

For me what it comes down to is when I have spent so much time cultivating this relationship, am I really wanting to start all over again? With my luck I would probably pick the same type of person. Am I better off with a somewhat dysfunctional relationship that I know well rather than a whole new relationship with minefields that I do not even know where the mines are?

It is not easy, but when you get to a certain point of life, tolerating difficulty becomes more the norm.