[TishaBuv]

When you really love someone, do you let them treat you badly and never leave them?

[VernonJenkins]

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

When you really love someone, do you let them treat you badly and never leave them?

Not anymore. If I can't have the type of relationship I want, then I don't want any relationship at all. If they want/need me so badly, then they should learn how to treat me properly.

[TishaBuv]

I had a couple bf’s I was crazy about. They treated me not so great. But I still kept trying, hoping they would love me. That didn’t happen.

Then I had a husband for 25 years who I thought loved and honored me. But he treated me not so great. I tried to communicate and repair the problems. I couldn’t. I kept threatening to end the relationship. I finally did.

Did I not truly love? If I had loved, would I have kept taking the bad treatment?

I’m not sure I understand romantic love toward a partner.

[VernonJenkins]

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

I had a couple bf’s I was crazy about. They treated me not so great. But I still kept trying, hoping they would love me. That didn’t happen.

Then I had a husband for 25 years who I thought loved and honored me. But he treated me not so great. I tried to communicate and repair the problems. I couldn’t. I kept threatening to end the relationship. I finally did.

Did I not truly love? If I had loved, would I have kept taking the bad treatment?

I’m not sure I understand romantic love toward a partner.

I see love as a feeling of attachment to someone and as a feeling of care for someone. For example, I feel attached to my mother and I care for her, so that's love in my mind and I don't see my decision to distance myself from her as a lack of love.

[TishaBuv]

When I was little and my mother was yelling abusively at me, I thought she couldn’t possibly love me and be so mean.

Same with my h, how could he really love me and be so neglectful no matter how I communicated about it and begged.

[TishaBuv]

If I felt that love, after so long of battling endured, no, I don’t feel there is mutual love. How can you love each other and hurt each other?

[TishaBuv]

I have no doubt about my love for my kids. I would never hurt them, scream at them, be abusive, be neglectful. They have no doubt how much I love them.

But I don’t trust in the love from people who said they love me and then really hurt me.

[TishaBuv]

People can love you, but they really love themselves more. So when they are abusive to you, they are just putting themselves first at your expense. Is that acceptable human nature? Was I asking for too much?

[VernonJenkins]

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

But I don’t trust in the love from people who said they love me and then really hurt me.

Then I take it you don't believe in remorse either?

[divine1966]

I don’t understand point of taking bad treatment. Not interested in ever taking bad treatment. I love my husband but would be gone in a heart beat if he treated me poorly. I am really confused on the whole premise of taking bad treatment.

Saying that, people might fight occasionally or acting not in
the kindest way towards their loved ones. I am not talking abuse but if people get irritated sometimes over minor things it doesn’t mean they don’t love each other or things cannot improve

[TishaBuv]

Originally Posted by VernonJenkins

Then I take it you don't believe in remorse either?

If someone hurts you once, says they’re sorry, and then stops the behavior yes, I do believe in that.

And I do understand minor conflicts and expect them. I overlooked plenty of those.

It’s good to hear it is not everybody who is abusive. I thought my husband was as good as a person could be, and in so many ways he is, but in others he really, really hurt me.

I’m not sure about his love for me or even mine for him.

[VernonJenkins]

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

People can love you, but they really love themselves more. So when they are abusive to you, they are just putting themselves first at your expense. Is that acceptable human nature? Was I asking for too much?

I don't think abuse is acceptable at all.

[TishaBuv]

Yes, I think if abuse starts, love leaves. Even if there is a making up and a period of getting along, the abuse eats away at the foundation of the love. The two don’t co-exist.

You can’t have abuse with love. You can’t have love with abuse.

[yagr]

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

When you really love someone, do you let them treat you badly and never leave them?

No.

My definition of love is unpopular so I won't get into it, but this much is true: if there are seven billion people in the world, then there are seven billion different definitions of love. If you don't mind, I would really like to explore your question with you but before we can have any kind of meaningful discussion about love, we have to agree on a definition. I'd be happy to use yours. How do you define love?

[TishaBuv]

Romantic love to me is the strong desire to be together with someone, physically and emotionally. Mutual love is you have each other’s backs, lift and propel each other forward, sometimes even put them before yourself.

[TishaBuv]

Thanks, yagr, I think I answered my own question by defining love. Yeah, I didn’t really have it.

[yagr]

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

Romantic love to me is the strong desire to be together with someone, physically and emotionally. Mutual love is you have each other’s backs, lift and propel each other forward, sometimes even put them before yourself.

Thank you for your definition. As promised (implied) I'm going to work with yours.

Let's say that I tell you that I really love my job and hope to work there until I retire. Now let's say I start coming to work late a couple times a week or more. I start leaving early on the weekends. I don't get my work done on time and I complain constantly.

I can think of two possible reasons for my behavior. Number one, I don't love my job. It doesn't mean I necessarily lied - I may have thought I loved my job because, let's say, I confused loving my job with loving the security a job gave me. It's really the paycheck I loved - especially after being unemployed and in fear of losing my housing. The other possibility is that I don't have the skills - emotional or otherwise to actually be employed, at least at this job. I may love it but until I get my emotional house in order, it's simply too stressful, or too demanding or too whatever for me at this time in my life.

If I really loved my job and had the skills to actually do my job, I wouldn't risk losing it. So, I'd say that he either confused loving you with loving the esteem he felt because someone loved him OR he really does love you and lacks the skills to be in a healthy relationship.

[yagr]

Oops, didn't see your second post (#16) because I was writing #17. *hugs*

[TishaBuv]

I felt all the right things as I define love until I stopped feeling them. So, when someone you love doesn’t fulfill your needs and realistic expectations, love doesn’t exactly cease, there was a very long trying to repair it period that didn’t work, then it morphed and become toxic. I know there is love because I don’t feel hate. I don’t want to hurt him. I want us both to be happy, it just won’t be together. Hey, I actually did put him before me in this situation by divorcing him. I’m cutting him loose to live and be happy.

[yagr]

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

I don’t want to hurt him. I want us both to be happy, it just won’t be together. Hey, I actually did put him before me in this situation by divorcing him. I’m cutting him loose to live and be happy.

For what it's worth, I'm proud of you.

[MrMoose]

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

When you really love someone, do you let them treat you badly and never leave them?

Yes

At least if you have lots of hope for the future and hope for the kids and hope for the relationship and there are glimpses of a happiness and serinity that might be possible if only you can get through the bad patch. At some point, though, hope needs to be tempered by realism, and if the bad treatment continues or worsens or “bad treatment” is really just abuse to begin with, without any indication that it’s changing, then it’s time to let go, grieve the future that could have been, and move on.

Or, y’know, something like that. Afterward I keep thinking I had too much hope and not enough realism and should have left earlier but I’m out now so there it is.

[TishaBuv]

Didn’t you feel love until the abuse got too bad and couldn’t be fixed? Did you then stop feeling love, but stayed for other reasons?

[MrMoose]

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

Didn’t you feel love until the abuse got too bad and couldn’t be fixed? Did you then stop feeling love, but stayed for other reasons?

I felt what I thought was love, and I think it was meant to be love, and it didn’t stop when the abuse got worse, it just became overwhelmed by disappointment (the dismal present versus the once-hopeful future) and fear (which was also used as a tool of control by the abuser). And I stayed until the fear of staying became greater than the fear of leaving. And she still says she loves me, and I believe her, and I feel some love for her too. But I also know that we’re much better off apart and getting back together would just continue our downward journey into catastrophe.

[Shazerac]

I don’t think love is a reason to accept abuse from someone. I also think that until we truly love love ourself we can’t make the jump to “I love you but I’m not going to let you abuse me.”

[TishaBuv]

Originally Posted by Shazerac

I don’t think love is a reason to accept abuse from someone. I also think that until we truly love love ourself we can’t make the jump to “I love you but I’m not going to let you abuse me.”

I had no choice but to accept abuse from my mother. She called it tough love. Every relationship was somewhat abusive in some way after they progressed. Mistreatment surfaces.