Missing the Abuser

When you reflect on the past relationship and start to feel sad and you miss your abuser, remind yourself of all the ways they hurt you.

It is hard to break up with someone you love. You might still love them when you leave them and this is normal. Just because you love someone, however, does not mean that they were good for you or that you were happy in the relationship. Love is sometimes just not enough. We often shame ourselves when we decide to end a painful relationship because we don’t like hurting someone we love and we know that by breaking up, it will hurt them.

Take An Inventory

When we start thinking this way or when we move ahead in our lives and look back regretfully on the break-up, it can be wise to make a list of all the ways we were hurting in the relationship. We can take inventory of the ways the person lied to us, called us names, the way they triangulated us with other women or men in an attempt to make us feel jealous, the arrogance, the belittling, the dismissiveness, the siding against you with the bullies who mistreated you, or how the trust was broken again and again. One thing I know for sure is that, no matter how much you love someone, once the trust is gone and if there is no repair to it, there is nothing left in the relationship. All of these examples I listed above will chip away at the trust over time.

When you are a sensitive empath, it is especially difficult hurting people. The guilt can last indefinitely, especially if there were many players in the mix: family, children, close friends. Often, the family and friends will take the side of the abuser against the empath since the empath is targeted by abusive people and can easily persuade the empath and others that the empath is the bad person in the mix. The empath is inundated with a lot of blame and shame simply because abusive people can smell it when someone is a pleaser, a giver, and generally feels guilty about hurting people. This is fuel for abusive people to take advantage of the empath. Since abusive people do not take accountability for their wrong doings, the blame is often shifted onto the victim and the story grows in intensity about how awful and monster-like the empath is for having “hurt” the abuser. There is no understanding that it takes two people to make or break a relationship and if the empath tries to explain their side of the story, they are met with discounting and dismissing of their experiences in favor of feeling bad for the abuser instead.

It’s truly like living in a bizarre reality where the abuser’s fans simply cannot see their immoral behaviors as wrong and the empath is considered the crazy, hurtful one. This is soul-crushing for the empath because very often what they dealt with was nothing short of psychological mind-games and fear for most of the relationship. And much of it was hidden behind closed doors where others would never see it and certainly would not believe it since the fearless abuser can charm almost everyone.

Crazy-Making and Confusion

Being made to feel crazy and being very confused is the name of the game in emotionally and verbally abusive relationships, which is why someone can miss their abuser long after the relationship ends. There is cognitive dissonance whereby the brain wants to believe that the person was loving and not hurting them. This is quite confusing! It is important to remember, however, that abusive people were traumatized in life, or they were possibly born this way. It is not always known for sure. But, unless someone realizes that they twist reality into the form they need it to be in order to remain in control and have power over people, they won’t seek help for it. And, even worse, they will do whatever it takes to convince others that their twisted sense of reality and their inconsiderate or morally indecent behaviors are right, that they are the actual victims in situations they created and that their empathic person who reacted to the abuse was at cause for the abuse instead of the truth which was that the empathic person reacted as a result of being hurt by the abuser.

It’s the reaction of the empath to the abuse that is focused on in these dynamics, not what caused the reaction to begin with. The abuser gets to play the victim when they have provoked a reaction from the empath. The abuser gets to claim that the empath is the problem. The abuser cries wolf and says things like: “He or she ‘gets mad,’ ‘acts crazy for no reason,’ ‘yells at me all the time,’ ‘is so controlling and angry’” which makes people feel sorry for the abuser that they are in a relationship with such a horrible person when the abuser seems so kind and loving. What those people do not see is the psychological torture that precedes the empath’s reactions or the on-going rage, belittling, condescension, dismissiveness, lies, and humiliation the abuser is doling out continually to the empath that incites the emotional reactivity of the empath. No human is strong enough to hold it together all of the time, especially when every waking moment is spent feeling hypervigilant about which antics the abuser might do today. It’s like living on the edge of a building and not knowing when or if you will fall off that moment or the next. The nervous system is in constant fight or flight and trying hard to figure out the best way to negotiate balance again.

The confusion and crazy-making arise when the empathic person tries to reason with their abuser and the abuser treats them like they have the problem when the abuser is doing things that are not okay at all by most people’s standards. An empathic person who, by nature, wants to see both sides of things and wants to correct their bad behavior, will often believe that they somehow caused the abuser to do the deceptive things they have done to the empath. The abuser capitalizes on this and does, in fact, support the idea that, yes, the empath DID in fact cause them to be abusive or to lie or do something hurtful. The empath will simply take the blame and try harder to make things better for the abuser in the future or will try to help and support the abuser so that maybe the abuser can start being healthier and treating them better. The truth is that no one can make another person do or feel anything. If the abuser decides to do something harmful to the empath, that is something the abuser decided to do on their own regardless of the situation. Perhaps they were getting back at the empath for something he or she had done (knowingly or not) to hurt their feelings or make them feel bad. The healthy way to deal with this is to have a direct and specific conversation with the partner and ask them if their intention was to hurt or reject them rather than to abuse or hurt them in some passive-aggressive way as a form of revenge.

The Bottom Line is That You Weren’t Happy…Period

In the end, the empath realized that there was really nothing he or she could do to help or change what the abuser thought was a reasonable way to treat them and so they left the relationship. They felt like they were not good enough, did not measure up, could not contribute any kind of positive change, and had lost confidence in themselves as well as flat out lost themselves over time. Also, they simply were not happy and there was nothing that could be done to change it. The empath tried to make it a better situation, but because it takes two to fix what is broken, the empath realized that they were the only one trying to make it work—or, they were trying to make it work the way THEY thought was best. And, clearly, the abuser wanted it to work the way THEY thought was best. And so, here is the real truth: They were not compatible and there is no fault in this. They were different people with different value systems and that is a sad reality to have to face, but in that, there can be true forgiveness for self and the other. And forgiving self and the other releases us of a past situation that simply did not work. It releases us from the burden of the idea of someone. The idea of someone is not the same as the actual someone. Losing our beloved partner is not easy and it hurts a lot. Dreams are shattered, families are broken apart. But, when something is not working for us and it is killing us, the best thing we can do for ourselves and our loved ones is to create space and make peace the priority in our lives.

So, write that list of everything that did not work for you and forgive yourself, your abuser (when and if the time is right for you, of course), and anyone else who cannot see the truth of your situation and your reasons for saving yourself. And then, be happy and be in peace. Love yourself boldly!