Dear Vivien:

You read like an intelligent, coherent woman. You write very well.

This is my input:

1. Regarding his family, you wrote: “I got along with his family great, we all got together every week having ” and that they have “absolutely no idea that any of this was happening. I don’t even know what they think of me now, I’m sure he has fed them some story about how I am ridiculous and crazy for acting the way I have”

It is most likely that your ex boyfriend became the abusive person that he has become because his family was not loving, empathetic and so forth. So it is not as if his family was perfect and out of nowhere there is an abusive son. The roots of the abuse are in his original family. You got along with them very well, but I don’t think he did, as a child and ongoing.

2. You wrote that there were great times, “best friends” times and the love felt so real. And those times were real just as the abuse was real. Both. The two behaviors: loving on one hand, abusive on the other- does not mean he is either this OR that. In reality he is both.

You couldn’t and cannot make him this way OR that way. He is both. Try to take the two into one picture in your brain, a whole package deal. Every human being, it is my understanding, no matter how cruel their actions sometimes, such as serial murderers and war criminals, these very people are sometimes loving to some people.

Does this help with your quest for clarity? Let me know and if you’d like, we can continue to communicate for as long as you need to. I hope others will reply as well.

anita

Dear Vivien:

You wrote that you are very confused. I believe you are confused because you are still emotionally attached to him. When we are attached to a person we want to be with them no matter what, abuse or not. When we understand the nature of attachment, that it doesn’t mean we should be with a person we are attached to, then we are no longer confused.

People get attached not only to other people and pets but also to things, to possessions and to habits. His drug use is motivated by his attachment to the drugs and so he takes them again and again even though taking the drugs destroy him. In a similar way, you are attached to him. Should you be with him… even though he is destroying you?

Endure the attachment. Understand it is natural and normal to feel attached. A baby feels attached to her caretaker no matter if the care taker is loving or abusive… as long as she sometimes feeds the baby and sometimes changes the baby. In a similar way you got attached to him because sometimes he was nice to you.

anita