Who knows why we stay in shitty relationships for so long. I would argue that it is a bit of a mental sickness that gets inside of us. Even though we know it's bad and that things are not the way they are supposed to be, we stay. We hope that things will change, that things will get better. And we keep hoping. Hoping until we just reach our breaking point. And the last straw doesn't even have to be the biggest problem or issue or fight you've had, it's just the last straw. The camel's back breaks and that's it, we can't do it anymore. Until that point, we stay as long as we can, we try whatever we can, and we put up with a lot of things that under any other circumstance we would not take. From my experience, relationships just go that way. And you know when enough is enough. You just run out of energy, you run out of tears, and you lose your desire to try. You just give up because you have nothing left to give and you aren't getting anything in return but hurt.
Then you leave, you break up, and things just feel worse. You realize that all the plans you had and everything you thought would be your future, won't be. It's all gone. There will be new plans and a new and (hopefully) brighter future, but you don't see that in the moment. You just see that you had to leave the place that you called home, the person you loved, and all the dreams that you had together. And it fucking sucks. It hurts a lot. But what else is there to do? Stay in that situation, be unhappy, cry, take all the crap that isn't going to change no matter how many times he says he is sorry or that things are going to be better? Well that alternative isn't better.
So we go through the pain, we feel shitty for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two. We think about all the good moments of the relationship, all the good qualities the person had, and all the potential. We miss them. We are tempted to go back. But we have to think about things in the long-run and if we go back, we'll just be going through all this again in, a week, a month, or a year later. And we can't do it anymore. So we hurt, we cry, we try to keep ourselves as busy as possible so as to not have time to think or to dwell. Every night we'll probably still cry. But eventually it will get better. We'll become independent again, our old interests will revive, and we'll go back to being happy eventually. This is what I'm trying to remember.
And even though it is bad to hope, maybe the person that we had to leave will learn something from it all. God knows I learned and am still learning. But maybe they will finally change once they've realized what they've lost. And you know what, maybe not. Maybe some people don't ever change, maybe they don't want to. But this is besides the point I guess. It just hurts and that's all. So I guess the biggest thing I have learned is not to rush into anything. Not to move in with someone too quickly, and not to give my heart away until I am at least fairly certain that the person I am giving it to will treat me right, respect me, and fully deserve my love.