What To Do When You Love Someone Who Hurts You

What To Do When You Love Someone Who Hurts You

Falling in love can make you feel like you're on top of the world. But what happens when the person you love starts hurting you emotionally or physically? You may find yourself thinking "but I love him" or "but I love her" despite the pain they cause. Ending a relationship with someone you still have feelings for is extremely difficult. However, there are ways to re-evaluate the relationship, regain your sense of self, set boundaries, and make an informed decision on what to do when you love someone who harms you.

Accepting the Reality

First, it is important to fully accept the reality of the situation. Make a list of all the ways, big and small, that your partner is hurting you. These could include insults, controlling behavior, anger issues, gaslighting, physical abuse, or other toxic dynamics. Admit to yourself that their harmful actions are not normal or acceptable, no matter how much you care for them. Minimizing or making excuses for their behavior will only enable it to continue.

Examining Why You Stay

Next, reflect on what motivates you to remain in a painful relationship. Are you afraid of being alone? Do you think you can “fix” them? Do you believe their apologies after abusive incidents? Have they conditioned you to feel worthless or think you can’t do better? Understanding what drives you to stay helps you recognize unhealthy thought patterns that perpetuate the dysfunctional relationship cycle.

Considering Professional Help

Abusive relationships often follow a cycle of harm, apologies and promises, and then more harm. This creates confusion and erodes self-esteem over time. Speaking with a professional counselor or domestic violence advocate can provide invaluable guidance. They can help you unpack why you stay using proven techniques like motivational interviewing. You deserve unbiased support to build the confidence to make the healthiest choice.

Practical Tips for Loving Someone Who Harms You

Breaking free emotionally and psychologically from an abusive relationship is challenging but possible. Implementing practical self-care tips bolsters inner strength and resilience:

Reduce Contact

Minimize interactions with the person who is hurting you, including in-person visits, calls, texts, and social media communication. This helps provide mental clarity and prevents manipulation tactics.

Avoid Isolation

Abusers often isolate their victims from friends and family. Combat this by scheduling quality time with loved ones who build you up. Their support is invaluable.

Journal Thoughts

Writing down feelings, incidents, and goals for the relationship in a private journal can help organize your thoughts. Rereading entries also reveals just how toxic behaviors have become.

See Your Worth

Toxic relationships damage self-esteem. Counteract this by making lists of your positive qualities, skills, talents, and accomplishments. You are inherently worthy.

Practice Self-Care

Make your physical, mental, and emotional health a priority. Eat nutritious foods, get adequate sleep, exercise, set boundaries, and make time for enjoyable hobbies.

Attend Support Groups

Joining a support group provides community with others who understand your struggles. Listening and sharing helps alleviate isolation and validates your experiences.

Signs It May Be Time to Let Go

Implementing coping strategies can help you regain your sense of self in an unhealthy relationship. However, ultimately it may become clear that splitting up is the healthiest option. Consider these signs it may be time to let go:

Patterns Continue

Despite apologies and promises to change, your partner continues hurtful behaviors and patterns. Real change requires commitment to intensive therapy over an extended time.

Constant Stress

You feel anxious, uneasy, emotionally drained, and walking on eggshells. The relationship requires your constant hypervigilance rather than feeling safe and secure.

Physical Abuse

Any form of physical abuse means the relationship has crossed a serious line. Your safety is most important. Extricate yourself from physical danger.

Ultimatums Don’t Work

You’ve issued ultimatums to seek change, but temporary improvements always revert back. Ultimatums often prolong bad relationships instead of fixing them.

Loss of Self

You’ve abandoned friendships, hobbies, and sense of identity to please your partner. Recovering your lost selfhood is vital for wellbeing.

Walking away with love still in your heart may be excruciating. But the capacity to love does not need to be directed at someone harmful. Nurture that love by caring for your needs first.

Healthy Coping After a Breakup When Love Remains

Ending an unhealthy relationship is courageous self-care, though heartbreak understandably follows. Gentle coping strategies help you through the challenging transition while still treasuring the genuine love you felt:

Let Yourself Grieve

Acknowledge the loss and allow yourself to fully feel the spectrum of emotions that come. Cry, journal, create art, talk to compassionate friends. Processing the grief prevents repressing it.

Avoid Closure Seeking

You may crave a deep talk or definitive goodbye to achieve closure. But for unstable or abusive partners, minimal contact is safest for preventing manipulation.

Delete Reminders

Seeing texts, photos together, social media posts, or gifts prolongs attachment. Delete or archive these reminders to stop dwelling on the past.

Fill Your Schedule

Loneliness after a breakup intensifies longing. Combat this by planning activities and quality time with uplifting people each day.

Change Your Habits

Start new routines like taking a different route to work, attending a new gym, even rearranging your furniture. Altering habits helps the past feel more distant.

When grief washes over you, confide in compassionate friends or a counselor. Hold onto the realization that you deserve someone who nurtures your spirit rather than harms it.

Recognizing Healthy vs Unhealthy Relationships

After leaving an unhealthy relationship, take time to self-reflect and recognize the hallmarks of a healthy partnership for the future:

Mutual Trust

You feel safe being open and authentic with each other. Trust grows naturally over time through dependability.

Secure Attachment

You each feel invested in the relationship while retaining a sense of individuality outside it. Clinginess and jealousy are minimal.

Shared Values

You share compatible values about important topics like family, ethics, spirituality, and lifestyle choices.

Compassionate Communication

You both default to open and respectful communication, without defensiveness or cruelty. Conflicts get resolved through compromises.

Equal Partnership

Power, decision making, and household responsibilities are shared fairly between you. One partner does not dominate the other.

A healthy love enhances your life positively without conditions or ultimatums. It takes time to find, but know you deserve nothing less.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before starting any new treatment regimen.