This Is How I Confused Abuse With Love

I wear rose tinted glasses until they are clouded over, cracked and hanging from my face. I try to pick out the good parts that are in people and as a result, I seem to blind myself to the rest. When it comes to the goodness of other people, I suppose that I expect other people to treat me the ways in which I treat them and it so often fucks me over 90% of the time. I am a professional when it comes to defending people, making excuses for them and just giving them 'one more chance. ' I want people to just simply prove me wrong, to be better, to show up, to stick to a promise, but they just do not do any of those things. Therefore, I feel disappointed and eventually discarded once I am so mentally broken, I then give up. Until the cycle begins again and it usually always does, so I guess the reason for this is because it is just who I am.

However, the most fucked up thing that I have ever done is confuse abuse for love and that is not my fault, it’s a byproduct of being such an intense person. It is "his" fault; His fault for being so clever, so manipulative, so damn convincing, for holding up a mirror and letting me believe that what I gave him and how I loved him was reflected back to me, but it was nowhere close to being like that. I confused abuse for love the first time that my told me that my writing was “damaging” to women and also to other people. When he tried to convince me that I was “making other people crazy” and so I sobbed, trying to defend my work, trying to get this asshole to understand that I wrote what I felt that people needed to hear and he told me that it “was not good enough.” 

I confused abuse for love when this person told me that he was “just trying to help me,” that he did not want me to “embarrass” myself. Six months later, I am beginning to realize that he meant embarrass him. I confused abuse for love when he called me crazy, a psychotic bitch or a fucking lunatic. When he convinced me to go to individual therapy, because he had cheated on me and lied about it for nearly a year and a half and also when he told me after my therapy sessions were over that it obviously did not work, because I was “still fucking mental.”  I confused abuse for love when I slowly began to believe him, when I told myself, "He must love me, because he wants and is trying to help me....  So clearly, I must be mentally unwell.

I confused abuse for love when we spent long, drawn out nights arguing, going round and round in circles, when I was so tangled within the webs of his gaslighting that I apologized as he held me close to his chest while stroking my hair as he told me that he forgave me. I confused abuse for love in those quiet moments after the storm had hit and blown me apart, when he was gentle, warm and soothing. When I fell asleep in his arms and I actually believed that it would, in fact,  get better.

I confused abuse for love every time that he criticized me for what I wore, how I did my makeup, how I cooked our dinner or how did the laundry. When he poked me in the stomach after sex and asked me, “What is all of this?” and then rammed abuse down my throat for being upset about what he asked or said to me. 

I confused abuse for love when he bought me chocolate as an apology and I felt it was good enough. I confused abuse for love when he told me to exercise, then laughed at me when I tried to work out at home. "He just wants me to look better, to be healthy and to also just be happy. He is only really just looking out for me."

I confused abuse for love when he begged me for forgiveness after the first time that he laid his hands on me. When he told me that I had had just "pushed him too far." I confused abuse for love when I believed that I was an awful person, that I deserved it, that I was too much and that I was lucky that he even put up with me. I confused abuse for love when he bought me flowers and wrote me declarations of love to ensure that I would not leave. When I swallowed the fear burning inside of me and kissed him and when I ignored the way that he began to taste like poison. When I really believed it would just be once. Once was okay though, right? 

Wrong...

I confused abuse for love when I looked for the damaged parts inside of him and tried to love them. When I found excuses for all of his mental abuse in his own childhood or his past relationships. When I told myself that if I was just better, if i was more understanding, if I was more loving, if I was more patient, then maybe he would be the man that I wanted and also needed him to be. I confused abuse for love every time that he pulled me back in, every time my moments of clarity were quickly dismantled by all of his broken promises of the future and of us. I confused abuse with love every time that he told me that he loved me and I really believed that love meant to him exactly what it does to me.

I confused abuse with love when I trapped in that house with him, with returning to hell knowing that it would burn me around the edges before completely smoking me out; With passion, love and desire. A need with this fairytale life that I so desperately craved from him, when I was simply existing in my own nightmare and I just did not want to see it for what it truly was.

I confused abuse for love until the very end and it ultimately it changed me.

Broke me.

Shattered me.

Made me pick up the pieces of my entire being and fix them back together in some new way I that I just did not quite recognize.

On the other hand, I knew damn well that I would never confuse abuse for love ever again and I hope that you do not learn the hard way like I had to.