Je veux les memes droits que toi / et du respect pour chaque jour

[saveyoursanity]

Today I am feeling good about my decision to leave Austin.

It's been a long time since I was confident I did the right thing there-maybe never. But today I am feeling good about it. Helping that along is reading this metafilter thread about someone leaving an emotionally/physically abusive person.I don't know that I could call Austin

Comments

[anonymous]

It seemed topical to me, as in I was engaging something she wrote. If the mission of the post was strictly to rally support for her decision to leave her relationship, then yes my comment had no place. I was just "relating" and babbling as I would to someone who was relating these thoughts to me via any medium. I wasn't putting forth any kind of challenge or questioning her actions in leaving. It's absolutely clear she made the right decision and I certainly didn't mean to create doubt about that.

As you say, regardless of whatever kind of atmosphere you bring to the relationship, an abusive partner is an abusive partner and should be reacted to as such. There is no viability there and heaping blame on yourself is clearly the most dangerous thing you can do when you need to just scram and create enough space to "process" as you say.

Personally, I was reacting to the desire to have someone who reciprocates that love in a emotionally healthy way. Everyone needs and should have that and it's good to say it outloud and keep affirming this. But at the same time I know that I have and always will be a common denominator in my relationships and if I didn't and don't continue to change, it would be a difficult life to realize as even if I'm not "abusive", as it were, ways I am certainly have inhibited others from being able to act out their own love or grief. It has been to easy for me at times to just sit around and think "I deserve better"... instead of becoming better myself. Again, I was just "relating", not meaning to go "BUT WHAT ABOUT YOU AND YOUR ACTIONS, LADY."

Anyway, sorry to Erike for mucking up her journal space with all this. I think she's doing an amazing job at keepin on keepin on and is obviously getting stronger everyday and has truly served as inspiration for myself.

[anonymous]

(and sorry for the tortured sentence structure and typos, ErikA. jesus.)

[saveyoursanity]

No, the mission of the post (or any post) isn't solely to rally support, I also write to gain critical insight into my life and your comment definitely fits that bill very nicely. You're definitely not "mucking up" my journal by commenting. :)

I think you raise a valuable point, and it's one my therapist asked me shortly after I left the relationship: what did I like about myself in this relationship, what did I dislike about myself in the relationship. It's a topic I should probably devote a post to.

But at the same time I know that I have and always will be a common denominator in my relationships and if I didn't and don't continue to change, it would be a difficult life to realize... Exactly! I need to discover what factors in myself make it so that I constantly get into relationships with unavailable men-whether emotionally or long-distance & then I have shitty relationships with them. Well, surprise! The shitty relationships inevitably don't work out, and I'm left angry and broken-hearted but I chose to develop those relationships that had those inherent limitations and maybe I should have known that would be the ending from the start.

[zombiecity]

I need to discover what factors in myself make it so that I constantly get into relationships with unavailable men-whether emotionally or long-distance & then I have shitty relationships with them.

Ugh I feel like I am trying to work through this too. I'm like, "Why do I keep repeating the same mistakes? What the fuck am I doing wrong?" Lately I wonder if perhaps I am the one that's not emotionally available, and so their unavailability is just a reaction to that. Who knows.