DV , I need to leave but how do you stop the love

[netolie]

I'm currently recovering from an episode of DV. It's not the first time it's happened and I know it has to be the last.
But god how do I get over the love I think I feel for him still. It's always been a toxic but passionate marriage . I don't know if I'm strong enough to cut ties even though I know for sure this time I need to .
Other people's stories would be so helpful, Thankyou

I don't think you can just stop the love (that's why so many people stay, alongside other reasons). I think you just need to realise you deserve better and put yourself first - you need to love yourself more than you think you love them.

I won't pretend I can remotely understand how you could love a man who is violent to you. It sounds like some kind of toxic bond, or addiction, rather than love. But anyway, love is not enough on its own. A relationship needs more than just passion.

Do you have kids? I found i couldn't do it for me but I had to do it for my kids.
No matter what I felt, I loved them and they deserved me to protect them.

It’s the other way round - first you leave and then you manage to slowly and painfully break the trauma bond that feels like passionate love. Think of it like quitting heroin or something, the highs are real and they’re what you know, but you have to cut yourself off to actually heal.

No, no kids .
But the good times are so good, but his temper has always been bad, but this time has been the worse. I had to stay in hospital

You speak to someone who will support you in leaving, like women's aid. They will explain why you feel the way you do and how wrong his behaviours are, even if you can't see it straight away it will eventually sink in.

Whatever you’ve got, it isn’t love. He doesn’t love you. You have some sort of trauma bond with him.

Get out and get therapy. You’ll look back and realise that this isn’t a relationship worth staying in.

Stop calling to love for starters. This isn't what love is. Call it attachment, familiarity, fear or any other more suited word. Keep repeating to yourself 'this isn't what love feels like'

By learning to understand that it wasn't love. What you thought was love was something very different.

'Whatever you’ve got, it isn’t love. He doesn’t love you. You have some sort of trauma bond with him.

Get out and get therapy. You’ll look back and realise that this isn’t a relationship worth staying in.'

Exactly this. This is absolutely not love. You're going to need a lot of professional support to establish yourself at the centre of your own life, where you should be

I left a violent man many years ago. Once I made the break, the freedom was just wonderful. I needed a lot of therapy to address the messed up lessons I had learned about relationships. It was the best thing I've ever done for myself. Good luck OP. Get out and stay out. You are worth so much more than this

What stories do you need to hear about others dv experiences or how they've gotten through the leaving stage?

Next time he may kill you. It's not passion or love it's abuse.
He doesn't love you he wants to control you and take his anger out on you.
Keep reaffirming this over and over and over so it starts sinking in

As PP. “Love” is care, kindness, compassion, courteousness, respect, understanding and compassion, not just in the “highs” but consistently. Even great sex or ‘passion’ isn’t a proof of love.

Abusive people mask their true behaviors with good times, but the bad times is when their real self comes through. I speak from horrible experience, as do others on here I expect.

So, as an excellent pp said above, reframe it. “how do I break this unhealthy bond” is the question to ask yourself.

For me, it was realising that he might actually kill me next time.
It was 30 years ago, and I can still remember clearly the relief of it being over. I married again, 25th anniversary last month.
There is a different future for you, please take it and escape the fear.

It's not love, do the freedom programme and love yourself more than you love anyone else.

Do you spend more time thinking about him that your own wellbeing? If so, get help.

That's coming from a place of love and I was there but learn to pour your love and attention into yourself instead.

And for me it was that my child was unsafe being exposed to the way he treated me - his keys are still at the police station after 4.5yrs

you will realise how much better love really is when you find it without someone else. This isn't it.

I had a lightbulb moment where I realised I was going to get seriously hurt if I stayed and I’d never achieve the things I wanted in life. It was hard to leave, I still loved him for some time and he kept contacting me saying how sorry he was and how much he loved me; found out later he moved on within a month so not so much heartbroken as he made out.
i told my friends and family what was going on and that gave me the strength to not change my mind and not go back. I knew that once they knew I wouldn’t be able to and I had their total support. Cut contact as much as possible and don’t try to look for answers as to why he is this way, it doesn’t help. Also have some therapy and read up, it took me ages to realise it wasn’t my fault

You need serious long-term counselling. And distance, both geographically and in time.

As a brief exercise, get a piece of paper and write down (without thinking of him) what love means to you. What it meant to you as a child, what you think it looks like. I think of lovely old people sitting together on a park bench, quiet and calm. I think of my DH holding my DD when she was just tiny and so delicate. I think of care, and calm, and respect and empathy. Someone who puts you in hospital is the opposite of that.

Just because you love him, doesn't mean you need to stay with him. It's not your responsibilities to look after him or soothe him or manage his feelings and emotions by being the person he can take it out on. Accepting all his shit and baggage is not love for him, it's lack of self worth.

You have to realise that he simply doesn't respect you, and doesn't (consistently) love you, the way you do him. If he did, he would never treat you this way. Could you even think you could do what he does to you too someone you love and care about? No? There's your answer. There's never an excuse for abuse. He knows what he is doing.

I'm sorry this sounds really harsh, but I don't mean it that way. I hope you are ok, but you really need to start putting yourself first. You are the most important person in your life, and the people in your life that do truly love and care for you will be heartbroken by the situation you're in with your partner. You deserve better. But even being alone is already so much better than living on eggshells in an abusive relationship.
Look after yourself <3

Read this book, it will open your eyes
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=archive.org/download/LundyWhyDoesHeDoThat/LundyWhy-does-he-do-that.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwig7MXJnNaDAxUr7LsIHYipDOQQFnoECA8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw14x4ivUm5xgJ67TT78XfZt

Loving somebody is not enough reason to stay with them when other factors (like protecting your kids or protecting yourself) are clearly more important.

Not everyone you love is going to be the right relationship choice for you. This is a hard fact to face, but it's true. Just because you love somebody doesn't mean you should be with them.

Please seek help from women's aid or similar. You don't have to stop loving him before you leave; it's more likely to be the other way round.

stop thinking you can fix him and find a way to educate yourself into understanding that he does NOT love you.

Put all your mental energy into working on yourself so you understand why you mistakenly reframe his abuse and violence as a barometer of love. That is the only way freedom from it lies: you will never be able to change him but you can be responsible for your own actions.

i quietly breathed a sigh of relief for you when I read there were no children involved. Extricating yourself from that too brings a whole new meaning to the concept of hell as I and others know.

One day you will understand this is nothing to do with you and nothing about you. No judgement just willing you on to never return to him for more. Everything else can and will be worked out. You are precious.

Time and choice.

Like an addict you have to choose sobriety every day and it will get easier with time. My last boyfriend messed up my head and when I finished with him it took me weeks to block him and over a year not to have to actively choose not to call him. I didn’t even think it was love. I went through this 25 years ago with my college boyfriend and so I knew long term no contact was the only answer. I feel HUGE relief now and have a lovely new boyfriend who is wonderful to me.

You get up every morning and you feel the hurt and you choose not to call him because you value your own health more.

You distract yourself with friends, family, hobbies, music, exercise, learning Spanish…

You have faith that the hurt fades and 1 year from now you won’t want to call him. You just have to choose yourself 365 mornings in a row to get to that point.

Counselling would probably also help but in the end only you can choose to be free.

Please leave this violent man. This time you walk out of hospital, the next you might not be so lucky. Would you hurt someone you loved that badly they were admitted to hospital? No, and he doesn’t love you. If he did he wouldn’t be physically assaulting you so badly. Please speak to woman's aid. The hospital should also be able to help if you confide in them. Please do this for yourself.

You need to realise that "love" could mean the choice between life and death. He put you in hospital. Next time it might be the morgue. Get out.