"Everything I've Done - I've Done for You."
The 'Other Side' of the Breakup.

Abandoning those you love....

Yes, it hurts like hell to get dumped, abandoned, rejected, or left for another. You have given and given and given your all to a relationship... and what do you get in return?  In return you get to have the person you were most attached to, willfully and purposely withdraw their love for you, and detach from you.

Getting abandoned sucks!

But, I am going to write to you right now via the perspective of being the one who does the abandoning. As a 'dumper'. Let me tell you, being the one that makes the decision to leave a relationship - well, that hurts like hell, too!

I am, at this moment, preparing to leave a man. And this guy is going to hurt like hell. And I know it. And I feel bad - I really, really do. And I know exactly what he is going to say - and I know how very true those words will be. He will say:

• "Everything I've done - I've done for you."
• "I give you everything I can."
• "I would always be faithful to you."
• "I care for you and worry about you."
• "I'm good to your children. I love them."
• "I love you so much I want to make you my wife."
• "I would never hurt you."
• "I only wanted you to be happy."
• "Your smile I live for."

And, he can honestly say to himself that these things are true - because they are true. But I am leaving him anyway. Here's why:

"Everything I've done - I've done for you." Yes, this is true. You basically have become a love-slave.You sacrificed your friendships, you see them no more - lest I get a life and visit my friends, too. You quit your job - to make sure I didn't do anything or go anywhere while you were gone at work. Every move you make - you make to keep me prisoner.

"I give you everything I can." Yes, you do. Unfortunately, because you have quit your job to 'watch over' me, I pay for it all out of my hard-earned money. I would rather pay the rent then have you buy me flowers with my money because you are 'sorry' about what you did 'last night'.

"I would always be faithful to you." I've no doubt of that. You are so codependent on me that you can't even go to the service station without me on the passenger seat right next to you. Or is this because you are so hideously insecure that you can't 'trust' me to be alone for five minutes? Women are not cunts, whores, bitches, and sluts that are having affairs if they can't account for every second that they are 'out of your sight'.

"I care for you and worry about you." How sweet. Like the time you knocked the doors off of the bedroom closet in a rage because I was too ill to have sex. The times you yelled at me and belittled me and made me feel weak and dirtied. You controlled my personal space and time. Your bedtime is not neccessarily my bedtime.

"I'm good to your children. I love them" Yes, you are good to them and I do believe you love them. As a matter of fact, you are GREAT with my children. To the outside world this looks wonderful. Nobody knows the real you. But I do. You give the children a good time, take them fishing, give them hugs, do things with them, buy them treats - earn their love, trust, and faith....this is why they believe you when, as you're hugging them, you sweetly and softly whisper in their ear that their mother is a 'whore'.

"If you're having a bad day, I don't mind helping you with the housework, or letting it slide for a day." How kind of you. How truly, truly kind. I remember you vehemently vacuuming the living room (even though it didn't need it). I remember you coming home with the flu and a fever and having to wash the walls in the hallway because you thought 'I was having trouble breathing'. Yes, to the outside world this might have looked grand. But to me, who knows you well, it was an act of control and martyrdom. Translation: Instill guilt on me at every opportunity. Next time I'm having a bad day I will - for sure - clean your home.

"I love you so much I want to make you my wife." You want to make sure I'm unavailable to other men. If another man so much as looks at me, or talks to me, you rush over and shove your hand out to shake his, "nice to meet you. This is my girl you're talking to." Why don't you just lift your leg and piss on me?

"I would never hurt you." Too bad you can't remember what you do when you are drunk. Which is like 8 days a week.

"I only wanted you to be happy." Really? Yes, perhaps that's true. You wanted me to be happy 'owned' by you. You wanted me to be happy without any 'life' left in me. You wanted me to be happy in giving up my world and dying for you. You wanted me to be happily enslaved by you. If you truly wanted me to be happy, then why do you rule me, abuse me, hold me prisoner, use me, keep me? Why do you make me needy? Why do you steal all my options, all my freedom, all my independence, so I have to be totally dependent on you? Why do you deprave me of the very air I need to breathe? Why have you crushed my spirit? Why am I an empty shell where there once was life? Was not your point to enslave me psychologically? To have absolute and unrestricted control over me? To annihilate my self-esteem so I wouldn't leave you? To become more manageable of me?

"Your smile I live for." Then you must be blind or dead, because - in case you haven't noticed - I haven't smiled in months. I'm physically sick every day, and the constant stress and pressure - and fear - is only making me more ill. I fear I will die if I am here with you one more day. If you want me to be happy - if you want to see me smile - then you will let me leave you without you stalking me. You will set me free and set your heart free.

....As I write this I am having an anxiety attack - after a day of deep, defeating depression. This is what abuse does to you. It is so easy for people to say, "well leave..". They don't understand how your resources can so gradually be depleted you aren't even aware of it. They don't understand how the isolation can be so enveloping that you wake up one day and realize you haven't any friends left. They don't realize how the abuser can be so subtle and crafty that you become 'needy' before you're even aware of it. They just say, "why doesn't she walk..?" and then they get angry if you don't.

And you don't walk. Because.

Because...

• Denial - Some people truly don't believe they are being abused.
• Financial - Not only do most women make less money than a man, a lot of abused women can't work because their partner won't let them. Abusers, too, withhold money, checking account, credit cards, etc, . leaving the abused financially needy, taking away important resources needed for her to leave. This issue is compounded when there are children involved.
• Fear - Making threats to kill or harm the abused party, pets, or family members - should an abused woman chose to leave - is a very effective method abusers use to keep someone in a relationship, which is the goal of the abuser. She may feel, "why leave? He'll just hunt me down and kill me." Also, threatening suicide is a common method the abuser uses to 'keep' his victim. She really, truly does not want to feel responsible for another's pain or death.
• Love - Most people want their relationships to work. Hope that things will improve, or believing promises of 'change', keep many women in abusive relationships.
• Children  - It is important for children to have good relationships with their father. Most women are compelled to try and hold the family together, innocently unaware that the abusive atmosphere is actually having an adverse affecte on her children.
• Religion  - Many religions discourage divorce. Verse has it that a woman that leaves her husband is a prostitute, and any remarriage is adultery.
• External Pressures (family, church) - Yes! Abusers are - surprisingly - very well-liked. That's because most abusers are master charmers and bull-shitters. "He was such a nice man." The abuser has two faces: public and private.
• No place to go - Sometimes, by the time a woman admits or realizes the abuse, her abuser has already succeeded in isolating her from her family, friends, financial resources, and transportation.
• The Abuser's Main Goal is to Make the Abused Feel Worthless - This is to ensure that she will stay with him. As many abused women state, "no one else would ever love me. I am a miserable failure. Ugly, stupid, bad lover, can't cook, lousy mother..."  "I deserve this abuse, I am a bad person. It's all my fault."
• She's Too Compassionate  - The abuser can really come off as a pathetic lost child - so misunderstood. A compassionate woman often stays with an abuser because she feels so sorry for him. "No one else understands him the way I do."
• She Mistakes His Abuse for Love - Face it, who could ever love you so intensely and consuming as the abuser can? Sometimes the abuse actually feels good! This is one of those 'unadmitted' facts about abuse, that the intense jealousy and need someone has on you is actually an ego boost! "Wow - does he love me! I must be great and no where else could I find someone who will ever love me this deeply. I am wonderful!" Ugh!!!

Yes, I am about to abandon my man. And yes, he will grieve. And yes, he may find a breakup board, or a grief board, and write a post that says something like this:

"My love of my life just left me. I am so devastated. How will I survive? I love her. Everything I did - I did for her. I gave her everything I could. I never would have cheated on that woman, I loved her so much. I worried about her. I loved her children. I miss them so much. I miss her too. This is terrible. What could have gone wrong? I was so good to her. I wanted her to be my wife. I never would have hurt her. I only wanted her to be happy. How can I go on, when I lived for her smile? Oh, won't someone please help?"

And he will sound like a truly great man, grief-stricken by the woman he loved so much.

Don't think this doesn't hurt me - the abandoner. It hurts like hell. But I won't die for love.

I need to breathe again. To smile again. To not be sick and live in fear. I need to stop walking around on egg-shells. I need to feel safe, and accepted, and trusted, and I need to feel like I am giving my love freely - not like it is being coerced out of me by threats and guilt and fear.

It's not just the abandoned that hurt.

~~Thank you for reading

NOTE: To all who have answered this -

Thank you for your show of support! Abuse is the unbelievable psychological horror.

You can't help but initially fall in love with the abuser (before the abuse becomes evident) - abusers can be such charmers! They are the extreme of both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - however Mr. Hyde is well-hidden in the initial stages of the relationship.

You almost become addicted to their intense love, but before you realize you are being abused you are suckered into the life. Abuse is so subtle, and sneaks up on you so inconspicuously, that you aren't even aware of the abuse.

I know I wasn't in the beginning. I just told myself, 'he's moody' 'he's worried', 'something happened at work' 'his first wife made him distrustful' etc.

But then you just wake up one morning and realize your 'innocent zest' for life - your beautiful free spirit - exists no more. And you feel empty and without hope and joy. Your eyes betray your false show of cheerfulness around your children/co-workers/friends. Your shoulders sag, and you have become hypervigilent to EVERYTHING!

Thank you for your words. Yes, it does hurt. AND it's scary! Will he follow me? Stalk me? Hunt me down and kill me?

Article published by Glass Slipper publishing, the Breakup Gurus. For more breakup advice and forums please join us at the Lifted Hearts Breakup Support Forums & Community at http://liftedhearts.com.