How to stop loving someone who hurts you –

“Nothing ever leaves our lives until it teaches us what we need to know.” Pema Chödrön

We know. There is a person who hurts you over and over again, but you simply can’t seem to stop loving them.

The problem is not so much that you love her, but that you always end up giving in to her demands, feeling bad about what she does, or letting her hurt you.

Things are much more complex than others believe. Although everyone tells you to just “walk away” as if it were the easiest thing in the world, you experience the bond that binds you to the other person as something impossible to break.

You are very afraid that he will continue to hurt you. But you are even more afraid to make the decision to leave. You are convinced that somehow things are the way they are because of you, and that you are not trying hard enough.

Although, deep inside you, sometimes you hear a subtle little voice that tells you that the problem is not you, and that you deserve better.

Are you stuck in a relationship like this? Then read this article until the end.

Here we will not simply give you simple answers like “stay away from that person”, but we will explain in more depth why you are so linked to someone who is not good for you.

And what are the truly effective strategies so that you can be free again without guilt or resentment.

It is important to clarify that toxic relationships between a victim and an offender do not only occur in the context of the romantic couple. It is also common for them to develop between parents and children, friends and even co-workers.

You are not the only person in the world who is going through something like this. What’s more, almost all of us have been in a relationship with someone we love, but who hurt us. Maybe you have been in a relationship with someone you love, but whom you hurt.

It is part of human nature. But that does not mean that we are condemned to live it, nor that we should resign ourselves. You have to do everything in your power to take care of yourself.

Before continuing, we must clarify that perhaps “stop loving someone who hurts you” is not the correct expression. Maybe we should look at it more as “stopping someone you love from hurting you.”

Love is sometimes so strong and so irrational that getting rid of it seems like an impossible dream. But preventing them from harming us is a more grounded and manageable goal, so we’ll start there.

To escape a dynamic in which you are constantly a victim of another person who takes advantage of your love for them, follow these steps:

Read our guide on unrequited love: How to deal with the pain

1.- Accept and understand the problem

Denial, justification, and self-reproaches are some of the most common tactics people use when they are in a relationship with someone who hurts them. Needless to say, they are not even remotely the most efficient for your emotional health.

We will first define those common tactics:

a) Denial: It appears when we do everything possible not to see the problem in front of us. We ignore it, normalize it or minimize it. It is expressed with constant lies towards oneself and with efforts to forcefully forget all the damage that that person has done to us throughout the day.

One of the clearest and most drastic examples of denial of the problem is the example of the beaten woman who not only tries to convince others, but also herself, that her bruises are the result of an accident, and not from your partner’s jealousy or anger.

Accepting that there is a problem, as in everything, is the first step to eventually solving it.

b) The justification: It happens when, although we are aware that there is a problem, we try to downplay it by blaming it on the circumstances rather than the person.

If you are constantly justifying behaviors that hurt you to the person you love, then it is because you are afraid to face the logical consequence of the truth: it is not the circumstances, it is that person, yes, your love.

For example, let’s imagine that someone is always excusing another person’s criticism by claiming that they had a very stressful day or that it is because they care about both of their well-being. No matter how harsh or out of place they may be.

Another example is justifying infidelities because “the situation encouraged them” or “the other was seduced.” In all of these cases, we are wanting to attribute responsibility for a problem to something that is not in the hands of the person who hurts us.

But if we do it this way, what hope do we have of stopping getting hurt again and again, if changing is not in the hands of others or ourselves?

c) Self-reproaches: Do you have that constant feeling that, no matter what the cause of an argument or conflict, it is always your fault?

There are people whose way of dealing with problems is to manipulate the other party so that they invariably feel that it is their responsibility or their fault. Unfortunately, there are also those who allow themselves to fall into this blackmail.

For example, let’s imagine that you have a slight difference with your partner, in which, since it seems so obvious to you that you are right, you decide not to give in. Then, your partner finds a way to “punish” you for it, whether by going out drinking, dating someone else, or doing some emotional or physical harm to you.

If in the end you end up thinking that the whole problem was your fault for not giving in at the beginning, it is because the other person has managed to drag you into the dynamic of self-reproach to get their way all the time.

Another cause of self-reproaches, even if the other person does not constantly manipulate you so that they appear, is that you decide that the problem is yours and not the other’s.

This can derive from a very low self-esteem, but also from an unconscious desire that the problem be in our hands, because then, in some way, we can change things at some point.

Accepting that the problem belongs to the other person, and that they are most likely not interested in solving it, confronts us directly with a logical but terrible consequence: we must let it go.

It doesn’t mean the other person is evil, but it’s not your responsibility either.

Contrary to what we all intuitively think, the fact that another person hurts us does not necessarily mean that they are bad.

On the contrary, most people who take on the role of victimizer in their relationships do so because:

1) They are afraid of being hurt again

2) They do not have the ability to admit their defects

3) They are deeply selfish

4) They want to “tie” people so as not to be left alone

5) They don’t know assertive ways to deal with conflicts

6) They are emotionally immature

Surely you understand or intuit what the particular cause is why a person you love frequently hurts you. But remember that this can be the main trap.

Knowing that they are not doing it out of malice, you understand that you have no right to reproach them for their behavior, even if it affects you.

Thousands of women and also men around the world who frequently face abuse, justify themselves over and over again by saying things like:

“He hits me because he loves me”

“He is jealous of me because he is afraid of losing me.”

“He yells at me because he was yelled at when he was a child.”

“It hurts me because he doesn’t know any other way to express his feelings.”

And while all these justifications may even be valid on some twisted and sick level, the reality is that neither misunderstood love, nor the fear of loneliness, nor childhood trauma, nor the lack of emotional assertiveness of the other They are your fault or your responsibility.

Let’s see it from a completely cold and impersonal example. Imagine that you find a stray dog ​​that you decide to adopt. Over time, it becomes clear that the animal lived a life of mistreatment and abuse, so this makes it irritable, unpredictable and sometimes aggressive.

What are you going to do? Justify their behavior and let the situation continue until it endangers your integrity or that of your family?

Probably not. You would probably try to re-educate it, you would turn to an expert in dog behavior and, in the last case and when it has become clear that there is no solution, you would sacrifice the animal.

Well, the analogy in this case is not that you reeducate, much less that you sacrifice, the person who is harming you. But do not sit idly by and, if you realize that the other person is not going to change, leave before you get more hurt.

When a person has had a difficult life or has gone through circumstances that lead them to hurt others, consciously or unconsciously, it is their sole responsibility to find a way to stop doing so, not those around them.

You can provide help and support up to a certain point, and, ambiguities aside, that “certain point” is precisely the one at which you would begin to let others hurt you.

2.- You have to be your priority

In the same vein as the above, just as the hurtful behaviors of the person you love are not your fault, and it is not your responsibility to change them, you have to be aware that it is your responsibility to take care of yourself and prevent them from hurting you.

You are your priority, and no matter how much you love another person, there comes a time when you must start fighting for yourself. And if, even though you love them very much, the other person refuses to fight for you too, you know that the time has come to remove them physically or emotionally from your life.

This is very painful and immediately triggers feelings of guilt: we feel that we are bad people for leaving, that we are selfish and that we are not really doing everything for the other that we should do.

Remember, this is one of the most dangerous traps of toxic relationships. Don’t fall for it!

It takes a lot of courage to walk away from a person who is hurting you when you really love them because you know that not everything is bad, and that if they just decided to change a little, you could both be very happy.

Again, it is not in your hands to make this decision. But you know what? There are many people in the world who are willing to treat you as you deserve.

Maybe your current toxic relationship has led you to think that no one else will love you that way, and that may be true, but if you think about it, it’s a good thing, because the way they love you isn’t doing you any good.

Read our guide on how to overcome insecurity: The path to freedom

3.- Accept when it is necessary to stop fighting

When you accept that there is a problem and that the person you love, whether he wants it or not, is hurting you, it is very possible that a dangerous doubt will appear:

Should I walk away completely or should I just find a way so that what he does doesn’t affect me?

You are probably tempted to choose the second option, as an attempt to stop the bad from affecting you and to continue preserving the good or what you feel attached to.

But the reality is that “pretending that it doesn’t affect you” is equivalent to denying, minimizing or normalizing the problem.

There comes a breaking point in all toxic relationships, in which it becomes clear whether the other person is willing to change or not, no matter how much…