J I dug this up from my old thread it sounds like you might be ready for this just about now. I wrote it after some difficult struggles to move forward.
Here you go:
It is a sacrifice of sorts at this stage.
We are looked on as victims of bad behavior, incongruent behavior to REAL LOVE.
So in that light we begin to feel like victims or that we are being taken advantage of in a sense and are perceived as such by the world. A DOORMAT if you will.
As time goes on and those who care about us begin to be more concerned about our mental and emotional health and question more emphatically why we choose to be a DOORMAT.
Or how long will you be a DOORMAT.
Then you begin to doubt yourself and your decision and the focus goes back to your beloved and now you look on them not with eyes of a scourned lover, a left behind, abandoned spouse, but with real scrutiny.
We begin to question why we would SACRIFICE our own happiness and endure such hardship to regain the love of a person who so obviously is not capable of the same for us or even anyone else.
It is then that the MIRACLE happens.
Through all the pain and seemingly fallow soil a sprout
of green punches through...
This growth is something new and it
is OURS, we planted it, we sowed it
For it is certain our seed was trampled upon many times before
it took root.
But it did take root and
it grows, upwardly reaching, toward the light.
The miracle is the love for yourself.
You are no longer the choices your spouse makes
You are no longer whether your M reconciles or not
You are no longer the failures you see in yourself
You are no longer a victim because only YOU can choose to be one.
Then you a FREE
Free to make the choice to STAND for YOURSELF.
This I believe can only be achieved through the decision to STAND in the first place.
Only through that decision can we experience the pain involved to know completely what it means to be free.
What is means to love.
My goal is to some day be the person my dog thinks I am