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“He finally got his big wake up call.”
“He has to learn his lesson now.”
“There is no way he will drink again after this.”
“He won’t hurt me again. He promised.”
“I can tell he is sincere this time.”
“He has no other option now.”
These are the hopeful and forceful declarations of desperate women, willing it to be true.
But we don’t get to determine what someone else’s point of change is. We don’t get to manipulate it, control it, force it, or decide it. No matter how much we want it.
Our own stubborn hopefulness is often our own worst abuser.
I have said most of these hope against hope statements, so sure he HAD to change this time. I wanted to believe he would see how much damage he had done and LOVE ME enough to STOP hurting me. But *I* didn’t love myself enough to stop putting myself in harms way, over and over. Ultimately, I needed the same love and care from myself I was so desperately seeking from others.
I kept clinging to the hope it was all FINALLY OVER. The intense pain. The suffering. The anxiety. The nagging thoughts. The loneliness. The longing. The shame. The feeling I wasn’t good enough. The belief my love wasn’t enough.
I needed it to be over and for him to change because that would FINALLY MEAN I WAS GOOD ENOUGH for him to CHOOSE ME. Choose my safety. Choose my happiness. Choose my presence. And that would mean I was loveable.
In essence, my desire for him to FINALLY change didn’t have anything to do with my love for him. It had everything to do with my desire to PROVE MY OWN WORTH. And that is where I got to do MY OWN WORK.
Goddess, if you are stuck waiting and wishing for your loved one to finally change and you are hanging onto the illusion he’s FINALLY DONE so you can breathe, there’s some more digging for you to do - not about why he is or isn’t done doing whatever he is doing, but about why you are so attached to it being so. <3
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