Still wanting to return to an abusive relationship

How can I still miss someone who hurt me?

Everyone here does, and says so: a part of me will always love him, I still miss him, I know what I feel is real; the missing did not ask permission from what they know. What they miss is specific and it is not the harm: the caring version, the future that was talked about, being wanted for themselves after a long time of taking care of others, the daily habit of ten years.

Several came to a distinction that helped, that missing someone and it being safe to return are two different facts, and that choosing him had never been the same as choosing to be held down, yelled at, or called someone else's name. Looking back, a couple of them hold two things without cancelling either: that the love was real, and that love should not feel the way this felt, drinking and names and a door blocked.

This light does not hold anyone who stopped missing the person by deciding to; it holds people who let the missing be there and did not let it drive.

How do I keep from going back?

The people here who have kept from going back did it with structure, not willpower: a no-contact order, a friend beside them when returning his things and the dog, telling their oldest child the leaving was permanent so that it would have to be, asking for time and space in writing.

They name the pull exactly, so they can see it coming: the wish to explain themselves to the person, to make them understand, which feels like closure and works like a way back in; his middle-of-the-night messages; the daughter asking for the family back.

The pressure came from the other side too, promises to get help, messages meant to guilt, a request to visit, and the ones who held did not answer it in the moment; they answered later, on their terms, or not at all. What they describe afterward is not relief but a body catching up: anxious and afraid, lost and hopeless, wanting quiet for now.

None of them is sure yet that the door will stay closed; what they have is the next thing that makes it more likely, and a person or an order standing between them and the phone.

Will leaving ever feel like the right decision?

For the people here it feels right and wrong at the same time: knowing that going back would be unsafe while grieving the caring version of the person; knowing love should not feel that way while a part of them will always love him.

What made it clearer was rarely a new insight about the person; it was watching the pattern once more from outside, a promise to get help arriving exactly when they left, a return followed by the same blow-up, and noticing that the timing was the tell.

A few had a child in the room, one who had been carrying it for six years and asked whether this time was permanent, one whose honesty about both parents came as a relief; the children made the decision heavier and, they say, clearer. Doubt about whether the other person's love had ever been real arrived for several after the leaving, and they describe it as a second loss laid on the first.

None of them says it feels like the right decision yet; what they say is that it feels like theirs, the first thing in a long time that was, and they are holding on to that while the rest catches up.