Why do we keep getting into bad relationships?

Violet Online  
14:58 22/06/2015
To catch up on the series, read Love, sex, drama and self-discovery: The escapades of Violet Online.
I find it so interesting how we can see repeated patterns in our girlfriends but not in ourselves. Right now my best friend forever is going through a difficult time.

All of her relationships have been difficult and ended disastrously. And her current partner, who has a dreadful history with women, is behaving like a real bastard.

She’s in turmoil. I spend hours listening to her, nodding my head, rubbing her shoulders, making her tea and passing her tissues. 

What I really want to do is scream and shake her, yell at her to dump him,  plot the murder, tell her to quit the games, the lies, the drama and move on.

But I bite my tongue. Because she knows what she should be doing; she just can’t do it.  And really, she just wants someone to listen to her. Which I do, gladly and patiently.

Maybe not always patiently, because I do sometimes roll my eyes and I do sometimes actually shake her.
But, I listen because I am her friend. I also support her because she is my friend, but it kills me that she has sleepless nights over this guy.

It kills me that he makes her unhappy.

It kills me that I know she has no future with him.

But it kills her a lot more than it kills me. She’s in it and it should be easy for her to get out of. But it isn’t. These things are always complicated. And I know this because I have been in it too.

Or I am in it too. And right now there is probably someone writing a story about me and my obsession with this guy and a relationship that is going nowhere. Yet I too cannot see my way out of it.

We all repeat patterns.

We all get stuck.

We can all say what someone else should do, but we don’t do it ourselves.
Is it because we thrive on the drama?  Is it because we are scared of the alternative?  Or is it because secretly we hope that something is going to shift and we really love the guy so think it’s worth putting up with a lot of bad for a little bit of good?

Of course it isn’t worth putting up with the bad. Goodness, girls, we deserve much better than that. We just get stuck and we somehow need to learn how to unstick ourselves.

We need to stop being scared. We need to be ready for change.

We all need to learn to move on when it’s time to move on.