There comes a point in your love life when your heart just can’t take anymore bullshit and creates the space for a hardened form yourself to exist, which can ruin the chances of you finding your special match that out there waiting for you. It’s difficult to turn away from that when you have had that love you give taken advantage of numerous times. Keep in mind, it doesn’t mean that it happens the same way each time. This is a case where different people inflict different types of hurt that cause you to want to stray away from seeking love and finding happiness with a special someone. Maybe there is solution and maybe the solution is just the one that you present, but either way, let’s see if we can determine how to let the love live without killing you inside in the process.

We all know the addicting and powerful effect that love can have on us as people. Our hearts yearn for that acceptance and togetherness that being in love brings. It allows you to see past flaws of one person to get to the core and heart of them instead. You want to allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to allow someone to touch the parts of you that you reserve for someone that you truly feel is worth that experience. You anticipate having someone that you share your inner most thoughts with, someone that knows the deep, dark secrets that you hold so close you will go to your grave with them, be it not for that person you love. All of these things and more you want to experience with just one person, and when the person you think is that one turns out not to be, it just depends on how you find that out as to how much of that burning love flame will die down.

If you have what is considered a normal breakup, you know arguments or just to many differences to work, then you accept that maybe that person was meant to open your mind to certain parts of life, but that ultimately they weren’t that one and you allow yourself to continue on the journey. You take the time to recover from the emotional scars of the relationship and set your sights on being ready for the next one to come along. Not knowing if they will be teaching a lesson, robbing your time and heart, or here for the ride until the end. That is what we all hope to have from the failed relationships, yet more often than not, that’s not what you get though. Now we come across people who have nefarious motives. They want their survival to be so big time that they are willing to lie and abuse the love you give in order to maintain their lifestyle and survival that it tears you down in the process.

You see it is this type of relationship that the path of heart hardening gets sped up like a runaway freight train. Because it exposes you to the toxic nature of users. They know how to talk the bullshit better than most. Always keeping you lured in with the whims of your desires and stories of past pains they’re trying to move beyond themselves. And just how much you’re helping with your open and honest approach with them. While, they’re “recovering” they’re using all your energy, love and maybe even finances to get themselves better. This person is dangerous because they can take you for everything if they play the long game. Or even if they don’t they can leave you feeling raped of all that you work hard to store and give to someone deserving. When it’s all said and done, you have that feeling of despair and you struggle to make sense of the how and why. How did they get over and why would they choose to be users. Maybe their past pain just permeates their mind and as the old saying goes.. Hurt people, hurt people.

It’s a damaging psychological concept, but one that has one hundred percent validity. The cycle of making someone else feel the pain you feel, is as human as the cycle of the hopeless romantic, willing to be open to love at all costs. They come from the natural instincts of people. One a desire to protect yourself and inflict hurt on someone else to free it from yourself. The other, to never give up on the idea of sharing life with someone. Not wanting to be alone all your life. That is where these two mind sets overlap in my opinion. They both want to avoid that feeling of being alone, so you allow yourself to believe in things or behave in such a way that isn’t as healthy as you should be, but it’s attempting to satisfy a means to an end and real logic doesn’t really matter right now.

Yes there are many different levels to being a hopeless romantic and a jilted or scorned lover, this writing is really looking at the more extreme ends of these dynamics. The individuals who because of the hurts and abuses suffered are either so willing to believe in love that they are willing to disregard the norms or guardrails that protect you, or the person that’s been hurt so bad or so many times that they would rather inflict that type of pain on someone else so that they can say it doesn’t reside within them anyone. Usually, the person that they inflict that hurt to is one who doesn’t deserve it. It’s the person that was sent to help them really heal and be better than they are, but they’re blinded and so the cycle doesn’t break it continues.

I sit here so many times wondering why have I been chosen by so many different types of men to be their hurt person. The person that they give their hurt to by hurting me because of their past pains. It’s not something I seek or even can say I allow. I just feel that everyone deserves to be loved and have an opportunity to have someone be in their corner without using them or expecting them to “do something” in return. The price I’ve paid has been steep. I’ve lost everything I’ve worked for in life before. I’ve lost stability and happiness. I’ve lost blood and tears. I’ve lost time and love. Having these situations happen to you, create scars that over time can heal, but also over time can really harden. They make more willing to accept being alone and they start to turn some of that sweet, naïve love into a form of bitter love. Where you will love but with an eye bent towards protection from someone instead of protection by someone.

Sadly these stories are written all throughout history and time. People being jilted by past lovers, rushing too quickly into the next situation and hurting that lover. Or, just thinking that they’ve sufficiently addressed the past pain, only to find out they haven’t and the next lover paying the price for the former. We know the stories and drills so there is no need to pretend it doesn’t exist. For all those, we have all those instances as well of people actually doing the work to heal and not letting the next person pay for the last person. But the point is this, pain causes reactions and emotions that we don’t know until it happens. The deeper the pain the more radical the reactions. The more unexpected the hurt, the more punishing the next hurt will be. Instead of being willing to hurt the next one so you feel better about the last one. Try to sit and make yourself really better, that way the next one might stand the real chance of being the last one. Because they could have been sent to give you everything you need and almost all of what you want.