The confusion is by design
Nobody enters a relationship thinking: this person will harm me. You enter thinking: this person is complicated, and I am patient, and patience is love. That is not a mistake. That is what you were taught.But there is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from loving someone difficult, and a different kind that comes from loving someone dangerous. One leaves you tired. The other leaves you smaller. The problem is that both feel, from the inside, like the same thing: trying harder.The reason the two get confused is that dangerous partners rarely begin as dangerous. They begin as difficult. They begin as someone who needs more reassurance than most, who has a complicated past, who pushes back hard when they feel criticised. These are things you can work with. These are things that look like growth potential. And so you stay, because staying feels like the generous thing to do.
