Vanessa,

Whew, your story certainly reveals the anger you’re stuck with. But, that anger is just a feeling, painful, but don’t let it spread his suffering to you. Consider: In your anger, you’re calling him a fucking retard, a dipshit abuser, “how dare he do that to me?” Unneeded, dear sister, don’t let him snuff your light in such a way.

Consider that he has some tangled issues, pain, addictive patterns, low self esteem… something, who knows. First, he was hiding from it in booze, and after that stopped working, tried hiding in love. That never works, we can’t hide from our pain, our suffering, we have to accept it and heal it. He hasn’t, and that builds a terrible pressure inside him that he then shoots off. Its not about you, has nothing at all to do with you. The previous girl got some of it, the next girl, and until he heals, he’s going to burn his intimacies to a cinder. Anger does that.

However, for you, its time to heal, to let go, to be free. As sia brings up a little, its about forgiveness. Consider that you pose a question “how can I forgive such a bastard”. My response is “because its the way for you to be free”. The trick to forgiving someone is accepting them as is. Not that we want to hang out with them, or date them, sometimes the lesson of the thorn bush is to stop pressing our face into it. Instead, look at how his anger tortures him. There you were, loving, open, beautiful, and invested in him. And he, in his bumbling foolishness and ignorance, pierced your heart with spear after spear. What a fool! If you can find the hope that one day he can be free from such a terrible pattern for him to be in, then your heart will unbind, you’ll really see how it has nothing at all to do with you.

Because while you’re perhaps a little unwise in your dating choices (consider that forgiving your dad in this same way may help you find a better heart mate), but you’re strong, beautiful, and vibrant. Some boy wants to try to blame you for his icky emotions? Ha! False! What a poor scrambling little hook he sends. Don’t let it find purchase in your heart, and instead, accept that you loved him, love him, but that you deserve a partner that knows how to love back and play nice. Argue fair, disagree peacefully, and so forth. With a kind boot on his ass, its OK to shed him like a moldy sweater. Be free.

With warmth,
Matt