This could have been me 50 years ago. I married the guy and stayed for 18 years. I realize now that I was thinking about him and not myself. At 19 we should be thinking about building up the person we are becoming. By staying with someone who has had a difficult past and is needing someone to fix him, we put our needs on the back burner. Most girls think with a “maternal” side of themselves. We know something isn’t right, but the needy person “might” change if only they can be fixed by us.
In the years since I left my ex. I see I was being selfless and wanted to make things better for someone who was broken. It didn’t work. He didn’t change for me. He would have needed to do that for himself. He brought dysfunction into my children’s lives and I learned too late that I had given up many years trying to help someone who didn’t want to change. Eventually I went to college and became a teacher, but it was a hard lesson and I wouldn’t advise anyone else to go that route.