Originally Posted by
Live 
Oddly enough, I never put up with crap in my relationships before but stuck with this one.
I didn't, either.
I did put
some extra effort in, but when a positive change didn't result I correctly labeled "wasted effort" and moved on quickly. I think the extra effort was just to give the benefit of the doubt, and to ensure I didn't have any "what ifs" when I left.
(I knew I had a problem with "what ifs" and with double-guessing myself since I was in 10th grade. I learned it from a PSAT pre-test CD, that graded my test and told me how many I got right, how many I got wrong, and how many I had right initially but changed to the wrong answer. ~90% of my wrong answers were right before I changed them.)
With ABF, though, it was different. It started out so wonderful in the beginning, and so perfect, he was so interested in what I had to say and what I wanted to do, and I just kept thinking the relationship would return to that, but it didn't. It just gradually got worse.
Now I realize that the "wonderful" bit in the beginning was all about him, too. "Look at me, I can make her feel so special!" Once he knew he could do it, he didn't put so much effort into me anymore, and it became all about him.