Originally Posted by
trublnshangrila 
I was so addicted to the drama, the highs and extreme lows, the ambiguity & unhealthiness of being with him that I mistook for passion and love...
And I ask myself the same questions as you! For me, I didn't love myself enough to think that I deserved better and run! I saw his issues, thought I could save him from drinking himself to death, when I should have been saving myself. If loving him meant I couldn't love myself (which it did because i would have had to heavily compromise my values ), I chose me. And every day that I'm away from him I choose me. Love is not pain, it's just pain.
Ya' know, this really has me thinking
Shangrila. I have read so often that we choose the people we choose because we are trying to re-create the problems of our childhood so that we finally have the opportunity to resolve them. And Dr. Simon and these Narcissist authors keep saying how these character-disordered people target our vulnerabilities. Something is starting to click in my head, and that is that for some reason we feel we want to rescue THEM, or that we can help THEM, and we neglect ourselves. And of course it's obvious we should be devoting the resources and energy we give to these other people, directly to ourselves, but I wonder why we don't just do that automatically? I wonder why we feel we have to fix someone else? I just don't get that. I wish I knew and I wish I could fix this about myself!!!