I'm sorry, I just responded to your last post without reading your first post.
I stayed with my ex for a long time when I didn't think that I loved him. I didn't know what I thought, because I wasn't thinking. I just felt like marriage or a relationship was supposed to be forever. Perhaps I wanted validation. Perhaps I wanted to feel loved or cared about. It was all withheld from me. Perhaps I just needed closure, but closure or validation was never to come.
It was limbo land. I was afraid to move, but I didn't know why. I really don't think it was because I loved him, instead I feared him. I had a fear of rejection and abandonment. D@mn, I did or would have done anything to make things work, but they didn't. I didn't have self-respect, or self-confidence, or any kind of self-esteem anymore. I was in an abusive relationship. I craved the crumbs. I was hoping for the cake, but I just scraped up all the crumbs that I could get.
I had no trust left, I only had self protection left.