Let this resonate with you:
It is not your duty, nor has it ever been, to be someone’s confidant, someone’s therapist, or someone’s saviour. You ain’t Jesus. You didn’t die on no cross, you can’t repent no sins. You ain’t here for it, so tell that poor soul to invest in a professional. They can’t afford it? Still ain’t your problem.
You don’t owe anybody shit, and no one owes you shit either.
Here’s how I know: I fell in love with someone who first baited me in by telling me - on the very first encounter - all of their dark, dirty little secrets. How their mother didn’t love them, how their father was indifferent, how they led a difficult early life. My therapist explained what this was. He was planting a seed in my head that his life had been so terribly hard, so that I could never be upset with him:
“That his life had been so difficult. And that seed flourished so that whenever he did do wrong, you could never look at him as misbehaving. How could you be upset with anyone who had had it so hard? It couldn’t be his fault that he had acted in a way that disappointed you or that had hurt you. No, it surely couldn’t be his fault. Afterall, his life has been so hard.”
So when you feel someone is exhausting you as their personal saviour, run.
When you feel someone is only calling you or talking to you when they need something from you, run.
When you feel someone never owning their mistakes or working towards correcting them, run.
Having dated someone for 4 years who eventually became physically abusive to the point where I took him to court, to the point where my friends - the ones he hadn't ran off - were messaging me telling me they feared for my life, feared for me ending up in the hospital - or worse.
It hasn't even been a year since I realized I loved him more than I loved myself.
Part of my therapy has been to attend a domestic abuse group, and in that group, I learned about myself, about women with empathy. The group leader would refer to it as our "God-given gift," but a gift to be vigilantly watched and tamed. A gift to be harnessed. For it is also a curse which lures us into giving more of ourselves away than we can physically bare.
You cannot allow someone to call you outside your name, not even once.
You cannot allow someone to berate or ridicule you time and time again, making you feel as if everything you do is wrong or your ideals are dumb.
You cannot allow someone to make you feel "less than."
You cannot allow someone to use you or take from you when they give 0%.
You cannot allow someone to make you a secret, to privatize you behind closed doors so no one knows who you are.
You cannot loan your money to a man who is not your legal partner.
You cannot puts your wants, desires, or dreams aside to further his.
You cannot permit a man to lay violent hands on you.
The moment you sense any of these things - and this is not an exclusive list - you must eradicate him from your life in every sense and form.
You cannot allow someone to silence you, or else they will succeed in first extinguishing your fire and then in exterminating your existence.