Breaking the cycle : relationships which are bad for us

CJ I wish I knew. I'm in a similar position with my friend S who just keeps on getting hurt by the same bloke (I can't stand him anyway, so this doesn't help matters). I'm not even sure he realises what a dick he's being, but she really needs to break the pattern and get him out of her life. I can't tell her how to live, but I also don't want to stand by and watch him drag her sense of worth through the mud.

New answers also appreciated here.

Good luck to your friend CJ.

This is such a disturbingly common thing to happen... I have literally just been talking to my new housemate who is going to visit her sister tomorrow because the sister has been plunged into depression by this exact same situation. Sometimes I'm glad to be single.

having been in the situation of repeatedly returning to a relationship that wasnt much good for me, i know that the comments ( however well-meaning ) of friends did little to assist me in breaking the cycle.
in fact, the people i found most helpful were the ones who said nothing, judged me not and simply 'made themselves available' if i needed to talk.
eventually i left for good, because i found my own strength and i think that it is the only way it will stick, in such circumstances.
if you dont want to go, no matter how bad it might be, no one else can really convince you otherwise. it is a sticky trap, because the belief that you are only 'worth something' if you are with that person becomes so entrenched, it takes a lot to clamber out and carry on alone.
best thing to do is try to help build up your friends self-esteem, try to surround her with people who will react positively towards her so she will begin to realise that she is worth more than a bad relationship.
no point in telling her she is 'worth more' etc, she needs to find that belief herself. it may take a while.

You could be harsh & horribly blunt & tell her that she is making herself miserable and cite each instance of the pattern & say, it sucks to try and change and it's not easy but you are just asking to be walked over if you go back to this person again, and you have a hard time feeling sorry because she is responsible for this if she keeps going back/taking him back.

Er, I would prob never have the nerve to talk to someone like this, but I was trying to deal w/some wretched self-defeating behavior as regards some colleagues & had a friend who just laid it down & said, you did this and this and this wrong, you really f*&ked up here. Well, I sat around for three days in a stupor feeling like I'd been kicked in the gut, and then I said, OK, I gotta get my sh!t together and change my ways.

Or, you could burn her a CD looping Pet Shop Boys' "So hard" -
"Tell me why don't we try not to break our hearts
And make it so hard for ourselves?"

this is one of the most frustrating situations ever. sometimes there are grey areas where people try to weigh the good and bad, sometimes people get into bad relationships and try to learn to do better in the future. and then there's the kind i just recently had to walk away from where someone is so deluded that she would rather lose her job and her hurt her friends than even question her destructive relationship.

how come the ability to play a musical instrument (or maybe just hold a musical instrument) suddenly makes a nasty, manipulative, destructive, violent, mentally ill drug-addict irresistably attractive? i've never understood this quirk that makes girls see sid and nancy as a romantic fairy tale to aspire to. i just get so mad/sad.

lolita you are otm . its most peculiar . but somehow irresistable. even tho you know in yr head its fucked somehow dont stop your heart from opening ....

I'm tempted to go into detail about my current situation, but I won't for the moment, suffice to say that even from the inside of a relationship people can have very different views of what's going on, especially if depression / low self-esteem are involved. Oh, and all men are weak and foolish creatures. Or maybe not.

Donna is so OTM about what people say not making the slightest bit of difference. My friend was in a crappy relationship, but they went thru alot in a very short space of time & 4 years later he was still being a complete arsehole towards her. I didn't like him because of how unhappy he made her. Her self-esteem had hit rock bottom & there was nothing I could do about it. I used to tell her that she should try to change things in her life to make herself more happy, but she did nothing. Even when she moved out of his place for the 2nd time into her own place & he trashed her new place, she still didnt see. I am happy to say that she has now got the arsehole completely out of her life & is with a new chap who treats her like a princess, which is exactly how she deserves to be treated. Sadly nothing anybody could say would make a blind bit of difference & it was all down to her. Having been thru a crappy relationship myself, there really is nothing anybody can do. You have to sit there & listen & sympahtise at the right moments & maybe even get to the point where you dont discuss the 'bad' person in the relationship. The thing you can usually be sure of though, is that one day, the person will wake up & say I will not be treated like this anymore. I don't know where you find the strength from, but you do & until that day, sadly you (or your friend) are on your (their) own.