It is over, or nearly, and the person you are angriest with is you. You go back through the years counting what they cost. You are embarrassed in front of the friends who saw it first. In private you ask what is wrong with you. I put up with too much, for too long.
That is a more useful thing to find out than a verdict on yourself.
01
What you are doing with it now
Start with the blame, since that is where you are.
The words you are using are weak, in denial, afraid to be alone. Those are verdicts, and a verdict gives you nothing to do except feel bad. Two plainer things are usually true first.
Parts of it were good, and you loved them. That is a common reason people stay, and it is not a flaw.
And "you saw it early" is clearer now than it was then. At the time it was one bad week among good ones. Hindsight has tidied it into a warning you ignored. And leaving is rarely one clean act: I left more than once and kept going back.
After those, there is one more possibility worth checking: that staying was protecting something. If a rule helped keep you there, it may come with you. You can't outrun a pattern by changing partners. Everywhere you go, there you are. That is the reason to look, and it is a better reason than blame.
02
What the staying may have been protecting
A layer down from the blame is what staying may have done for you. Three candidates here. Other rules can keep someone in place too, and this page does not reach them.
"If everyone is okay, then I'm okay."
You may have been unable to be the cause of that much hurt. Under Peace the ending often comes only at the far end, when you are completely finished, or when they do something that finally makes it allowable.
Read about Peace →"I need to be chosen."
You may have stayed to be picked. They may have been only half there, and the missing half may have kept you working. I keep asking why I stayed. Honestly, somebody was finally paying attention to me. With Chosen the best days may have been the ones just after they turned back toward you.
Read about Chosen →"Asking creates a debt I don't want to carry."
I do everything on my own. Not because I like it that way. Leaving may have meant needing things. A spare room. Money. A friend's help with the move. With Burden what stopped you may have been what you would have had to ask for.
Read about Burden →03
What is under the rule
At the bottom is a fear, and it is a long way from weakness.
Under Peace, it may be that someone's disappointment means you did something wrong. Under Chosen, that if you are not selected, you were not enough to select, so leaving would have been conceding it. Under Burden, that your needs make you too much, and too much gets left.
Someone staying to avoid one of those is not weak. They are doing something difficult for a reason they couldn't see.
04
Two questions, in order
Would you rather have no conflict and be nobody's favorite, or be someone's favorite and have friction?
Set it in that relationship. A calm life with someone who was never quite turned toward you. Or the intensity of being wanted, with the fights that came with it. Wanting the calm is the Peace answer. Wanting to be wanted is the Chosen answer. Burden isn't sorted by this question. A second one reaches it. Protecting them, or protecting yourself? If you stayed so that they would not be upset, that is the Peace answer. If you stayed to protect yourself, that can be Burden, or it can be Strong, a rule this page does not cover. If neither is clearly yours, that counts as a result. Not enough to tell is allowed, and none of the three may fit.
There are also reasons that are not rules. Money, children, a lease, a visa, your health. Those are constraints, and counting them as a flaw in you is inaccurate. If what you stayed in was unsafe, the reasons people stay are different, and none of this page applies.The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. If tonight is an emergency, call or text 988 (US). This library is not that door.
This is subtraction in miniature. You are not hunting for the explanation that sounds best. You are removing the ones that don't hold.
05
One thing to try this week
Take three moments when you nearly left and didn't. For each, write what stopped you in that minute. Not the reason you gave afterward. The thing in the minute.
It may be their face. It may be a hope that they were about to change. It may be the thought of who you would have to ask for help. It may be something else entirely, such as a good memory, or the rent.
Look for what repeats. Three moments won't settle it. They are still more accurate than the verdict you have been using.
How the same thing can show up in the next relationship is covered in Why do I keep repeating the same relationship patterns?