Laboring to Love an Abusive Mate

Although I didn't have any new visible scars after I left my abusive relationship back in 1996, I did have plenty of wounds on my heart and my mind that didn't start to heal until I recognized the truth about myself and the man I thought would one day be my husband. I realized that I had a history of connecting with wounded souls on an intimate level even when I really didn't like my dates that much from the start.  How and why did that happen?  It may have started back during my teens when I thought that appeasing a hurting man or woman by giving into their requests was the way to go based on the dysfunctional programming that I watched on and off the television screen.  I saw my relatives do just that when I was a child--give in.  Time and time again they would act like they didn't want to help a manipulator, player, pimp, or hustler, but their mouths would say, "Yes, but only this time."  Codependency was something I was all too familiar with since as a c