Often it can take a long time coming out of a bad relationship to be able to look back and see the lessons learned.

With my ex husband I avoided thinking about it and him for years. Then I realised the experience has made me a stronger person, more aware of who I am and more reluctant to fall into the same trap again.

It's not necessarily looking for gold in BS, it's learning to cope with the BS and making sure you don't land face down in it the second time!

I liked your answer ... both cheated on me but they where still different in their manner and not the same at all ... and they both abused me ... one reason I have to start with trusting again... but their abuse where on different levels ... and I remember those... so to me men can be different in the way one may romance you and the other just does not say I love you ...far and few between ... so that leads me to believe men are different ... in their ways of falling in love with you and having a relationship ... and when you start to feel your living two separate lives you wont to really think about your relationship more and them not supporting you mentally ... when one is growing and the other is not just staying the same ... so with in all that I agree with you trying to find the gold in your x relationships is hard ... we do all have different circumstances and many go through different **** in them ... but I have also found its better not to talk about them becouse at this point I do not want to feel stuck ... I want to move on ... from them ... and try an trust again ...

My Exs'? They "taught"[taught= too, kind a word to use]-helped make me aware of just how much more "Inner-Self-Work & Learning" still needed to be done due to the deep-seated psychological & emotional adaptations that are demanded of children born into severely toxic, abusive, & dysfunctional "family" unit. Ah, the lottery of birth!
Pretty miffed [mostly at myself] about these " Life Lessons by Exs'"because after literally decades of therapy; I'd hoped to be completely aware of & over the, by now[tedious] psycho-trauma of those formitive years! Enough already; give the cops a rest! *grins*

Thank you for your reply! That's exactly the kind of thing I was asking about and I'm glad at least someone understands.
Don't mean that as a judgement on others, not at all, but I was kind of beginning to feel like "Why doesn't anyone get what I mean? I don't speak Chinese do I?"
I'm still a bit taken aback about it to be honest.
Another lesson for me to not ask this kind of questions here anymore. Wrong audience...

I like this very much Ms. Crystal^^^

My ex was and is still the best that ever happened in my life,
but my ex was and is still is my biggest failure:)

It taught me that no matter how hard you try
& give your best, if in the end, it will hurt the
one u love most, then I have to walk away.

Gosh what a difficult question....

It forces one to take a deep look at oneself as well as look at your partner

MMmmmmm it seems that for the people who were in abusive relationships, its a cut and dried question and the lessons learned are straight forward and life changing. Especially in toxic relationships!

It saddens me somewhat to read how some partners can be abusive, this is because my own parents relationship was never abusive, I never saw my father even lift so much as a finger against my mom.

And I guess to a greater degree, we all become copies of our parents in one way or another?

And in a lot of relationships, people's priorities or personalities change. Like one of the members kind of said above, sometimes jumping into a relationship without pre-nuptial type of agreements or understandings that help establish rules and responsibilities so the weight of the relationship doesn't fall unfairly on one persons shoulders.

After all if you love someone, you do things for the person because you love the person, not because its your duty or the right thing?

For myself, I have learned that social climbing and the advice of friends is more important than the person who loves you! And even bending over backwards to accommodate your partner's wishes doesn't necessarily make them happy, mostly this because they are simply looking for excuses to stick the boot in or to the stick the knife in?

Maybe later, after all is done and after you split up, the other person will realise how badly they screwed up. And although this gives some form of satisfaction (to know that it wasn't YOUR fault - and you tried everything you could to save it (because you genuinely loved them)), it doesn't make the pain or hurt of splitting up any less.

Good luck to everyone, and lets hope we all take the lessons learned on board, and that we don't make the same mistakes again.



PS.
I believe that the hardest part of loving someone is letting them go when the relationship is growing negatively

Love doesn't mean feeling like you can't live without someone. It's not infatuation. It means caring deeply about someone.

I've been infatuated with several women in my life. That wasn't love. I didn't have that feeling much for my girlfriend this past year. But I care for her deeply and I feel that's true love. It seems that she was only infatuated with me though, although she says she loves me, but doesn't want to be with me, at least not yet.

I learned that some folks just need killin'..

Even if it's illegal to do so.

I also learned that no one can make a whore into a housewife.