Not being able to empathize with someone's trauma that led to them hurting you is a special kind of hell
I'm thinking of my ex, who has BPD caused by a family life that is far worse than anything I've ever dealt with.
She knows she hurt me. She's tearfully told me she knows I deserved better. But she can't fix herself.
I never had to cut off a parent in order to heal, and that's what she would have had to do in order to not hurt me. It's a situation with devastating complexity. She is 100 percent responsible for her actions and I cannot be blamed for expecting to be treated a certain way. At the same time, I have never had to take accountability by doing anything nearly as hard as she would have to do.
Now she's with another guy who's family is as fucked up as hers. It's nice to be mature enough to not see this as a reflection of my self worth. I get it.
But I still don't feel she deserves happiness. It's just too easy. No inner work or accountability. Just some eureka moment that she never has to let her narcissist mom down as long as she has company in hell. It's like a heroin addict choosing a junkie over the man who wants to build a satisfying life with her purely because the junkie "accepts her as she is"... But not before wasting our years thinking she had finally found what she wanted.
Just sucks.