games people play...

Jane: so how are things going with your ex and his girlfriend now?
J: oh it's crazy half the time things are fine and the other half she's threatening to kill herself. On Saturday night she went up to the hospital in the early hours but they just sent her home with some valium!
Jane: I suppose they thought that if she was lucid enough to take herself to hospital she wasn't really serious about killing herself.
J: yes I suppose so. Apparently she's always been like it - all her friends have stories of how she'll just suddenly go off to the bathroom and slash her wrists - never life-threateningly but very dramatic.
Jane: why on earth does he stay with her?
J: oh I think he really does love her. Besides he's always had 'damsel in distress syndrome' as I like to call it, he can't resist a woman who needs rescuing. I think it goes back to when he was a small child and his mother used to constantly go to him crying telling him all her problems with his father (who was very abusive) he wasn't more than about 5 or 6 and he used to have to comfort her and give her advice and basically parent her instead of the other way round.
Jane: gosh that's awful
J: I know. I think that was the problem with our relationship - I've never been into drama and conflict and I'm quite independant - in fact I've always found it hard to let anyone do anything to help me. When he left me for Lynsay it was because he was saving her from her abusive husband supposedly which was a joke really considering how abusive my ex was to me throughout our relationship... OH MY GOD!
Jane: What?
J: I've just realised something for the 1st time. He used to abuse me to make me a damsel in distress so he could then rescue me! And that's the way it always worked - he would shout and scream at me until I cracked and broke down in tears and then he would put his arms around me and say how sorry he was and that he loved me more than anything and that he would always be there for me. That went on for years and I never realised what he was doing...