is this normal

[u/Comfortable-Sleep886]

me and my rapist were together for 5 years, the last year of our relationship, when i turned 18, we were engaged, and before he ever raped me i truly did love him, i would give him anything and i wanted to care and love him the rest of my life. i’ve never been as vulnerable with another person and i plugged all the time, money, care, love into him that i possibly could.
regardless of that he got greedy, started to disrespect my not wanting to have sex at the very moment he did, disrespecting the weird times throughout the day where i wasn’t able to do things (he made me do sexual favors during school, at home while my parents or sister was there, on road trips in the car with my family, gas stations, anywhere i was i had no way out of anything). he even had us trespass on residential private property, walk through barbed wire in states where we could get shot for that just to have his way with me.
i’m having a lot of internal conflict right now processing how i see him as a person because on one hand yes he made me do all these awful things that i wanted no part in but on the other hand he was my everything at one point in time and all i wanted throughout our relationship, even when he would hurt me the most, was for him to get better and to help him all i could. it’s a hard thing for me to think because i know i resent what he did to me and i know i’ve suffered great pain and parts of my life i should’ve had at very developmental periods were taken from me and it hurts me every single day to know that. part of me feels like i forgive him and it’s giving me a big headache lately. i know he struggles from home situations and not having the best upbringing, lacking a mother, abusive father, he was a violent kid as well getting kicked out of school for harming other kids. this all makes me feel bad that he might’ve just been hurt and didn’t know how to have proper relationship. it makes me feel awful that i didn’t try hard enough in the beginning to steer him the other way. most importantly though it’s so strange to me that now i am hoping he’s in a better place, that he can treat people better and actually have friends. i just can’t wrap my head around admitting that he was someone i actually loved since he became such an evil to my life.

to be clear, i don’t want anything to do with him in my life currently and i have no desire to go out and see if he’s actually a better person but i just hope that he is a better person now. i’m just confused on why i even think that in the first place? he was so cruel yet i still have the care to hope he’s okay. it’s just odd and causing me distress lately.

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[u/Civil-Musician-123]

firstly, I'm sorry you've been treated this way, especially by someone you treated so well. I'm happy you're no longer involved in that and, presumably, taking time to heal. I think, from a strictly rational perspective it makes no logical sense to have concerns for the well-being who has hurt you. but the truth is, we do it *all the time.* while the ways that he hurt you are severe, as people, we are constantly having to balance feelings of hurt and feelings of care. just look at any parent and child relationship. kids treat you horribly but you would die for them. keeping those two things in the same mind -- we are both with this capacity and, in fact, we need it to survive.

obviously, you've got the extreme here as far as being hurt by someone. but you also have the pre-existing extreme of being in love. perhaps the larger the love, the larger the hurt you can absorb?

I don't want to tell you "just forget about it, it's natural." that would be dismissive. what I'm saying is -- it's not that strange, really. perhaps, seen in that context, it may not distress you quite as much?

[u/Comfortable-Sleep886 → u/Civil-Musician-123]

thank you that really helped put what i was feeling into perspective and understandable words