The Bored Pussycat answers "why do I stay with him when he makes me unhappy?"

Darling, I think you keep ordering your proverbial sandwich because....

You say you don't come first for him / that things are a transaction, but this isn't true. the things you are exchanging - sex, attention, the hosting of another's foibles, are relationship exchanges. It feels like a transaction and a cost to you because you don't love him and you don't believe you ever did. You "blame" him for not prioritising you (even though his "demands for attention" are the reality of unrequited commitment - distorted and unnatural behaviour) because this takes the responsibility out of your hands and makes it his. This has always been the problem. You explained before about relationships you have had in the past - and these were often ones you couldn't control or win, where, in fact, you were in T______'s position. I know that you would love T_______ to leave you and free you, but you have the power whether you want it or not. The part of you that hates T_______ for being "dog-like" in his loyalty to you is misguided. When you love a person, truly, you are prepared to accept and even rationalise (to a degree) their behaviour towards you. Your palpable loathing is invisible to T_______, because the logical thing for you to do would be to leave him. As you haven't, he can only rationalise your behaviour as an unfortunate trait, that he can accept, because he loves you. Because it is exhausting being angry all the time, because you know each other so well and because you love the love that is being reflected back to you despite your lack of reciprocity (which ironically, isn't true from T_____'s perspective, because outwardly you are reciprocating!) you are fascinated, like Narcissus.

I used to feel quite sorry for T_______, because I knew you didn't love him. But in reality love doesn't matter. The love we experience is experienced from our perspective. T______ is experiencing the pleasure of his own love (for you) and his love is dealing with any problems (that he can safely attribute to personality because you have never left). You aren't experiencing any of the love because you don't have any. So now I feel sorry for you. You are in a bubble of non-love, which we experience as self-dislike not dislike of the other, and the closest you can get to any O_______-love is via T_____, because he is the one experiencing it. O______, T______ will never leave you. And if he ever did (taking his love with him, that he would put in a glass jar on a shelf and gaze at wistfully for ever) you would be beyond devestated because O______ would be in a glass jar somewhere - it would be too late.

It is strange how we can be so strong in certain directions and struggle in others. I know you don't want to leave (or you would have made the break a year ago) but this will destroy you. It has already consumed a huge swathe of your life. Everything, and i mean everything, social life, this and that, will be disrupted, fractured, yes. But then new things will form. But you have to be bold and final. I also know that the idea of this seems overwhelming because you are so tired, but O_______ you have been emotionally torturing yourself for a year, that is obviously draining, you have got to pull yourself together, and take action, or one day you just won't want to get out of bed. You don't want to be "nursed" back to humour by T_______- which is what keeps happening and why you are in more of a muddle than necessary.