Someone so ashamed of what that have done wouldn't just go out and repeat the pattern.
Not necessarily true. Shame in and of itself does not lead to only one coping behavior, even after calling the shame out. It can lead people to do many different things, like any emotion. However, if we are only focused on the WS's actions (which we should be), then does it matter whether or not they are feeling shame? What she is doing is hurtful. Period. That is all someone needs to know. Understanding her should not change our boundaries about what we will tolerate.
Hurt people hurt people. True. But when we have good, strong, protective boundaries about what we will accept, we can feel empathy for these "hurt people who hurt people" and STILL leave them. Because to stay is to diminish our own value. To stay means we are accepting abuse. To stay means we are signing up to keep being hurt. To stay is martyrdom. Instead we must take care of ourselves. "I know you have been through a lot, and I'm sorry for that, WS. But this relationship is not good for me. I need to move on." It is our duty and right to take care of our own selves and move away from people who, even after we've explained and given chances, continually hurt us. It is our duty and our right, and the other person does not need to agree. They usually don't! But so what? We must protect our own selves by removing ourselves from hurtful relationships.
From where I’m at now, I wonder why redemption is just not meant for my life story. I wanted it with my father, never happened and he’s dead. I’ve wanted it with my wife, invested years and countless tears, and it’s not to be.
I very much relate to this, InkHulk. You need to understand this as the abandonment wound that it is. You are drawing a straight line back to your childhood saying, "People have always hurt me, and I just want them to be sorry. To value me." You must, must, must (in my personal experience) heal this desire for validation from your father in childhood if you want to break the cycle of "over-forgiveness and weak boundaries" in your adult life. I spent many years in IC to heal these childhood feelings (mom is a narc who treated me as the scapegoat. She's still alive, but she has no plans to apologize or redeem herself in my eyes). When I learned to reach back in time and heal that little girl's voice that said, "I'm so unworthy. Nobody values me. Nobody fights for me" and give that little girl the love she needed so badly, I was then able to let bad relationships go in adulthood without trying to win people over or fix their poor treatment of me. I could simply let them go without believing their shitty behavior was because I was not enough. I became more important to me than my relationships.
They say that we try to recreate and fix our childhood hurts through adult relationships, and it seems you have noticed this in your own life. The work that you need to do is to heal the first injury--your dad. This will mean seeing him as a man who was incapable of doing better. It had nothing to do with you. And you will need to give that little boy you once were all the hugs and props and compliments and empathy that you were denied back then. It feels SO good to do this! I cried and cried and cried reflecting on my childhood, but they were good tears, healing tears. My former little girl self deserved all that praise and validation that my cold b@tch of a mother never once provided. I relished it, even though it came to me through me, through inner child work and EMDR. (There are exercises to do this. Those exercises are what felt so good.) Then and only then did I stop feeling my failed adult relationships were a reflection of my value. I could see them as they really were--poor choices of partners due to a desire to recreate that childhood dynamic. I could just let them go without feeling unloveable.
The healing of my inner child (it sounds so new agey that I almost hate saying it) allowed me to stop chasing people who treated me badly. I started to see that many friends and family loved how I loved them! They did not actually love (or ask about, care about, worry about, think about) me! That is a big difference, InkHulk. I began to see that I deserved better from people. All of my relationships changed when I healed my childhood self, not just the romantic ones.
I know you are seeing your WW clearly right now and want to get away from the R, but abandonment wounds cause us to weaken that resolve over time. Pretty soon we get anxious. "Don't leave me! Just fix yourself, but don't leave!" We feel so unloveable and alone, so we give too many chances. We feel too much empathy. We start to minimize their poor behavior. We come up with too many justifications for the disrespect we experience. Why do we do it? To heal this gaping wound in us that wants to be loved! If they leave, we are not loveable...again!!! So we keep trying to hang on. It is a pattern. I fear that if you do not work through your relationship with your father, you will keep backing off your boundaries with your WW, keep making excuses and offering additional chances. And your mental health will suffer badly as you continue to accept disrespectful and hurtful behavior from her. I see this a lot on SI, but you have already connected this to your childhood hurts. And you are right! So time to heal them.
invested years and countless tears
You must break this ^^^ pattern. For your own sanity.
Have you already read Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson? It's a road map to inner child work. I think you will see yourself. It is a really helpful book.
Wishing you all the best. You deserve it!