When you leave a relationship. you loose its security, which is a valuable asset, no matter how damaging and destructive that relationship may have been.
You feel lonely, miserable, isolated, unloved and unloveable, and the future stretches out as a blank and miserable place with no sign of any positive changes.
How to avoid that isoliation? Simple - go back to the relationship you just left. A break will have given you a flawed perspective - that it wasn't really that bad, you had some good times, he may well change, you can talk to him and make it work.
Add to that the highly desireable 'better a bad partner than no partner' feeling, and it's soul-mate 'better the devil you know ...' and in no time you have pursuaded yourself that it's worth another go.
So you return with a heady feeling of optimism blitzing all those negative dounts and ...
you start to itch, and scratch, a claw open the wounds that hurt you enough to leave in the first place, and you realise it was a silly thing to think he would be different this time, so you split and ...
when you leave a relationship ...
So you are far from alone in rolling around this supremely vicious circle, but it needs to be broken if you are going to seriously move on.
You need a lot of self-belief and discipline to convice yourseld that you are worth more than this, and more than this is out there, and you will find it, and it will find you if you hang on.
Those two magic words will get you through this period, especially if you back them up with healthy doses of distraction - occupy yourself through your waking hours, and when you are waiting for sleep, be strong through the lonliness, and wretched feelings, and get past them without the easy, but fatal option of going back.
It takes time, and strength, but it will stop you hurting yourself over and over again. You are