"But...You Would Never Hurt Me!"...Oh really?

"She's standing in the heart of darkness

Saying I know you got a soul even though you're heartless

How could any woman in her right mind be so blind 

To find something this safe...

Cause if you're looking for heaven, baby, it sure as hell ain't me!"

                - Walk Away (The Script)

My family and I just finished watching How To Train Your Dragon 2, and the crucial moment in the film comes when Hiccup, the main character, looks his dragon friend, Toothless, (who is under the control of an evil alpha dragon..which, by the way, do those even exist??) in the eye and says what I'm gonna call the five magic words of the naive:

"You would never hurt me!" 

That phrase has the power to snap Toothless out of his trance and bring him back to the light, as it were. 

And....That phrase is one of the biggest lies being fed to young people (especially women) in relation to relationships. 

I've found that phrase, or a variation of it, countless times in romance novels, songs, quotes, etc as the standard formula of the "good girl who falls in love with a bad boy". After all, it doesn't matter how many hearts he's broken in the past, he would never hurt her! She's going to be the one whose love has the power to break the darkness within his soul! Right? 

WRONG!

It's the classic "Bella-Edward complex", where even though he's a bloodthirsty monster by nature, lives off human blood, and even admits to lusting after her blood, he supposedly would "never hurt her" because he "loves" her!

There was a time in my life when  I too was young, naive, innocent, and firmly believed in the power of that phrase with all my heart. My ideal guy had a dark past, darkness in his soul, believed himself a monster, had done things he was ashamed of, and I was completely sure that he would be brought back to the light through my love. 

No more. 

I've learned the hard way that some people are just fundamentally flawed. Some people are broken beyond the power of human love. And sometimes no matter how much you love someone, sometimes you can't save them. The heart of darkness can't always be fixed. Sometimes they won't let your love heal the broken places within them, and they choose the darkness over light. Monsters aren't always redeemable. And the more you hurt yourself trying to fix someone else, the less capable of helping others you become. 

I've channeled all my love, sympathy, empathy, caring, patience, heart and soul into a broken person before under the misconception that somehow I could be the one to change the heart of stone. I've said more times than I can count "You would never hurt me!", ignoring everything that common sense, my friends, my parents, and even he himself had told me, firmly believing that somehow my love had the power to save him. But in the end, I was the one left bleeding and broken, and instead of alleviating his darkness, I merely absorbed it. And in an attempt to heal him, I only hurt myself more when the relationship fell apart in the end.  

Now don't get me wrong. I firmly believe that  no one is beyond the power of God's love. HOWEVER, some people are beyond the power of human love. 

And I'm only human. I'm no angel. I can't save anyone. I can only love them. 

But to believe that the power of human love, especially that of a woman for the man she loves, can somehow redeem him and bring him back from the power of darkness is naive at best, and downright deliberately misleading at worst. 

As the song goes, "Save yourself from the heartache/Go now before it's too late". 

Walk away, darling. Before you find yourself head over heels in heartbreak because, when all's said and done, you cannot save someone who doesn't want to be saved. You can only love them. And pray to God that it's enough.

It has to be enough. 

*Note: This IS a rant, written in the heat of the moment, and does not necessarily reflect all my views on the subject ;)