"Can you try dating me?"
"Okay!"
"Why?"
"Because, before every girl meets her Mr. Right, she must have a few bastard ex-boyfriends!"
Many years later, I learned that before every girl meets her bastard emperor, she will meet an ex-boyfriend who treats her as her life, or in other words, loves her as her life. She didn't stay with her ex-boyfriend, not because she couldn't love him, but because she couldn't escape another person. So all she can do is to hurt him less and be stronger for him in the future.