Childhood trauma is normally the reason

People choose what they are familiar with, very likely he was also raised in such a highly critical environment so he associates that as love.

2nd guy is because he has lost his self-esteem. The new wife give him attention so that's all he wants and will sacrifice everything for. Its not right, but many men are like that when they're not confident with themselves and have no options.

Its easy to judge people when you're on the outside, even if we know all these things we could still fall victim to it ourselves; we're not perfect after all.

You're looking at it the wrong way

Its not so much that they become doormat, then become blind. They just don't know any better because they were never taught it in the first place. A person who has never experienced real love, does not know what real love looks like.

Lets try to see it another way. Look at people who smoke and drink alot of alcohol. If they grew up in a culture surrounded by people that such behaviour is normal, then they would also follow it. It would make them feel safe by engaging in such behaviours because its what they grew up around, its familiar. How you try to change their mind also won't work, normally have the opposite effect as they get more defensive when confronted. They somehow need to come to the realization themself. Your job as a friend is just to plant seeds and be around when they come to realization and need the support.


You are right above the environment and how to break out of it.

However need to point out that its not really a gene problem. Genes only give you a pre-disposition towards a certain area, its the environment that dictates what genes get expressed. In all of us, we have genes for different types of behaviours, good environment will bring out the good parts, bad environment will bring out the bad ones.