Being alone is painful, but it’s pain you can get used to, like a chronic ache in the back, the stomach, in the hands. You have your dignity to brace yourself with, although it may not go numb until you get too old. It is the pain of not quite being a walking corpse. Even the coward who cringes inside his paroxysm of fright is more alive.
People must hurt each other, as inevitably as they breathe. Nothing can stop it. It’s not enough to accept it. Accepting it is not enough, like sighing resignedly and putting on an attitude of long-suffering. Don’t get to be too good at protecting yourself. You’ve got to be ripped to pieces for the one you love, again and again. That doesn’t prove anything but love, and its entitlements are a frailty that can’t be held. But you will live even in that hell. The fire that hurts you gives off light like any other fire, that illuminates beautiful things, and that is beautiful itself.
Far below, a new light, spreading in all directions. I see the deep sun. Sinking toward it, I begin to feel its warmth.
-Michael Cisco, The Great Lover
I don't think Cisco is trying to advocate putting up with physical abuse, rather I think he's saying love not only can be but will be torturous emotionally...