Abuse vs. Loneliness

Let's say you had a great friend.  A friend so great that, no matter what happened between the two of you, you could never honestly tell this person to fuck off, not if you had a cool head.  In other words, no matter what kind of shit you told each other, there would be a bedrock of something much thicker than the verbiage flung.  And that bedrock would be evident each time you'd go crawling back to each other, NOT, with your tail between your legs, but because your relationship is noticeably solid, as in: you get each other.  Fundamentally.  When you're together, you are not alone.  You are sensitive to one another's proclivities.  You feel understood and respected, most of the time. You love this person as intimately as you are allowed to love someone else (this is not sexual and not romantic).

It just happens that every year or two, this relationship skids out of control, and comments are strewn about that are not very nice.  They're mean.  They're mean comments and they are manipulative and extremely crafty.  So crafty that you have to digest their full craftiness, their full impact, over many days, before you even understand how goddman crafty they are.  All of the goodness that was typically propelled into humor and insight and connection was used, in these comments, to hurt.  To maim.  To show pain experienced.  To twist the knife in and force you to speak, goddamnit, speak, and say how enjoyable the pain is.  To be convoluted and to become a mockery.

And yet.  The relationship is real.  The bedrock remains.

What do you do when you know that both sides exist, and both exist clearly, without ambiguity or hope that that one may cease.  Do you chose relative loneliness or do you chose to go back into potential hits of abuse (mental, not physical)?  I'm not helpless.  I'm asking a question.

And let's face it that for some of us (like me), life is incredibly lonely to start, and there are only a handful of people who I've ever even connected with in the first place.

What's the right move?