Confused about omitting the relative pronoun and preposition

Question

I sat there, lost and cold because I was betrayed by the person I didn’t expect to hurt me.

I think the actual sentence is:

I sat there, lost and cold because I was betrayed by the person whom I didn’t expect to hurt me from.

So we see that the relative pronoun whom and the preposition from are ommited here.

How can we recognize this type of sentences? Is there any rule to omit the relative pronoun and the preposition in such a way? I know about ommiting the relative pronouns. When the relative pronoun refers to the object of the verb then it can be done. But above that one has confused me.

Answer 1

I sat there, lost and cold because I was betrayed by the person I didn’t expect to hurt me.

is a perfectly fine sentence. It is technically an elision of

I sat there, lost and cold because I was betrayed by the person whom I didn’t expect to hurt me.

but almost no one would use that form. More common would be to substitute "who" for "whom". This is technically incorrect, but the usage is comm enough that I expect it will be listed as proper, and "whom" as obsolete, in another generation.

In neither case can "from" be used at the end of the sentence nor is it needed. It could be recast as:

• I sat there, lost and cold because I was betrayed by the person from whom I expected only kindness.
• I sat there, lost and cold because I was betrayed by the person from whom I expected no hurt.

but I am not sure that either is an improvement.

As the comment by BillJ said, the relative pronoun can be omitted when it is not the object of the relative clause. Here 'me" is the object of the clause.