If you face your issues, you can get better, right?

[Kamille]

I don't know' date=' I don't know, I don't know! This sounds craptastic to say on an anonymous board, but I know I am in many ways the "it" girl - or whatever the current term for it is. I have a ton of great qualities - I'm grounded, smart, self-sufficient, have lots of hobbies, can talk to nearly anybody, pets and children love me, I'm great in bed (as I found out, this most recent ex being the first guy I've slept with), I'm attractive, and in nearly every other arena in my life I am self-confident. I think I feel so thrown off to have never had a boyfriend who really loves me. It makes me think - seriously, what IS wrong with me that I can't attract a keeper? My sisters did, many of my friends have (great guys, to boot)...but me? Something has to be wrong with ME. I must not be good enough in some fashion...or else I am scaring everyone away because I'm "too" [smart, accomplished, fill in the word'] and I intimidate men. I'm scared of intimidating them, actually - I've had a number of men back away when they find out where I went to school or what I'm doing now. Good riddance to them, right? Except it makes me think there aren't any guys out there who really want an equal, and maybe that's part of what drives me to make bad choices in men? Anybody who doesn't seem intimidated by me seems to make the cut, even if they have some other fatal flaw (being unable/unwilling to commit is my favorite one to pick).

 

I think you and I happen to be in the same boat, except that my ex ex was a fantastic man who treated me as an equal. (Well. most of the time). And perhaps that's the one thing I am most thankful for in that R: at least I know it's possible.

 

But the point is: you make the choice of who you invite into your life. It may sound crippling but it's actually empowering. The choice I make is that I would rather be single and balanced then in a relationship and treated poorly. I am still learning to make that choice every day, but since I've decided I would only let in someone who adds to my life, I am finding that I have more confidence, am more relaxed around men, which in turn makes me more approachable.

[sunshinegirl]

I think you and I happen to be in the same boat, except that my ex ex was a fantastic man who treated me as an equal. (Well. most of the time). And perhaps that's the one thing I am most thankful for in that R: at least I know it's possible.

 

But the point is: you make the choice of who you invite into your life. It may sound crippling but it's actually empowering. The choice I make is that I would rather be single and balanced then in a relationship and treated poorly. I am still learning to make that choice every day, but since I've decided I would only let in someone who adds to my life, I am finding that I have more confidence, am more relaxed around men, which in turn makes me more approachable.

 

This is where I get all messed up - because I have often said I'd rather be single than be in a crap relationship. I *thought* my ex was great, was treating me well, respected me, treated me as an equal (was supportive with career stuff). What I wasn't paying attention to was his emotional investment in us, his emotional and communication investment and capabilities. I took on nearly all the responsibility and work for the relationship - and it completely backfired on me. I *did* think the ex added to my life; I was really comfortable around men and was dating around a lot when he came into my life. I *had* that confidence you talk about - I literally had 6, 7, 8 men on the 'docket'. But I went and picked a guy who couldn't be there for me. There was something seductive, subconsciously, about his introversion, his quietness.

[sunshinegirl]

I had a counseling session today. What was special/different about it? My dad came with me.

 

My counselor was interested in hearing my dad's history and perspective on our family and his and my relationship. Among other things, I learned that two of his uncles committed suicide (I never knew this!), one of his aunts and another uncle never married, and that when he was 12, his father said to him: "well, you're 12 now. Your life is your own, you get to make decisions for yourself...and you can screw your life up however you want."

 

Then I learned that my dad was barely at home when I was 2-3 years old (isn't this a big parent bonding time for kids??) due to long work hours, and that during my junior high years he was also very absent (out of town a lot for work). I had forgotten that his travel years coincided with the years that my sisters left for college and I was floundering in middle school. On top of all of that, I had four good friends move away before I was 12.

 

So basically it turns out I have had a lot of 'abandonments' in my younger years, and have felt disconnected for my dad for some very concrete reasons. And voila, I am now recreating those same kind of distant relationships with men.

 

Okay, good realizations, right? But now what?

[soulseeker]

Hey SSG. I am in a similar situation as you. I am exhausted by it.

 

With a friend's recommendation, I downloaded podcasts by Gary Van Warmerdam. He is an apprentice of Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements). Immediately, his common sense logical approach to relationships, happiness, etc, just clicked with me. Granted, I have been repeating hurtful scripts in my mind for 30 years, so it's not going to change over night, but I swear, he just makes sense. He explains what he is talking about all of the way through. It's refreshing.

 

May want to check it out. By the way, I am in counseling also, but these podcasts are a great compliment to that for me. Let me know what you think if you check it out.

 

Good luck to you.

[sunshinegirl]

I feel exhausted all. the. time.

 

If I'm not spiraling into self-blame and flagellation over my ex, I am drowning in worry that I'll never get better, that I have a herculean task ahead of me to straighten out my relationship with my dad and therefore my relationships with men. And then I become deeply fearful of never finding a guy who is all that my ex was and more - all the stuff he wasn't: emotionally connected, able to communicate, compassionate, interested in the world and not just his little yuppie slice of it.

 

I can't seem to take bite-sized chunks at a time - it all hits me like a crushing wave, and I wind up being furious that my ex is off galavanting with the office hooch while I am here, up to my armpits in this.

[sunshinegirl]

The first several posts in this thread were lost in the catastrophe of Apr 8 - May 26. To clarify, then, while this thread appears to have been started by kamille, it's actually my thread.

 

The gist of my situation is that, in the wake of a breakup that happened in the beginning of May, I realized that I have a lot of issues to work on in therapy - family of origin issues that have affected how I choose romantic partners: basically, I choose unavailable men with narcissistic tendencies.

 

In the first several weeks of my counseling appointments, it seemed that the major issue was my relationship with my dad: he's a bit buttoned up, emotionally aloof, and was absent (working out of town) at several key moments of my childhood (when I was about 2, and again when I was in junior high). So my dad and I have been working on our relationship, which has been great.

 

But we've been struggling to figure out the narcissism angle. My dad is the farthest thing from a narcissist. Yesterday I think a few things came together to create an "a-ha" moment. It seems that I am also trying to heal/replay the relationship with my mom, who has narcissistic tendencies of her own.

 

At first I would never have painted my mom as a narcissist, but over time I have come to see that her very rigid black-and-white evangelical beliefs and her insistence that I believe the same things as her created a very narcissistic relationship between us. I spent many years adhering to a faith tradition that I was no longer very enthusiastic about, largely so that I wouldn't disappoint my mom. I'm the youngest and my mom saw me as her spiritual progeny, more so than my sisters. It felt like a very big burden was placed on my shoulders, and not theirs, to heal some of my mom's own wounds (she regrets marrying my dad b/c he's not a Christian and I think she thought that if her kids grow up to be good Christians she will be forgiven for her sin). Over the years, then, I got very good at self-deprivation, at not voicing my own needs, at sublimating my own opinions to those of my mom. I didn't want to let her down.

 

And so, what do you know, I have consistently found ways to set up the same pattern in my romantic relationships: I find self-centered men for whom I make extraordinary self-depriving choices just to be able to stay with them and "win" their love and approval. With my first boyfriend, despite being rather anti-Catholic I considered converting to Catholicism to meet his needs. With my current ex, I gave up my needs for communication and emotional connectivity to meet his needs for...non-communication and no intimacy.

 

So in many ways my now-ended relationship with this ex was yet another play on the same family-of-origin pattern: trying to get close to an emotionally aloof, narcissistic man who gave me, basically, crumbs in return. A combo of my damaged relationships with each of my parents.

 

In one way this is a really big revelation simply because it puts my relationship with my current ex, "E", in a broader context, thus making him a bit smaller. And I need to make him smaller. I am still mourning his loss (even though he not only dumped me, but lied to me and cheated on me!).

 

In another way my counselor thinks I am already healing some of my parental relationships. I have finally 'stood up' to my mom and let her know that I no longer share her religious convictions. And she knows that I had sex with my ex - which is probably the most cardinal of all sins I could ever have committed. And in the aftermath of having stood up for myself, I have realized that (a) my mother has survived it and (b) I survived it too.

 

So - this is a long-winded update, but one I wanted to put out there. I am still processing things and have more work to do. But I hope I am in fact facing my issues and getting better. I know I don't want any more relationships with men like the ones I've had up until this point.