Sufferer Why - struggling with relationships

[willus]

Don't i have e friends? Relationships always fail. I can't find a girl that doesn't take advantage or abuse me. I have such a good heart, and its continually broken. I seem to attract the worst people. I throw everything i have into a relationship, just to get walked on and abused in some way. I live in the country, no groups to go to. Most online stuff is full of fakes pretending. I guess I'm just not made for this cruel world.

 

[Sideways]

Welcome to the forum. I think a lot of us have felt a lot like you’re describing at some point.

 

[PlainJane]

Welcome @willus

I can be hard for sure

 

[willus]

Welcome @willus

I can be hard for sure

Im not hard. I just expect love like i give. I'd move a mountain, storm a castle, I'd suffer to make the one I loved know I loved them. Im overly devoted i guess. I try to hard. Being so abused all throughout my childhood and beyond, makes me just want more from a person. My expectations are too high. Or, I havent found the right person. I can't pick the right one, and the wrong ones always pick me.

 

[PlainJane]

I can't relate to the romantic relationships really. I knew early on I was unhealthy and I didn't want to bring another person down or bleed on em. I wasn't abusive. There was so much. I couldn't trust enough to be vulnerable. I didn't want to risk having children and screw them up kind of thing. Endless amount of reasons not to be in a relationship. Yada yada. I do know the way I learned to interact with my abusers created unhealthy habits I needed to unlearn. Suffering for someone you love is not it. It's unhealthy. It's okay to compromise and make sacrifices, suffer? No. Are you currently in therapy? I am finally at a point where I feel like if I were to be with someone I can maintain my identity, keep boundaries and love unconditionally.

No amount of that will help if I am dating an asshole. However, I am also at a long enough distance from my abusive relationships that I can spot manipulative behavior and non starters, etc. I was trying to find a link to an older chat here, but it was a good one about relationships after abuse. There's a slew of good threads in the relationship forum if your interested. One member shared some stats regarding the success of a relationship, or less likely to engage with another abuser, being directly correlated to the amount of time being intentionally single. I don't remember the exact timing, but I think spending at least five years single allowed the highest probability of entering into a healthy relationship after.

 

[Muttly]

Hi and welcome to the group. This is a good place.

I decided long, long ago that I would never be in a relationship. In face I was pretty sure good ones didn't exist. That people were just so desparate to be with someone that they would put up with the bad that came with relationships. I figured if it did exist it was exceedingly rare and not what most people had.

And then, after a bunch of therapy, I found someone online. I wasn't looking. We just happened to be on the same group and it worked. We've been living together for 3.5 years now. Just this week, my therapist (a new one because I recently moved) asked me how I managed to have a healthy relationship given everything I'd been through.

It can happen. It takes a lot of breaking of old patterns and, for me, learning to recognize the signs of abusers and toxic people. Not just recognize the signs but actually pay attention to the signs.